LCS School Board Meeting: October 1, 2019

001[Music] mm I knew board meeting is called to order please stand for the Pledge of Allegiance the first item of business is the approval for tonight's agenda is her motion to approve the agenda miss Carter is there a second dr. nihlus any discussion all in favor the next order of business is to amend the agenda that we just approved so we have to add to the consent item F to the personnel report section K add school board retreat agenda and schedule and section o notice of closed meeting and certification of closed meetings so we're going to have a closed meeting at the beginning of the meeting and then we're going to have one at the end any discussion motion amend the agenda is dated thank you is there a second mr. Harvey all in favor

002any opposition thank you next order of business is that we need a notice of closed meeting the school board needs to convene a closed meeting to discuss the following as permitted by Virginia Code section 2.2 - 3 7 1 111 for consultation with legal counsel about the pending case of travel Massey at an electric city school board because consultation and an open meeting would adversely affect the negotiating or litigating posture of the school board number two as permitted by Virginia Code section 2 2-3 seven-11 a 7 for consultation with legal counsel about the pending case of Towada hancock versus Lynchburg city schools and Terk city school board because consultation in an open meeting would adversely affect the negotiating or litigating posture of the school board and number three as per minute by virginia code 2.2

003- 3 7 1 1 a 7 4 consultation with legal counsel about the pending case of john mcclain versus Lynchburg City Schools in Lynchburg city school board because consultation in an open meeting would adversely affect the negotiating or litigating posture of the school board the school board chair recommends that the school board approval motion to convene a closed meeting to discuss the following as permitted by the Virginia Code 2.2 - 3 7 1 1 a 7 consultation with legal counsel is there a motion thank you dr. Norris miss Carter any discussion all in favor we are now going to convene in closed session in room 206 [Music] you [Music] closed meeting at like a motion to reconvene in our public meeting thank you Dr Brennan miss Carter a second any discussion all in favor aye

004any opposed certification of closed meeting the board chair moves that the Lynchburg school board certify that in closed meeting just concluded nothing was discussed except the matter or matters specifically identified in the motion to convene in a closed meeting and to lawfully permit it to be so discussed under the provisions of the Virginia Freedom of Information Act sited in that motion is there a motion to certify thank you dr. Millis is there a second miss Carter thank you we take vote by roll call miss Evans dr. Brennan miss Carter dr. Coleman yes yes dr. Millis mr. Harvey all right that takes care of that the next order of business is a special presentation in recognition of some of our guests in the audience and we're very happy to see you all here tonight dr. Edwards

005one that was lots splashing we're extremely proud of Paul Monroe elementary school if you have not heard is a national all capital letters national Blue Ribbon School which is a huge accomplishment because of what only over 300 schools in the whole entire country and we are one of them so we are extremely proud of them being recognized by this honor and this is all due to their hard work the staff the administration the students the family in the community that pitches in over there helping with the growth and development and closing achievement gaps and just having some outstanding and stellar performance at that school but it's more than just the academic performance because if that were the only thing they probably wouldn't be a Blue Ribbon School but there really is a a family a

006sense of community and a sense of we aren't given up there at Paul Monroe school so we were at Paul Monroe when was that mine too what was it Thursday and much too a superintendent shocked her principal was on the roof celebrating and when she said I'm getting on the roof and celebrating I thought okay yeah great she really meant she was getting on a roof and celebrating and if you were not there I think the best moment for me was all of the students for those of you who were there they were enjoying it they were celebrating they were proud there was so much Paula merral spirit there that I mean it was just oozing all over the place so even though it was hot but we were happy to be there and enjoy

007that time but we also wanted to recognize you here so we're going to invite miss bear and everybody from Paul Monroe to come up and tell us who you have with you thank you so much for having us tonight I did bring my wonderful wonderful team I've said this before it takes a whole team to have a Blue Ribbon School hard-working students teachers that are dedicated parents that are involved and a community that supports and embraces our students here with me tonight I have Miss Elizabeth wrinkled Stephanie guilt maker Lee Tucker Dana Owen Melinda Lich Burt do your Callahan Carrie Frankfort Rebecca hunter Carrie Doremus Tish Lowry and Elizabeth cook Oh recognition for you that we are going to bring down [Laughter] we are called Monroe elementary school 2019 national we get you come up

008and stand in front of the board and let's get a picture [Laughter] [Applause] one two three blue well let me take a few more can you - scoot down [Applause] two representatives from Pullman row are invited to Washington DC for the November recognition ceremony well they will be presented with a national Blue Ribbon School plaque and flag a symbol of the school's achievements it's a big deal okay that now moves us to the public comment part of our meeting in accordance with policy B DDH public participation the school board welcomes requests and comments as established and the guidelines within that policy individuals who wish to speak before the school board shall have an opportunity to do so at this time and we have a full schedule tonight persons appearing before the school board will not

009be 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 engaged in behavior that disrupts the meetings or intimidates others or address the school board on issues that do not concern the services policies roles in our responsibilities of the school board individual speakers shall limit their comments to three minutes a speaker representing a 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 at school board meetings is thirty thirty minutes public comments are reserved for the public to

010provide input but the board does not respond to comments answer questions or otherwise engaged in discussions at this time miss Chandler mr. Chandler sorry excuse me as many times as I've seen you I should have done that right man good evening my name is reason Chandler and as you know I am a father of an LCS student with a disability in response to LC s's don't sleep on school campaign I have some concerns that go beyond the PR campaign to promote school attendance while I understand that attending attendance is important I also understand that there are many reasons students don't always get to go or get to school unstable home environment lack of food sleep clean clothes unn unn address bullying for some students with disabilities regardless regardless attendance at school is an impossibility the

011don't sleep on tagline trivializes the real need of our students and put further shame on students that ours are steadily struggling another every success every student success act schools are directed to address attendance issues in a non-punitive way yet how many of our kids are referred to truancy without meaningful conversation and support tried first how many of our kids with disabilities have appropriate attendance acknowledgement in the IEP in their IEP s and/or 504 plans what community support is LCS partnering with to address the the underlying issues that keep a child from attending school don't sleep on got my attention but not for the reason you had hoped students that struggle with attendance need real personalized support to access their educators their education I encourage LCS not to sleep on and invest real meaningful resources on

012this issue thank you [Applause] I think it's mr. Davis Edward Davis well I'm surprised but in a way I'd like to encourage all the students to stay in school be the best you can go to cars learn a trade because that the wire they're gonna have machines doing everything Thank You Tyler Milton Jesse win-win and if I missed it please correct hello as it stands in the Lynchburg City Schools LGBTQ students are at risk of being verbally discriminated against with no retribution from the school system I'm here on behalf of Virginia organizing to request for two groups of vulnerable children and teens to be protected under the non-discrimination policy for students in Lynchburg City Schools the current protected identities include race color national origin sex disability and age we see in here today asking that

013you extend the protected identities to include sexual orientation and gender identity queer pansy flamer these are all slurs that I heard throughout my childhood meant to demean and degrade anyone associated with the LGBTQ community I was raised within a crisp a conservative Christian culture in a small town not unlike Lynchburg the overall attitude towards queer folks ranged from ignorant to hostile and LGBTQ issues were met with silence and disgust I'm a gay man and yet with such a damaging narrative surrounding the queer community it was to my advantage to remain closeted throughout my childhood this align the religious claim that my sexuality was something to be ashamed of I was able to avoid being targeted for my gayness only because I say it's silent about it but I know that some children aren't so lucky

014for this reason I stand here today regardless of your personal beliefs no child should be the target of bullying or ridicule for their sexual orientation or their gender identity a child should never have to fear being shamed or rejected for their identity certainly not in an environment devoted to education self-discovery and growth if you do not address this issue you can don't the perpetuation of a hostile narrative that continues to damage LGBTQ children it is my desire for the Lynchburg students to be free from enduring the blatant discrimination and internalized homophobia that I endured when I was in school will you extend their protection to vulnerable children and teens who experience discrimination based on sexual orientation and gender identity in the Lynchburg City school system thank you good evening we can agree policy does not

015eliminate the experience of discrimination however policy recognizes that problem exists urgency to address it and sets the tone with clear next steps by placing sexual orientation and gender identity in Lynchburg city schools non-discrimination policy we directly address the silence and shame Tylar named in his experience shame it's the feeling that something is inherently bad about you something deficient something needs to be changed Tylar references experience of silence and feelings of shame sounds from authorities and shame dealt with by silence for safety reasons however Tyler has the courage now to imagine a different experience maybe one where a young gay boy could feel safe to be in school without being bullied for his identity or at least feel empowered to address it because the school knows it's a problem and takes active steps to address it

016with policy when silence and shame exist students can be bullied for their identity with no accountability the hate speech the Tyler endured as a boy was perpetuated because it wasn't directly addressed with policy policy makes suffering matter when suffering matters communities get healthier my name is dr. Jesse Wynn I'm a licensed clinical psychologist I've conducted over 210 full psychological evaluations in the city of Lynchburg and surrounding counties for over the past two years eleven percent of which have been children with identities on the LGBTQ spectrum if given the opportunity to talk about their experiences at school bullying related to their sexual orientation or gender gender identity surfaces they referenced feeling both ashamed for who they are and unprotected here are some statewide data to think about on August 14th 2019 side-by-side of Virginia offered safer

017space training right here in Lynchburg about a month and a half ago maybe some of you all attended some of the highlights 33 percent of lesbian gay or bisexual youth report being bullied versus 17% of their heterosexual peers the odds of substance use for lesbian gay and bisexual youth were on average 190 percent higher than heterosexual youth lesbian gay and bisexual youth are three to five times more likely to commit art not to commit but to attempt suicide than their heterosexual peers LGBTQ plus people experience high levels of mental health distress because of how society treats them not because they are LGBTQ plus we cannot be quiet about these data anymore non-discrimination policy is about our children's safety their health and well-being and will impact the adults our children become let's work together as a

018community to protect our children by including sexual orientation and gender identity in lynchburg City Schools non-discrimination policy thank you for your time dan Harrison hello my name is Dan Harrison I'm the pastor at Church of the Covenant thank you distinguished members superintendent and others for letting me speak I'm also the father of a recent graduate from EC glass High School I come as one of those who used to unfortunately you know speak negatively of people of a different sexual orientation and by God's grace that's changed in my life and I realized as a spiritual leader in a community we have a lot of weight as educators you of course have a lot of weight and especially when it comes to our young and we must we must have an ethic of care and if that

019ethic of care extends beyond not only the beliefs maybe the the faith or lack of but also the sexual orientation or identity or gender identity of those young people we must affirm in every way possible and my experience has been here in Lynchburg that students who do identify differently have often felt most at odds and and perhaps even persecuted by their teachers themselves and I ask that we definitely adopt something very very specific to protect all of those who feel like they are perhaps being targeted because they shouldn't be it's all about educating our children it's a very simple thing we should love everyone and always look out for the welfare of our children regardless of how they identify themselves and they should know that we love them just the way they are thank you

020we next have Joe mirsini hi thank you first I want to thank you all for your volunteer service to our school community my name is Joe Marie Cini I'm a Lynchburg City resident I have four children that have attended every year K through 12 in the Lynchburg city school systems their ages are 14 to 22 I currently have two students at East the last high school one's a freshman and one's a senior all for my students our children played three varsity sports at EC glass so I have a little experience of what I'm going to talk about I'm also the booster club athletic booster president EC glass high school currently field practice space at EC glass as a vital need for our school community and I hope you all will consider additional field space at

021EC glass and your upcoming CIP currently glass has one field on campus for 13 field sports that's not counting baseball or softball and I'm not counting baseball and softball in any of my numbers in comparison heritage Amherst and Brookville have eight teams with more than one field on campus spring is especially difficult at EC glass due to the fact that we have ten field teams and one field on campus in comparison heritage Amherst Brookville has six spring teams with for four fields on campus those spring numbers do include track but it's hard to practice track when there's balls flying around especially lacrosse balls all four of my kids play lacrosse and they all play lacrosse at glass I've lived through the kids being the girls being shuffled to Kaiser Elementary on a half field that's

022bumpy and I've also lived through the boys getting shuffled to black water Creek Park to have practice neither of those situations is ideal but they were grateful to have a place to practice their sport this boils down to five issues with regards to the three additional field spaces that EC glass manages in the spring space costs Transportation Safety and athletic training I've already covered the space issue cost we have additional transportation costs to get the kids to and from practice we also have to pay substitute athletic trainers to go to those fields we also have additional equipment costs do the fact that we cannot haul the equipment back and forth to those practice facilities and we have to purchase three additional AED devices to cover those fields transportation safety I'm going to lump those two

023together we're not always able to schedule buses to get the kids to practice and sometimes we schedule buses they just don't show up basically what that means is you have multiple kids jumping into other older children's cars driving off site to have practice athletic training is self-explanatory we have one full-time athletic trainer covering four different locations in the spring so in conclusion in any consideration that you would give to providing additional field space at EC glass in your upcoming CIP on campus would be greatly appreciated thank you for your time I'm not able to read the last night sorry could you say your last thing for me I can't thank you for letting me be here it's David Aaron's he and Joe handled quite a bit of what I was gonna talk about with all

024the details my family and I moved to Lynchburg five years ago from Bedford County and I wanted to talk about the field space and while Joe hid a lot of the spring sports I'm dealing with six kids the first three have graduated from glass all three were lacrosse players I've got a cross-country runner that plays tennis that he's not a field space guy and my oldest daughter is a freshman this year and in the fall they're dealing with the problem with field space so I'm seeing they're having to shuffle the field hockey team over to City Stadium and like Joe said there's not always buses and I'm seeing kids jumping into cars in addition to get field space they're changing practices till six to eight or seven to nine at night because of lack of

025field space fortunately my wife is this year's her first years coaching she's trying to stay ahead of it and there's many times where she believes she has a field reserved and shows up and there's another team there or the band is there because they need to practice there as well the field space is much needed and it keeps the kids active and with six kids I know activity helps keep them settled down thank you for your time and I hope that that you'll really consider this additional field space thank you Jason Landis good evening my name is Jason Landis thank you for your time and allowed me to come up and talk to you guys this evening I have three children in the City Schools one in high school a freshman and she plays sports

026lacrosse at this point and as a parent of a new high school athlete the field space is a concern for me as well the scheduling from for the most part is where I'm concerned because everybody's fighting for the same space because it's limited and so the scheduling whether it's late at night or whether it's on the weekends really is just not conducive in my opinion for you know for a high school student especially when you take in academics and the time it takes for them to be well-rounded not just in athletics but in their academics so I just wanted to echo some of the statements of already been made and thank you for your time of consideration you know for that issue at EC glass that concludes the public comment section now we move on

027to the finance report I'm gonna be presenting the finance report for the month of August the revenues received through August 31st is six million five hundred ninety thousand three hundred twenty-five dollars and fourteen cents the expenditures through that same time period is eleven millions seventy nine thousand 134 sixty-eight and our actual encumbered which is going to be your open POS and all the contracted salaries that have been encumbered along with their benefits is seventy million seven hundred and seventy five thousand one eighty five and eighty two cents the present percentage of the budget received a six point six seven percent percentage of the budget used excluding those encumbrances is eleven point two two percent and I just wanted to point out because usually when you see revenue less than your expenditures that's not a good

028thing but I just wanted to point out some with their state funding it's a base on your funding source so your soq funded you receive at the beginning and you get it throughout the school year some of the items that are lottery funded you will not restart even receiving that revenue until 2020 in January so what makes up that difference is the city appropriation and they will fund as needed and you you have to take about don't take into account like prior year carryover fine balance they will find what is needed so I did just want to point that out because it was a big difference I have updated the health insurance payment section to include what our administrative fees were for the month and the medical and pharmacy claims and then I have the

029insurance payable balance at August 31st and that balance is four hundred and twenty one thousand five thirty 208 and if you recall that's about a hundred thousand dollars less than what we had reported to you last month I did want to point out though that the new employees coming on their benefits will not start having their deductions from pay and the employer contribution until September so for example if you're have an employer that takes single health insurance every pay period like if every month they will contribute 30 dollars and 80 cents to the health insurance Reserve on the employer side the school system will contribute for that single coverage 434 dollars and 12 cents a month so you're not seeing those contributions that they will you will see those for the people that have come

030on and have taken their deductions you'll see those in September but we are continuing to monitor it the claims at this point we're not concerned also attached you'll have their revenue detail and they expenditure detail and if you have any questions I try to assist mr. guy thank you very much for that previous year for 18/19 we are finishing that up as they wrap up the audit I would expect that would be in my mind we are finished but until it's official would be totally knocked over great thank you Pharmacy claims is that Bop or it's that where we expected to be that is actually an Elan it was a love up a little bit more than I think this year but we did have one employee that has hit stop-loss so we are just

031a little forecast for September starting to see those go back down okay but it's nothing that is alarming at this point thank you when you were talking about contribution so I knew some of our new employees have not started the deductions cream favors that is correct they have their first pay in August but they don't that they still have to elect their benefits and that will take effect on their September 15th payroll so you'll see that contribution go in to that balance and then the the number the figure that you quoted I think was somewhere around $30 is that for single that's what a single employee would contribute out of their paper correct so it's around fifteen dollars and 40 cents of pay period because we get paid semi-monthly but the monthly contribution for a

032single and I'm using that because around sixty four and a half percent of our employees have the single plan and then the employer so the school system provides the four hundred and thirty four dollars and twelve cents towards the health insurance cost and the employee pays a thirty dollars and 80 cents that's quite a bit of it you know questions we'll move on to the consent agenda which includes the school board minutes September 3rd 2019 regular meeting the work session minutes August 20th 2018 the student discipline committee meeting September 5th 2019 the amended personnel report and the religious exemption notice that we received thank you dr. Coleman is miss Carter any discussion all in favor aye any opposed now we come to one part of the night we get to hear from our new school

033board reps welcome gentlemen we're happy to have you who would like to go first Chris producer bass yes ma'am all right so as you guys know I'm Christopher Mirada I'm now a senior at EC glass um there's my email if you guys want to contact me feel more than free I like seeing emails so it's always a good thing so anyway tonight I want to be talking about a few things those are all out there I tried to divide it into sections but there's a little bit of overlap just because there's so much stuff going on so anyway welcome back obviously we've started the new school year it's been a pretty exciting one on the next slide we have every year glass does a little thing where they basically all the teachers write how many

034years they've been there and you know you take a picture with an always enjoy seeing those pictures so yeah and actually kind of funny that a lot of these teachers are actually been teaching that school longer than I've been alive so I think it's always nice to see the amount of experience that everybody has there so yeah then there's a lot of sports stuff going on obviously you guys heard from public comments there's a lot of people that play in sports two of the sports that we just kind of finishing up on now is golf and cross-country the picture of the golf he was after placing third in districts I think yep and then the cross country picture that was actually from senior night so those are some of our senior runners with cross country

035and we are currently varsity field hockey and volleyball that's going on right now we're a three and three with field hockey so um it's actually the field hockey team Oh awesome the field hockey team starting to get a lot better um I remember I think that when I was a freshman year they kind of first started it and now we're starting to see them do a lot better in games so that's really cool to see and our varsity volleyball is five and four so they're doing well also and then oh wait I think it's skip yes I did um so football that's a pretty big part of this time of year you know a lot of people are kind of our games and that's always really cool also I tried to put a lot of

036these pictures I got from Twitter I'm really thankful we have two awesome people on the EC glass athletics Twitter is you know always have stuff going to keep us updated also miss Fleur runs the EC glass high school Twitter and she does a really amazing job doing that um just kind of keeping us all informed and it's really cool to see the pictures on the events that I don't have time to go and see but um those are some of the events that have been going on recently also you'll notice that we're for now with football so we're doing pretty well this year um there are some pretty big games there the benefit game did not go too well but that isn't part of the actual season so we're not going to talk about that

037oh so yeah football team has been doing really good I've one of my best friends is actually a football player and so they work really hard he has a lot of late practices so it's definitely well deserved and so we also had homecoming recently and actually I think dr. Edwards was there as well because I found one her Twitter she actually got a really good picture of the king and queen for homecoming which is Jenn Merriman and a Mike Brown so that was really cool um see them there and I know there's a lot going on because we also had the ban I believe sharing town with homecoming - so you got to see their performance and we had spirit week as well on September 18 or 16 it started - the 20th those are

038some pictures of this various students participating in spirit week and yeah I play alright just make sure and skip anything our town is opening tomorrow so that's a really big one um if you have the opportunity to see it I really recommend it it's gonna be in the Alumni Studio Theatre which if you haven't been to that facility it's it's smaller but it's really cool because you kind of get to be up close and personal with all the actors and you get to see all the expressions and stuff so it's a really nice thing I've see I have friends also that are on working on that show and they're working really hard to get that ready for tomorrow and so tickets are $12 for adults $8 for students and seniors and also the next slide

039is a video I'm sorry hope we get it to work this time oh no oh alright that was actually my fault um so I I uploaded the video this morning I forgot to make it public but um if you guys want to I can share that with all of you basically um it's a really cool video it was a student Bobby Vinson actually created like a meet the cast for our town and it was all the cast members they also a little bit about themselves and he added some extra editing and there so it's really cool to kind of see that crossover um you know see the different clubs kind of overlap there so I'll make sure that you guys get that video and that was my fault I apologize for that also we have

040marching band I mentioned them earlier they're working super hard this year our drum majors Erin McCarthy and their show is called underworld and actually just recently they went to glen of our high school and got for a Champions and for a through six eight grand champion so that's a pretty big deal so it's cool to see them doing good I'd have friends in there too that you know they were super hard there's a lot of people that are working really hard to put on all this stuff for us so it's always really nice Oh area okay so earlier this year on actually September they had their the Lynchburg Art Festival which is usually held at glass I believe that our art teacher actually does a lot of work with that and making sure that gets

041put on and so it's a really cool opportunity for the students along with I believe other people lunch for our community to kind of show off their artwork and a really cool fashion so there's that there as well the Virginia 10-miler unfortunately I did not run in that I'm not really in peak physical fitness right now but so that was September 28th a lot of you see the last students were there we had I believe the JROTC was helping we had some other students that I think we're part of sororities that we're helping there as well a lot of people helping on there were a lot of people running too I try to get some of the pictures from the glass students that ran in it and there are even more than that and there's

042some of my friends over football players ran in it so there are a lot of glass people representing there and that was really cool to see also I'm sure you guys have heard Mark Warner actually came to visit glass which was really cool um you know it's a pretty big deal and I have your senator come and visit your school well it's even more cool is he got to actually talk to the students and you know actually I mentioned there the discussed the cost of higher education glass has really been taking that hard which is really cool to see you know giving people the opportunities to pursue higher education if they want that which is the student is really awesome because you know it kind of helps you through with all the scholarships and stuff

043which I'm doing right now and it's super confusing so having people there to help you with that you know scholarships college apps is really awesome and knowing that people you know like our senator actually care about that is really encouraging - so what's new the student leadership team actually I believe this was an idea of a dr. Garrett and it's something really cool basically its representatives from each of the student leadership clubs and glass so clubs like NHS SCA the ambassador's share OTC and Key Club I believe for the ones who are represented they're all met and we met I believe last Thursday and we discussed a few issues some of them were on how to increase school spirit and various things like that along with I think we were also discussing the possibility of

044looking at homeroom in the future just general stuff like that you know that we're interested in pursuing to kind of start discussions with that and open that up so it's identify problems really and find solutions and it was really cool to be a part of that discussion um and then also last year is my last slide I believe I mentioned that we had a new cellphone policy it was really I put new in parentheses because it's always been the cell phone policy it's just being enforced this year or more tightly enforced and universally so basically they're simplify it to if you're an instructional zone you can't have your phone so that is places like the library classrooms and stuff like that so during transitions I mentioned it's a little bit finicky some people or unfortunately

045using their phone while they're walking and that doesn't always end up being the best thing um especially when they're not paying attention but I mean other than that as much as I don't like the ability to pull out my phone whenever I want to it seems to be working really well and I think it's helping a lot of people um you know stay on track and get the stuff done we needed however one thing I didn't notice I'm not sure if you guys heard but glass did go on a soft lockdown today and one of the things that heard as a result of that is whether students are allowed to actually use their phones during a lockdown um because obviously you're still an instructional zone and especially a real lockdown I think that there's definitely

046some concern about that and that'll probably be something to get throb the next leadership meeting because something that I think especially in that position a lot of students feel that they would like to be able to contact their parents or see what's going on so believe that is it yep all right thank you thank you good evening everyone my name is Ian garland I will be one of the student representation representatives of for the 2019 2020 school year so let's start talking about heritage so back in June the art students had an event at the Academy Center of the Arts and they displayed a lot of their artwork and a lot of people from the public got to see some of the amazing artistic abilities of some of the students from heritage congratulations to Caleb

047mink for getting the chance to go to Anaheim California to compete in the National Leadership Conference he got that ability by he competed in the Virginia not Leadership Conference and he placed first so they invited him to go to Anaheim um Taylor Morgan she also went to California this summer she went out to San Francisco and she was the Heritage High School representative for the Youth Leadership Summit for the gear up conference congratulations to Elisha Oakes she received the title for the All Area girls outdoor track and field athlete of the year the football team went out and volunteered at the Habitat for Humanity this summer they went out and they helped pave sidewalks and driveways for members of the community on August the 7th the freshmen were welcomed to number one big horn country

048with the freshman orientation the new teachers were welcomed into the building this year and there are a lot of new teachers this year and they got a warm welcoming from the students during the pep rally that was on the first day of school and the teachers went out on the basketball court and they would state their name and what they were going to teach for the year and then everyone would start clapping and they would congratulate them the cross-country team has done really well this year they started off by winning their first meet against Russ Berg high school and then grace stager and Luke Richards also won their individual races the volleyball team has also had a great start the school year they won their game against Stanton River which was an amazing accomplishment I'm

049a member of the Pioneer pollinator project and we brought an observation hive to all three lunches during the school day and what we did is we set up the hive and we we told everyone to come and look at the bees and ask any questions they had about bees and we just tried to inform people about what the bees do for the ecosystem and to also try to get people involved with our club the girls outdoor field and track team they got their state rings as soon as we got back to school the theatre they have a showing of the boys next door this Friday um and there will also be a a fundraiser for the heritage Pioneer wrestling team and they're going to be selling barbecue and wings trying to raise money for their

050teams so they can buy equipment the big orange marching machine they got second place in the marching guard competition on Saturday they also got 1st place in the music category and 1st place overall in the category in the class a a competition the football team has had a little they had a rocky start to start against Vance Vance was a pretty good team and we did lose but ever since then we've really been beating everyone else we really beat Appomattox and Marshall and liberty and Amherst those were some really good games and the team is starting to look like they're they're on the uptick to hopefully another state championship and the student sections this year they've been extremely prideful there's been a lot of school support support and school spirit as we go out and

051support the football team thank you for your time our school board meetings are so much better when you're here that Shivan know that I have a couple challenges for you all to take back to your schools governor northome has issued a high school voter registration challenge through which high schools across the state will compete to register the highest percentage of their voting age population so the goal is 65% of your voting population should be registered it's a challenge the second one is that this month is School Board Association bullying prevention month that's the reason for the orange river's ribbons because that's what the color is for anti-bullying so our charge to you all is to make sure that good things happen in your school to help identify the problems and come up with solutions and

052we'll be interested in hearing what you're doing in the schools and how you're attacking this problem any other comments to to our school but reps thank you you two both did a great job thank you very much okay next Oh school board committee reports Finance Committee sweet the water coming back fish thank you [Applause] so you got the agenda there and I'm going to key takeaways and correct dr. Baron was there chair Morrison and dr. Millis was there we talked about buying more seats on Governor's School and that one seat costs us about forty seven hundred dollars right now we have 42 seats dr. Edwards am i right right and there are 12 start spots open it means we need to buy six for juniors and six for high schools so we left it there

053because we don't know where the money will get it for to buy those 12 spots so twelve times five is almost $60,000 plus minus few then we talked about we combined middle school and high school buses and how much did we save from there so we were informed we basically saved seven full-time driver positions were saved as of that merger and dr. Edwards if I'm my numbers don't match up the correct me and then we basically yes we saved seven full-time positions but that doesn't mean we laid anybody off yeah nobody Elizabeth we were struggling the ticket the bus driver positions yes 100% correct we talked about city reserve right now we have about two point six six million dollars in reserve required to have two point five million dollars here right that's two point

054six six seven five nine two five was the number or yeah how much and we talked about you have all these attachments you will see with Miss Kim has presented in terms of health reserve where do we spend away where do we stand as of August and your numbers today will be more current one day what was reported today was August August suits same numbers a lot more detail you can see that in terms of payroll contributions from employee and employer there's a break up there which gives you more detail school new tuition payments VRS it goes into and as of the end of the day the balance is four hundred and twenty one thousand and then the next page as I was telling to chair Morris and the contribution of employees so like to

055bring your attention to the top column toward 24 page 12 months we have grandfathered in several employees I think you mentioned 20 of them am I correct in 22 0 employees are grandfathered and we're both family and spouse are employed correct and they pay zero premium for health insurance that's a very good benefit LCS provides you see that in dark the zero contribution for the premium so that's a wonderful benefit the Lynchburg City Schools is providing for employees then we went into if you have any questions feel free to ask we went into talking about we did living wages last time and it caused some compression should we decompress it or should we leave it as it is so I have all attached all these tables you have any questions you can ask me but

056end of the day they the decision was to leave it as it is right now because the revenues money is not clear how much do we have left over you know and how much money will be needed so all the details of these different tables are there am I taking too long and that's all about you know it breaks up data into we talked about there was a question from one of the board members about we have difficulty hiring bus drivers you know on the go and how much do we pay should we could be increased their wages per hour Lee and that's why this last but one page is there and custodian wages we looked at basically it's all in light of living wages and all these discussion is to see if we can

057help people who are feeling the salary compression in their ranks because of they have more experience to see what we can do to decompress that compression and that discussion is ongoing and we also talked about the gymnasium at Heritage Elementary School and that's where I'll leave it that discussion will become your school to the key items that we discuss tuition and enrollment report currently the government school serves 137 students we have a capacity of 150 and I think that goes to the comments by dr. Gupta was mentioning that there are spaces available that we as the Lynchburg City schools could possibly take advantage of currently we do have 42 students who attend there and again if the superintendent and school board wish to increase that number there is available slots the other key items in

058their meeting was the meeting schedule is being revised in the coming year we will meet the months of August October December February March April and May specifically that timeline because that's when we address a lot of our budget issues and so forth but our next governor school meeting will be on November the 6th at 1 p.m. legislative advocacy dr. brennan stem academy did not meet since our last right advisory committees to the school board we did the STEM Academy did not the legislative advocacy committee did meet on September 5th from the community relations part we had a nice discussion with the Department of Communications about what they do to publicize InterPro conspiracies schools which I think was very informative and helpful we talked about the concept of adopter school which we mentioned briefly in our

059work session which is is seeing we can line up different board members with different schools and we're on our way to do that it was a little bit more complicated than I originally thought as far as matching schools to people but I have sort of a draft that was Miss Morrison's permission I'm going to email the people just to look at and see if it works I tried to take people as for a second third choices and and shuffle around but it's open for discussion I'll send that out and we're going to discuss it at the at our retreat as far as the role finalize that and then the the really the majority of me was talking about our legislative agenda which is what we're really trying to work on we have a goal of

060trying to have that to the board for approval in November and our number meeting so we went over our first sort of draft of the different items we it was recommended that we review those with Nora Dunn it was previous their legal adviser that we'd discuss it with Jason Kessler JT Kessler who's with the SBA as their government advocacy person and also with Reed rhotuka as deputy manager for the city to get their input and and those conversations have been had we had a conversation with nor done dr. nails and I had one with JT Kessler and then I reach that email exchange with with rewrote oka again with miss Parsons permission I'd like to send you all by email sort of the first draft of these items for you to look at and then

061our retreat on the 11th JT Kessler is going to come and give sort of an over you about legislative advocacy that he gave at recent meeting in Richmond that was very helpful and also specifically comment about what items were discussing but prior to that we like to get that to you so I will mail that either this today or tomorrow for your review again as a draft it's open for discussion but I think we're on the road to try and to have something available and we've had a lot of good support from various people Thank You Ezra committee to the school board the two dates upcoming two dates for their su teen advisory committee so I'll have to get those teams okay October 22nd the only group that met was the special ed advisory committee

062and I believe that they will be speaking to us about disability awareness month even our not now but sometime now serve and worker could come on up and give us a quick overview a busy meeting in late September and they wanted me to deliver a message to you that's follow up so if I may just have a few sentences to read for it so October is this October is a disability history and awareness month and as we continue to recognize the unique needs of students with disabilities Lynchburg city school special education advisory committee is hosting an information session to assist parents local service professionals and LCS faculty and staff members of students with disabilities the event will be hosted at Heritage High School from 6:00 to 8:00 on October 22nd and during the opening session

063which will be titled understanding students with mental health needs strategies and supports for educators and families more than 17 million children in the United States have or have had a diagnosed mental illness many more have experienced trauma in their lives that affect learning relationships and mental health these children come to school and into our classrooms every day often challenging behaviors that create difficulties within the classroom and the Advisory Committee is excited to sponsor this session which will focus on helping teachers and other professionals empathize with these students understand the need support and identify strategies that are helpful so you all are welcome to come and miss Babb helped us with the announcement and she's going to be helping to get that out next week or this week October 22nd at Heritage High School and the

064notice will just say to please call the special education office to register just so that we can anticipate so thank you very much okay any more we're moving to the strategic plan discussion dr. Edwards in your agenda on page 15 is a it says draft working document as of 9:20 that was the time that we actually printed it there's there have been some updates since then but what I wanted to share with the board was the draft of one of the four goals along with the rationale the equity Habits focus areas objectives and strategy so you would see what this looks like once we put it all together and again I it's labeled working draft because we're still working through some of it but I want to come take you through this answer any questions

065you may have and then just know when we get to our board retreat you'll have goals three two and one we're kind of working backwards so the first thing you notice at the top is the board goal that you will adopt it for goal for for our Family and Community Engagement and then what we did was put a rationale behind why that goal is important to us here in Lynchburg City Schools and we recognize that it takes more than just us we need to engage the community if we're going to be successful in helping our children not only succeed academically but social emotional ly and beyond our walls so that they are the self-sustaining citizens so we did put that down there as a rationale because it's very important to us and many of you

066know that effo resist a director of equity engagement and opportunity and since I've been here we've really pushed that equity is not a separate office not a separate thing and not a handoff that equity should be a part of everything we do so each of our goals you'll see an equity habit as opposed to an equity awareness or statement and we purposely chose the word habit because habit is something that you do and you practice and sometimes you just do it without thinking so if we have good equity habits at play we're not we don't have to think about them they become the fabric of what we do and we put down there under our community engagement goal what our equity habit that goes along with this goal should be and it really is to

067be inclusive of all persons not just our staff and our students but also our parents our families our neighborhoods and our communities in this city then the next part of it is outlined into a couple of different focus areas which this does not represent everything we do but really some of the major things that we're working on we've started working a little bit last year but more this year and going forward you can see the first being a Family and Community Engagement concept map which miss Reeves and her team is working on all the way to how we engage families and caregivers and we recognize families and caregivers as opposed to just parents period because nowadays while we do have a lot of families that have what we would call the traditional parents we have

068a lot of our kids that are being raised by grandparents foster parents aunts uncles good friends and just people who care so families and caregivers we want to make sure that we include them as well and you can see businesses community engagement and then a marketing plan as focus area the objectives are listed under each section the numbering system is pretty straightforward if it's gold for focus area 4.2 we just tried to keep the numbering consistent what I would like to do in this section of the board meeting going forward is give you updates and say we're gonna talk about four to two and I can pull that objective out and give you an update of where we are with some of those strategies I listed the strategies and then one thing that you will

069see in our plan in bold is a reference to the Lynchburg plan and the economic development and tourism blueprint for opportunity and part of that needs to be updated because when we were working on this we had an older version of the Lynchburg plan I have a new version of the Lynchburg plan and the numbering system is off but the Lynchburg plan is City Council's priorities for the next couple years and we aligned our goals and look through city council goals and said where do they support us and we call that out in our strategic plan the same thing with the economic development and tourism I had an opportunity to attend their first year session and part of what we do is participate in their anchor institutions which is their goal to but more importantly

070they're talking about talent development is goal three and that's what we do the talent starts with us in pre-k right pre-k and then graduate and go on to other institutions or in the workforce so you will see in here references to that so that you know which goals which strategies and objectives are aligned with that we put lead persons responsible and that by no means that that is the only person responsible just if we need a a spokesperson for that activity it's there we try to put some timelines those are pretty flexible in terms of some of the work we're doing and then of course anticipated outcomes and in writing this I really tried to write it for just the common person who's out there reading it we didn't put a lot of what folks

071may call ed you babble here there are some acronyms which I will take out once we get it nice and clean to up but I wanted anybody to be able to read this and look at it and say oh one of the outcomes is that you know they want a 10% reduction in student absenteeism as a particular outcome something that we can measure and report out on and then that is meaningful to us so I didn't want to go through one by one but I figured I'd leave a little time if you had any questions specifically in time to review in a manner that you stated community meeting where we talked about 4.3 today involving businesses what I like Cece said increase the number of students receiving interesting certifications could we put a number there

072too I don't know how many are getting right now and what is the range associated go what are we heading for is it 10% increase from 400 to 500 and in business partnerships are we relying solely on business alliance or bigger corporate partners like we talked about today in the afternoon like big corporations in town how them how to get them on the table and be a partner with us in our new board member orientation we talked about some partnerships in addition to Business Alliance but also some of our other larger partners whether or not they're partnering for curriculum reasons whether or not they're partnering for talent pipeline reasons but the one thing that I do want to stress particularly as we're talking about our family and community engagement is that we are Lynchburg City

073Schools open to all partnerships so there could be a particular area let's just say mentoring or even talent development we are not limited to talent development we only work with this partner or we only work with that partner we select multiple partners because we have kids that have various needs so the answer to your question is yes the point I'm heading for is lot of corporations do business in city of Lynchburg they may not be Lynchburg based so they may not be part of Lynchburg alliance but they have interest in the city and their interest in the workforce talent in the city so I'm hoping you're trying to expand our horizons and reach out to those companies and the thing that's not in here is there's some baseline data where we have baseline data but

074based on data is important so when you talk about the number of students receiving industry certification I actually have all those numbers and it might differ depending on the area and the target and you'll probably see more of that when we get to the goal 1 which is student growth and development this is a phenomenal document I'm sure that you and your staff put a ton of time into this I think it's so well laid out it's so clear thank you so much for doing all that and I particularly like this four point for Community Engagement section it's on so many important things including mentoring and tutoring programs I think are great one suggestion may be in that area to consider about PTO participation as far as trying to get the community more involved in

075our schools some people talk about the PTO as being the the step in to school board leadership in other areas in the schools but we're good to consider that and and on the last page four point five marketing plan I'm really thrilled with this last one the four the four point five point to convene a small committee to review the current exit survey reviews for families and for teachers I think that's something we've talked about a lot and as them but that's great and then last thing and this is probably caught on your current new issue which we don't have is that the last on the right-hand side of that section where we want to decrease the number of staff members leaving this division due to job satisfaction should maybe be dissatisfaction yeah no one

076leaves because right the end but thank you so much it's a phenomenal working great document the first deals with Lynchburg City School Board government's policy review if you remember this came to us and then when it went back and it came back and we felt like we were going to discuss it at the board and that's what we're going to do tonight to get input and then we're gonna we'll have a recommendation after we finish our discussion this deals with public participation at school board meetings dr. Gupta came from the superintendent there were two attachments from the city things for discussion who did not receive that might been two meetings ago you received a modified version of this policy which the policy committee review committee brought for discussion would have been first reading and then

077there were some discussion during the meeting the policy committee went back and they said okay we're not gonna do that we'll bring back the original policy so what I sent you because we knew we were gonna have a fruitful discussion tonight was I just wanted to remind you what was first presented a couple meetings ago and then what the original policy which is what's here right now looks like and that might help you have a discussion and the reason why I did that is because it I became aware that some board members were interested in parts of what was first presented and we did not have an opportunity to discuss that one so I wanted to make sure everybody had a copy of that prior to this meeting so the policy that we are looking

078at tonight is the one that the workgroup brought back to to us after we sent it back to them that's the base 2105 yes page 21 of our agenda right the floor is open for discussion comments I like to thank the committee for reconsidering I know thank you very much and I appreciate it's the same as same as page 21 yeah yeah same version that I sent that to you in an email it's not not for [Applause] right the floor is open for discussion [Applause] yes thank you miss Evans dr. Gupta mr. Harvey did you have any comments I'm looking on page 21 correct this is the policy that we are not 24 which is the exact same policy I guess my question is it still seems to me that this policy does not address

079what we were concerned with with individuals speaking multiple times repetitively about the same subject is that correct correct okay and so we are suggesting as a board that we not include that language in there that's what I mean that's what's coming to us that's what came to us tonight yes okay I I feel like that we do need to take into account members of our community who sometimes feel like they do not have the opportunity to speak simply because there is a group that will come and speak as a block I have suggested that there be some language presented in this in this policy that would if individual maybe has spoken before regarding the same subject that they might be moved down in the queue to allow other members who are new to to giving

080their points of view and a meeting they would then take a priority in the in the roster of those to speak and that way I feel like we provide more opportunities from they're people in the community to speak if there's enough time within the 30 minutes if that group would like to speak has spoken before and there's still time available they would be allowed to speak but the priority should be given to new speakers so your you are suggesting that we add language that says new speakers or individuals who cannot spoken to the school board the others go first yeah if we have if we have decided that we're gonna allow speakers to speak multiple times on the same subject that has come before the school board I think that we should give priority to

081new speakers if a subject has been presented previously and it's going to be presented yet again priority should be given to new speakers okay does anyone have any thoughts on that school board member Harvey put that on the table it sounds logical to me again I want to reiterate as a member of the working group we are working group in that a committee we're working a group I want to remind us that there was a time where we had absolutely no one coming for public comments and this board was Toland as to how to handle that and we were very intentional about doing what we needed to get people to start come in now that they come in that's a good thing and it's a variety of issues so I am not in favor of

082limiting repeat persons from coming but I do tend to embrace the queueing peace for persons who have not yet presented on an issue to go first that's not restrictive we've got 30 minutes and that's all we can do per meeting girl I wouldn't have any problem supporting that I don't see it as restrictive I see it as a way of making which show very inclusive miss Carter not only concern with that is how would that look like how will we do that do we keep track of who's been here before we will have to start monitoring that we have a list right so how will we know on that list woody are you familiar with that like who's I had trouble reading names tonight stop putting checkpoints I think we could set up a database

083yes is that we could set that they would need to call the office ahead of time to sign up so we have an agenda before you know before five o'clock individuals to speak at this time we allow people to sign ups when they come before the FOB o'clock right I would encourage them to sign up before five o'clock I think five o'clock should definitely be the cutoff but I would I guess what I was thinking is that people would contact the administration and get on the agenda to speak I mean not in favor of any kind of restriction this is a free and open forum and everybody should be able to speak whether they have spoken before or not this is it as I said before this is a taxpayer-funded operation and we are not

084in business of policing this business of who is speaking and when they are speaking the sheet is presented at 12:00 noon anybody can come and sign in if they ever desired to sue so and I've been on this board for more than a year I've never seen anybody who's been tonight opportunity to speak in front of the board if they wanted to but having said that so I'm not in favor of any restriction we are not in a policing business we are a free and open forum as far as I am concerned I think for a lot of parents who come speak it's the only communication they feel like they have or control of their students education is to speak to a group like this and I don't think we put restrictions on it either

085understand well we do have times right no I'll get that I'm talking to adding any new restriction I'm with a tool I don't you know us do you have anything that you'd like to add they can be helpful but it's a business meeting we're about the business of the school division so I know there have been calm you know was proposed to make some restrictions I think what was proposed previous draft was I know it was classified as draconian I find interesting lots of terms these days seem to get weaponized yeah I had problems they after thinking about it just from the logistics you know you speak two times in three months when does the three months start are you gonna keep track I'm not to have multiple multiple people come up that we know

086or associate with particular organization but then they say well I'm speaking as an individual it's like well no you're not you know if there's one individual from from the organization that wants to speak that's great but to take that time I think is I think it's disrespectful to the board and the consideration or showing the public I think it's one of the people involved in the work group that as we walk through this whole process I really think that the goal of the public comments which I understand is part of a school board process to allow the public to speak there should be as non respective as it can be I think that we want to have people come and speak in an environment where they're welcome where we respect what they have to say

087it takes a lot of effort to stand behind that podium and it's not an easy thing to do and I think we should allow people to do that without restriction and I think that as dr. Coleman said at some point the not-too-distant past no one Caymans booked at public comments I think we want to encourage people to come I think the group that we had here tonight was a great selection of different topics that we were interested in and it went very well to see that continue without any further restrictions miss Carter well they what I saw I'm sort of leaning toward what Mike was saying I see well even tonight there was pretty much two groups that came they talked about the same things and could if someone from a group come can that

088be conditioned to one individual or speak for the group instead of hearing the same subject there are four different times and just can condense it and we could have had two 5-minute presentations tonight one was about the space for the fields and the other one was about making sure we put into policy protections for the other students that identify as gay or bisexual whatever so but that's okay dr. Coleman again get into the logic that Gary put on the table a person that would not support any restriction of four or five or six people on the same subject because some people can put their words together in a more effective way to convey their thought and others so I don't personally have a problem with that but I do urge the board to hear what

089Gary is saying I think that if we already have a 30 minute restriction you can't go beyond 30 minutes what if there's somebody with a passionate plea on something that is incredibly pertinent time sensitive and they have never had an opportunity to articulate that concern and will not get that opportunity to articulate that concern once the 30 minutes expires and we hear repetitively in that same meeting the same thing over from different people with dead thoughts I kind of hear what you say about that then that person won't get an opportunity to share in that structure we're saying that that person would be the fresh person would get an opportunity to speak we seldom half as dr. Brennan just reminded us going to a point where we exhaust the for 30 minutes but if that

090did happen I do really feel good about in the event that that would happen give me a fresh opportunity to someone to speak that's my final thoughts on the matter well dr. Gupta you know end of the day we are not robots it's a human managed system so if somebody has a passionate flee we have a very considerate chair who will take that into account and let them speak having said that think about any one of you standing behind the podium who signed up at 12 noon and certainly the madam chair says no no no you cannot come to the podium because crusto first spoke has a new topic to speak on and you're speaking on something which has been already spoken how humiliating will it be for the citizen who is coming in front

091of the board because there's all happens in real time you're not going to call them at home and say guess what you are number four now in 12 noon when you sign your number one that will all happen in front of the camera right there in real-time and that will put a lot of people in a place where they don't want they people are encouraged to call or send an email to sign up and as of today we had one person who had done that and by five o'clock we had one two three four five six seven eight other people sign up and we are eight we were able to get them all in I thought they they were aware of the time limit and how many people and I think you are right the

092one time that we had a large number of people we allow everyone to get say what they wanted to say so I don't really don't see that as a problem in terms of time management we keep Tom and we do hold people to the time if you supposed to get three minutes I understand the confusion sometime is that they're signing up as individuals but they're not it they're really are part of a group and I think I that's that's hard to manage as the chair in so I think we've addressed if people sign up at when they're supposed to you'd be first on the list okay excellent pointed dr. Gupta is stating but even when we talk about equity whether there's somebody out there that doesn't have access to these whatever it would take to

093call and do all of that prior to the meeting like others are able to and maybe if they crawl here to the meeting that night okay well I'm hearing us say that but if then if the policy we can't tell other people to follow policies that we intend to violate from the beginning so if this board is going to have a 30 minute restriction we are not being very good examples and Stewart some leadership to say that we will break our rules but you can't women we do hypothetically I hope y'all can understand what I'm saying missus a real problem saying your passion is more it's more important than their passion because it's not I'd I just don't know how we can do that I don't think I mean somebody could sign up and it

094might be from a group that hasn't spoken in three months and they speak on the same topic I don't know how you would regulate that and we put them in the bottom of a line and his passion is just important as mine I think everybody is dr. Gupta story the length of the person who is coming in front of the board as I said before and let me set it again say it again if you look at from the lens of the person who's presenting and you tell them as they are walking up to the podium sorry mr. Gupta you will be number four now you have already spoken that's really embarrassing almost humiliating using any words which are recognized but this is something which put yourself in those shoes and how will you feel

095even from an equity lens that's not fair to that individual putting in front of the camera and pushed out mr. Harvey go back to the issue that it is a meeting and I and I agree with dr. Coleman that's stating that if we're gonna say we have a 30-minute time limit we've got to stick to that 30-minute time limit it does not matter if one person is more passionate than others about speaking when thirty minutes is up thirty minutes is up because that's what we say is our policy so who wants to be telling someone who is just as passionate as someone else who has spoken multiple times in the past that they cannot speak because time has run out what I'm saying is trying to make it more accessible and fair to all persons

096I happen to know of an individual who wanted to come a couple meetings ago and speak about bullying and when she arrived here we were full and we were talking about a very contentious subject and she turned around and left she didn't want to speak at that time where that was the subject that we had been talking about over and over and over since I've been on this board I felt sorry that she was not given that opportunity she did not have that freedom to speak and she was just as passionate as someone else so what I'm saying is that if someone has spoken before in the previous meeting a new speaker would be given a priority in the cube so if time does run out it runs out on someone who has had the

097opportunity to speak previously that's that's what I'm suggesting I think that that I felt that was a very fair modification for the original policy that we had which as I understand would have been more in line with how City Council operates so we are still I feel like we are very open that we are very fair and we allow passionate or non passionate people the opportunity to speak I'm just saying that people who have not spoken before should have priority over those who have spoken before who wish to talk about the same subject all the spaces are filled up I'm walking on Court Street and I feel like presenting about bullying which I'm very passionate to speak I come inside and the signup sheet is full madam chair is not going to decide the bullying

098is brand new topic till the sheets in her hand and the school board meeting has always time and by the time I realized it's not for me I walked away so fairness will come if you implement priority when the signup sheet is started some say so you have a list of topics whether you say these are second variety short of that there's always be some unfairness but this is will not be an embarrassment for somebody who wants to speak in front of this board this prioritizing will cause potential for embarrassment miss Carter well there's another option also I know I think I think it's bad for a Campbell a MERS that the public comment is directly tied to the agenda so if the item is not on the agenda then it's not a public comment

099the public comment has to be tied to what the the agenda item is so therefore you can't you don't have these repeating presenters be unless the agenda constantly repeats dr. brand that's fair yeah I totally understand the discussion at the priorities and I'm a big advocate of dr. Coleman and I want to support what he wants to do an Olson mr. Harvey but I think that I've only been on the board for a little more than two years and and so far we have yet since I've been here we've yet to fill that 30 minute period for years one time in four years we've done that so I think it's a little bit of you know what would happen if and I don't know how if people come in and sign up you know right

100before the meeting like they do and we're having trouble reading their names how we're gonna figure out whether they've been there before to make that logistical piece so I kind of I kind of think it hasn't been an issue so far the the person who you talked with was able to speak she was just kind of overwhelmed by the crab there was time for her to speak it wasn't the time it run out where she felt uncomfortable because of the environment but I think we should have time the third minute seems like it's worked I again think we don't need to restrict or prioritize as long as we continue to have the ability to hear people speak to us which I think we're doing and I think the logistics of figuring that out as people

101come in right before the meeting to figure out how they spoke in the last two or three months they could be very hard any further comments so we have a policy recommendation in front of us that we have discussed we've had several comments that said we need to look at maybe putting people who have not spoken at the top of the list I've heard that from several people to people I've heard from Anna Sharon who said maybe it should be tied to the agenda and others who said we like it the way we're doing it now and we just continue to monitor it have I pretty much said what nyet what has been said have I summarized all right so what's aborts pleasure when we finish this topic there's another question I'd like to raise

102related to the policy not specifically to this discussion but related to public comments and our policy and whether we should consider some other aspect is it the time to do that or is that it's in this policy tonight it is regarding that very very briefly we don't address in this policy what we do for work sessions or for public meetings that we do and I don't think we really have a policy related to that so for example we had our work session you know we don't have a policy before that should this apply to that and the other piece which I'm going to bring up to dr. Gupta cuz he's such a good friend is that the other thing the City Council does which is interesting related to what happened the time when we wanted

103to have someone else speak is they have a policy that says that once you go through your policy of you've got time or whatever the restrictions are boom then others as stipulated above or during public comments no person shall be permitted to address the council orally except by permission of the council and such permission is not be granted unless with the consent of a majority of the members of the council president such meaning so for example if we wanted to have somebody to continue with the public sessions or we felt there was someone noise er speak that goes to the group to say do you want to do that or not and the majority group opposed to do it then it's allowed and I'm sorry but I do want to make sure we're just we're

104not addressing the work session or public well the work session has kind of evolved because we started the work session as something that was just the board informally could address topics we can't just sit and have conversation and then it has evolved not with where we started and that perhaps is a topic for us to discuss as a board what what do we want these work sessions to be I don't think we can do it tonight right but I do think it's a topic for a discussion at the work session because we did not televised them then we started televising though yeah it's so good yes question do you superintendent based upon with school board member Brennan just stated do we have at present a specific policy or regulation I know we have several concerning

105public hearings etc but do we have anything that specifically talks about how the board would function as it relates to interacting with presenters that are not from the admin or a part of an admin committee structure and if not then I think that we probably could come up with some specific policy or protocol that would help us to know how to navigate through the new terrain of work sessions and people being able to interact because how will we do it I'm an advocate for interaction with the public I feel very stifled when I can't talk to people there are a number of things about the work session that we sure as a board needs to sit down and decide what is it that we want to accomplish what we started out doing it's not where

106we are now it's kind of evolved okay all right so the policy that was submitted to us tonight it's for action is the Oh policy but there have been several discussions about moving people around and I'm I'm not sure how this would work for us to say how with this I don't I recognize his name but maybe I don't that's just from a logistics point yes okay all right so we have we have the agenda we've had a recommendation to amend the policy dr. Nellis you look I guess we don't have emotion so there's no no we didn't do emotions nothing definite at this point I was having to avoid that really yeah the amend the amendment well you have any thoughts well I think to prioritize I think that's reasonable it wouldn't be you

107know I think you could put some wording in like priority will be given to new speakers in the event the 30-minute time limit for public comments may be exceeded worst comes to worst we can always extend the time that's always possible then I think adding you know certainly expending a checkmark by the name I think is reasonable and it would just be would call up in terms of time then why do you need the priority for you know it's so except then it wouldn't be routine so mean if you're gonna have it be routine then don't put any time on and on but my point is when you're going to extend the time than wire to prioritize the prior typewriter ideation is to keep within the 30 minute limitation was prioritized without extending the 30

108minute time limit because again I go to the point dr. Nellis makes that this is a business me this board has many items to discuss so I make a motion to the adopted policy with as presented with the inclusion of priority will be given to new speakers in the event the 30-minute time limit for public comments may be exceeded all right we have a motion and a second any other discussion in the discussion in my mind that motion is not calling for any restrictions other than to appreciate time and to also appreciate a greater opportunity for and participation in sharing in my mine in further discussion we have us in his elimination and restrictions you can twist and turn in okay we have a motion and a second any further discussion all in favor of

109adopting this policy for public participation at school board meetings with the addition of priority given to new speakers without extending the limits please signify by raising your hand thank you all right all in proposed said that motion is defeated do I have a second motion an additional motion yes I typically do not do this but I'm a member of that workgroup and I move that we will adopt what has been presented originally now that everyone has had an opportunity to share and give that participate in sports let's hear a second dr. Brennan any more discussion all in favor okay dr. Millis thank you alright that takes us to oh let's work city school board policy updates this is the second reading of these policies which went through the instructional program worker and they are primarily

110BSBA changes I will just note that the suicide prevention policy jhh the regulation is up for adoption tonight the workgroup did review the regulation and that should be forthcoming a pen November Mexican we're just looking at the policies now that read this is up for action tonight do we have any discussion any questions it's mostly language is there a motion to approve the instruction and program review updates miss Carter thank you miss Evans second any further discussion all in favor any opposed yes new business health advisory board committee 2019 through 2020 the recommendations for members community members who would like to serve on our health advisory board along under the direction of miss and Vaughn gentry and that is up for action tonight for questions or comments okay second doctor nihlus moved in dr. Burton

111second comments dr. Gupta did you ever question wanna make sure in future we add some peers and NPS you know as we move forward that's the changing face of health care and we have programs you have a motion and second session on favor aye any opposition capital improvement program updates five years worth of capital improvement projects on the sheets that were provided to you in the board packet one year of funding is how the city approaches the funding so four years of what it looks like in the future one year is what everybody's focused in home for this budget cycle so there's a there's always recurring things related to mechanical and electrical for next year the Durrington chiller will be slated for replacement and we need to start investigating what the next version of heat

112is going to be at Dunbar middle school so we have some funds earmarked over a couple of years to look at whether we go with a new heating system or use the traditional steam system that's there and upgrade and replace it so we want to start looking at that towards the bottom third of that page you can see the funding spread over two years for a practice field that EC glass and I've got a picture of that at the end of this so you can kind of get an idea of where it sits on the campus roof replacements lots of roof replacements over the next 12 months Paul Monroe's roof basically half of Lincoln Elementary School Dunbar middle school the West building has a low roof Arius if you've ever been on the second or

113the third floor at Dunbar you can look out some of the interior windows or some CTE classrooms and things like that that are down on the first floor that low roof area needs to be replaced and then Sheffield Elementary School the addition that was put on in 2001 which is where the third fourth and fifth grades are that section needs a new roof we did the other part of the building a couple of years ago so that's the majority of the CIP we have a recurring item that we carry every year for upgrade of fencing and replacement of paving an example of what that money does is if you've been by hair to telemetry school they've had their whole front parking lot repaved this past summer need to kind of continue to program money to

114look at playgrounds playground equipment is constantly changing playground safety is constantly changing so that's going to be a consistent thing that I'll include year after year so the total request to the city will be right under 3.7 million dollars covering HVAC systems starting an athletic field significant roof work paving fencing and some playgrounds the bottom line on that on the sheet that's up there right now it's just kind of an earmark of of we always let the city know if they're willing to help us out with school buses will gladly take some money sometimes that works in our favor sometimes it doesn't so then I wanted you to see the EC glass field so let me orient you real quick at the very bottom of the screen is the outfield fence of the baseball field

115and you can actually see the light that sits there in left field of the baseball field you can see the tennis courts obviously so the area that we're looking at is that lower field that's referred to as the throwing field in the back corner of these seaglass property mr. Thompson and I took a look at it last spring and if we take the dirt from the high ground and move it to the low ground and put in an oarfish artificial turf that outline that you see there is a hundred yard field by sixty yards wide so we do get the benefit of a significant practice surface we will not lose anything from the throwing aspect of track and field and that we will keep those throwing points for discus and shot put anchored in the

116corners of those fields to continue to support when these pictures were taken you can actually see the discus arc in the bottom left corner is painted on the field there's a discus and a shot put throwing area in the top left corner and then both disc and shot put in the top right corner of that field layout so it's space that is utilized to support just one thing track and field throwing sports we can add a field and significantly increase the capacity to keep students and support our field based athletics on campus so that's kind of the concept that we are putting forward over all cost for doing this work and putting artificial turf down turf is what makes it work when you're playing sports year-round you've got to have an artificial surface total cost

117is around 1.2 million dollars so I want everybody to kind of get a visual of where it was located and the throwers will not lose their practice areas no ma'am the throwers will not lose their practice area and one of the concepts that we'll investigate is that there's a significant height difference between where the baseball field is now and where this lower field is so as we level that we've still got to have some grading to take care of the change in elevation and we will look to install some type of a seating arrangement whether it's it's tiered with block and then you have grass seating areas where people can set up chairs are you actually install seating so that folks that are spectators for the throwing sports kind of make a throwing sport arena

118out of one of the corners do something like that to make it more appealing there were some students that came to us maybe six years ago about the time that mr. Lathem had left there he still coaches there for throwing sports and they had a concept of trying to convert that area into a throwing complex so we're gonna kind of take their aspect of supporting the throwing sports and and the spectator side of that and then also add to it a practice field so I think we'll get both both look and feel and support for the campus I would prefer that I would prefer that people not use an interior field so we would we would basically abandon it dr. Gupta problem the presenters had today or it will be that this is the solution

119that's a solution what they were here speaking about it's been something that we've looked at for several years and finally we just got the right people aligned and figured out that you know we can we can get this done if we can get the funding it will change though that whole back corner of the campus is very underutilized the fencing's in need of repair there's lots of scrub bushes that have grown up so we'll use this as an opportunity to kind of clean up everything put new fencing in and give it it really just saying dr. Coleman I am overjoyed dr. Copelan that this is being presented this is not a fresh issue as has been stated and as I previously stated that there was something after that a committee at one point I know

120the school board member Charlie white and others have been talking about this I think I saw him here tonight and others and so this is a really good thing that I totally support on it whether we're voting on in a match at night I certainly do support this if we continue to improve athletic equity thank you very much do you have more I'll answer any questions I just had one closing okay go ahead and close so if you're the last if you haven't seen what happens on our campuses in the fall Youth Sports is big in this city so right now my example of the benefit of having multiple fields and how we support the youth sports activities go to Heritage High School on a Saturday and you're gonna see YMCA soccer on the field

121across the creek and then you're gonna see Hill City youth football playing and it's like there's no parking within a half mile of Heritage High School on a Saturday morning so this will also help the city out with youth sports and being able to support everything across the city that's great dr. Brennan very patient City through all this time and coming up with this presentation I'm sorry I missed the slip between the the one the 1.2 million dollars that the cost for that is so expensive because of the grading and because of the material you're putting down and then secondly as a capital improvement project is this funded by the city that is it is on the list to go forward to the city you know first support okay all right because if just briefly

122say the 1.2 million the cost for that is so expensive because we want to ensure that it has an artificial playing surface on it so it supports practice year-round practice so right now even though baseball isn't in its official practice season or in spring sports aren't they have out of season practice and if you go back to when glass had a supposed grass field there was so much use on that field you can see pictures of there was more dirt than there was hard so we know that we need a surface that can stand up to five to six hours of use every day of the school year and weekend use and that's got to be an artificial surface miss Carter oh sorry we would request 550 thousand dollars that would come to us in

123July of 2020 and then stretch the rest of the funding would come to us in July of 2021 so that gives us the cycle time to kind of design it hit the spring when the weather clears up start doing the work you've got five hundred and fifty thousand dollars worth of money in the bank and then about the time you finish the project July 1st the other six hundred fifty shows up you pay out the rest of the project and hopefully by the start of the school year 2021 we'd have a nice look nice service Heritage Elementary gymnasium are they still in the CIP are we are not proposing to the city for funding I do not have any additional funding in this request to go forward for another gym I think there's an opportunity

124and I think we'll have that discussion and financing thank you any other questions for dr. Coburn this is her information tonight so thank you all right Lynchburg City School Board section for finance okay hello and you all have a binder full of Section four policies which were converted to the SBA policies inside there is a table of contents similar to have we've done before with other policies we're in the process of converting this does not represent all of the policies that the funding of the fiscal workgroup worked on but just the ones that we reviewed and came across to say yes we can switch this to the new vsba policy there is a lot to read but I will just point out some highlights for you by page and this is for information tonight thorough

125review over the next month and then any questions that you may have but if you go to page 88 in your binder which is the conversion to the small purchases one of the recommendations that we made is to raise the amount that requires our staff to get competitive bidding right now that amount is about a thousand dollars and almost everything is a thousand and one dollar which means they have to constantly get bids for some things so you'll see in our in our policy here that we've raised that to be it for more than 2,500 and or up to 2,500 and then you'll see other limits for 5,000 of things so we wanted to just bump it up a little bit look like you have questions unnecessary bureaucracy is it you want to push it

126faster or you want to wait till next we want to see we want to test-drive it a little see what happens there and then it's lower than what the city does but we still are cautiously proceeding how's that um other thing that I wanted to point out on page 126 I'm sorry not 186 24 98 you guys like this one because you've been asking for it on page 98 which is our purchasing cards or our fondly known as P cards the board has been requesting be first with you and express some concern when you travel in a school board and have to use your credit card you didn't have the power but what we did here in the first paragraph you can see a purchasing card may be used by designate at Lynchburg city school

127employees what was missing was and school board members so we are making a recommendation to include that language which would allow coverage and all of the fun that comes with monitoring the p-card for school board members as well if you skip ahead to 1:26 and this is really just talking about vendor relations and particularly as you go to conferences you develop relationships with vendors and everybody has a product and you want to get in there anyone to sell and yes who has the authority to really make those decisions so we it's really we trying to clean up the authority in terms of having vendors come and speak to staff perhaps use instructional time that really should go through me and the directors and be cleared and aligned with our strategic plan and that saves us

128having multiple vendors just to purchase school and demand school time so there's a little bit of cleanup there just to make sure that everything is in line with our our strategic planning processes and on page 164 you know there is a question just about cash in schools and what the procedures are in terms of our staff cash and we put four checks because sometimes our you know people are collecting checks and you know what do you do with that money this is all just comes up and we have our audit and we want to make sure we have a clean audit so we did add not just for cash but checks to should follow this protocol and many of our schools particularly our secondary schools have a designated school bookkeeper or school finance officer our

129elementary schools do share so we added some language to include the school bookkeeper as being one of those people who given I'm handle have the money so that's just a snapshot of some of the things that I think we've been a couple months now discussing a lot of this no no Kim if I cover it most of what we [Applause] any questions once you have the time to look and it may be early great vacation uteri oh I highly that then there's just to school board retreat agenda that gave each of you one this is dr. Edwards and dr. Coleman and I've worked on this and we're bringing it to you tonight the comments and approval we were gonna thanks to dr. Gupta we're having a retreat on October 2 11th at the University of

130Lynchburg and xual hall room 231 we're having breakfast and the first topic would be kind of outline of the day and how things are going to operate the second is a chat and chew breakfast that's working we're working our chewing and that's what we're gonna go over the school board norms that we discussed that our training at the SBA we need to finalize that and look at approving them and then we're going to laminate them and put them at everybody's taped to front so that we have them after we do that from 8:30 to 9:30 strategic plan goal three fiscal responsibilities a lot of the topics that you submit it to us and our board clerk involved the physical responsibility of the board we really want it to dive deeper into Budget and Finance and

131this will be that opportunity to do that the first will be will overview like we did tonight the goals and strategies and I think you'll be really happy to see the amount of work that's been done then we have the opportunity to dig into what we want to know that from 9:30 10:30 personal growth the same kind of thing but one of the topics that we received a great deal of interest is recruitment and retention and said we're going to really dig into that after we go over the personal growth strategic plan from 10:30 to 10:45 we're going to have a comfort break and we're not going to chat and chew we're going to actually take a break and then from 10:45 to 12:00 strategic plan goals student growth overview objectives and strategies deeper dive

132into program transformation as what are we doing to adapt our programs to help our students achieve and that we can raise the achievement level of our students from 12 to 1 we have a chat and to lunch and that's where we will talk about the adopter school you'll get suggestions dr. Brennan and I are talking about how to set up weary as a board what this means what we can and shouldn't do or can and and I will also say that really worked hard to give people what they wanted and if there's a school that you want and someone else has it that's for you to negotiate with them and then you tell us that you make that swap don't come to me and say I want a different school I'm excited about the legislative

133advocacy Park having mr. Kessler come down and go into us that will go into it with us how we it's the best way to proceed what are options that we have that we've not taken advantage of in the past and then we have our own agenda that the things topics that we've developed members of that committee of work very hard to come up with I think are really good goals and things that we want to achieve for our students five-minute closure and you know that that won't happen but we're going to try to stick to this so that we can get out of there in a reasonable hour that day now this we're open it's casual tire comfortable shoes wear some orange because we're going to have our picture taken to support the anti-bullying campaign

134that we're initiating this month so topic suggestions I think you can see from the work that we're dr. Edwards for Senate tonight on stage it plan how much work and the coordination with other goals and plans it's really quite phenomenal thank you dr. Cohen one piece that would add for mr. Kessler Bob did you say you were going to forward the legislative agenda to everybody for review prior to so if there's a pertinent question that you have about any of those items and you want more information insight understanding of it be prepared to raise those questions to him because that's also a part of why he's coming so that we can properly understand what those items are to make the appropriate determinations as to if that really is something that we feel is a top

135priority for us on that like EOC type data you may be collecting at the back end or from each applicant right now we get who is hired but in terms of applicants what's the distribution how many minority candidates do we had have we had in those positions and how many were hired all the years do you have the data or is that there has been a concern that are we getting the role models for our kids you know are we getting a reasonable amount of black male and females thank you thank you any other questions do you all think this looks going through the strategic plan goals that they both go twice as long the first to go twice as long as we we are going to stick to the time and we're gonna each

136have our little Flags that we can hold up if somebody's taking up too much of their time glad you mention that because as we're going through let's say the strategic plan goes and you see a section and it's not budget or finance it might be capital government is one of the ones that you'll see under fiscal and you might want a little bit more information about the practice fields or whatever what we what we're planning on doing this why said we're comfortable shoes cuz you know I'm gonna move you from room to room to room what we're planning on doing is having on the walls places where we can say where do we want a deeper dive and we recognize that we only have so much time and even with this we can't get into

137everything so it may be something that you say and I'm glad we talked about reinventing the work session and defining it you may say we want a work session on 3.2.1 so we're not going over and that will help us will say topics that will make the top yeah so that we have it and then what we really can do because teacher of me is like once you get a list what you want we have the months of November December I don't know which all that we have work sessions you can start to manage expectations and move some things around and just just say this day I just need to say October 11th is also the division PD day so last year we had a full arsenal of directors with us and everybody they will

138all be with the teaching staff on that day so you have the team of Edwards and Copeland and laconic and G that will be there with you that day while all of the directors will be assisting with professional development with this the staff that's why we were pretty specific with the topics that we could go into so good yeah do sharon plans ahead of time I'm trying to get a lot - yeah that would be helpful yeah okay superintendents comments okay um first I just like to say thanks to Chris and Ian and Chris is still here so he is a trooper for staying both excellent presentations and as Miss Morrison said it is much more rich when this year here and engage and you just help me cross things off my report because you

139get so much of that out that it shortens my report a little bit on what I have to to do but we we love the student voice so keep it coming and I love the challenge piece so and she's serious about the challenge so the other thing I'd like to say is just again you know one more kudos to Paul Monroe for being a national Blue Ribbon School but along those lines also 13 of our schools are fully accredited which lots of hard work and teamwork went into that and continue to go into that we like I said on the press release we saw some double-digit gains in area so we are picking that data and breaking it all apart we're looking for those places where it just really popped and what was responsible for

140that and and there's already conversation within schools and between schools about some of the successful things that went on so looking forward to more dialogue about that and just much more data we talked about bullying prevention month and is also from September 15th to October 15th is National Hispanic Heritage Month and a lot of our schools are doing activities and engaging students to to recognize the contributions of our Latino latina population and just recognize the National Hispanic Heritage Month tomorrow is national custodial recognition day so if you've ever been in our buildings like I have and you look down and you go look at the floor and say I look good because the floors that shiny and clean or you just you know notice that our custodial staff does a great job of just maintaining

141our facilities and keeping them clean and just being responsive and it's kind of like the magic that you don't see happening but it happens because they're in the buildings please give a shout out to them tomorrow excited about October 8th hope you all will be there because the Secretary of Agriculture will be with us and this is going to be a big deal event it just seems to be getting bigger and bigger at Perry MA at October 8th 11:30 to 1 secretary Ling will be here to participate in a roundtable about our our Creamery project that we have with the local Creamery but also farm to school so talking about some of the initiatives and things that are going on at Paramount so we excited about that and all of the wonderful work that has

142has happened with that it's been pretty busy with school starting and opening having so much going on the kids did a great job of telling you some of the wonderful things that are happening and if you ever need a date night between the sports the activities the arts we have you covered for very low price so really come out and join us at any of our activities I was at the EC glass homecoming game with the class of 89 who was in full force there so there's a lot of school spirit for even those who graduated from a while ago still come back and join us I like to say this past month I've been living on the edge literally on the edge having done the human kind over the edge bucket list check that

143off nothing like being horizontal 20 stories up leaning over the bank of the James but what a wonderful experience and yeah what a wonderful experience for me too yes to have done that but so appreciative I do want to give a thank you to everyone who supported me who donated to the fundraiser it was for a very good cause and my husband and I raised over $2,000 for humankind and their efforts in supporting our families so that was great and during that time between being over the edge I decided that I would run two half marathons and the Virginia ten-miler and I will take the philly half marathon in a Virginia Beach half marathon over the 10 miler any day because I still can't get up leghorn Road but what was really nice about running

144the 10 mile artists this past weekend was all of the staff there LCS was representing between the 10 and the 4 Mile and the four mile walk but all the kids that were out there I mean most of them were way past me but but it was really great like cross-country teen was was out there and just smiles and celebration so it's a nice community thing and I'm not by far a really great runner but I just love being out there and being part of that so that was great I visited dump our middle school eighth graders as they were on the James River and I didn't get to get in the boat because it was the same day I had to do a couple press releases so I couldn't get the whole water experience

145next time I will but what a wonderful program and what a wonderful experience for our kids and just talking with them how many of them have had this outdoor experience and for some of them it was their first time and it was a great time so anytime we can provide that and connect it to the curriculum it's wonderful it talked a little bit about joining the economic development and tourism group for their presentation for their one year outcomes very packed presentation and they're doing some good work there that is the one that I am the liaison for dr. copelan is the liaison for the City Schools task force and you had a meeting today and worked with them and miss Reeves is back there she's the liaison for the human collaborative which is a city

146group of all the city employees and she's the liaison that works with that group so we have a lot of city school connections that just fit nicely with our goal for their as well continuing to work on strategic plan you know that so I hope to have all of this information for you before we get to the retreat so you can have it and read it and just a couple of things coming up our third graders are going to the point of honors field trip coming up and we like to keep our kids in the community that's one of the things that you saw on our goals and I will be meeting at the end of this week with the history teachers at class and at Heritage one of the things that I would like

147to do in advance of my work on the Commission is talk to our staff I'd love to get a group of students so I'm give you another challenge just to talk about how we're teaching african-american history and the perspective of the teachers who teach it the students who receive it the community members who have experienced it and lived it so I'm kind of doing an informal tour just to learn as much as I can and be as informed as I can so that we can really have a make a positive difference and when we go forward I'm going around so that I don't miss anyone this time miss Evans dr. Gupta would you like to introduce yourself you've been silent nor former board attorney retired yesterday so I will be taking also after the meeting

148just have a my part with my number so you all could have that and and hopefully we'll be in touch soon thank you thank you so much and I wanted to acknowledge dr. Copeland I texted you two weeks ago there was an accident on Ward's Ferry Road pretty bad accident and it was heartening to see dr. Copeland standing there helping families out when we were still waiting for cops and our sea school kids were bringing in water zooming there from governor school our dealer from one of the families had to pass elementary kids they were going to hill city youth football game and I've got tied up in the accident so they she made arrangements somebody came picked up the kids they went to the game the police finally showed up and there were no

149major nobody got hurt physically had been about six feet in front of me as my daughter and I were going through the intersection so it was a mess thank you for doing this thank you dr. Brennan regarding the tort of transportation so so glad mr. Haines has been sitting with us this evening one is that there apparently there's a recent initiative by governor Northam and by the Virginia Department of Environmental Quality talking about funding for electric school buses out of a fund they have a 20 million dollar fund from the Volkswagen problem that they had with their diesel fuel so they will reimburse up to 265 thousand dollar for purchase of electric school buses this is going to start they start taking applications in February March 2020 they're gonna go by the oldest buses first

150and I suspect we probably got a few old buses so I'd love to see if there's any interest or any availability for that and that also related to our transportation as doctors always say there was a great turnout Virginia ten-miler my other hats that we're a sponsorship chairman and one of our sponsors Lynchburg city schools because they have transported all the all the people to go from rut that walk or run to Randolph College to get back to class which is more than their run their reruns in the ten miles there are about 1,500 people in ten mile event there are more than that to actually get transported and so we always like to recognize Lin spiritually schools with a plaque so if I can leave that with dr. Edwards and she will do what

151you want but and congratulation everybody who ran it and all the staff that were there but thank you very much thank you mr. Harvey big thank you to ms Lipscomb's fourth and fifth grade art classes of TC Miller about two weeks ago myself and Katie adder one of the people from my office had the opportunity to meet with with students and talk about architectural elevations in the construction of their light towers lighthouses and bird feeders so what an upcoming board meeting I'm going to share with the students their final projects with you because I'm it's it's pretty exciting not only are they combining the art of the design and what the outside look like but they're also combining stem they're gonna like these lighthouses up so I'm really excited to see that they're gonna wire

152them so they're actually working so I'm really looking forward to seeing that but got this great card from all the students and I thought that was just really impressive also on today I completed the final stage of new board member of training and I just wanted to say I'm just totally impressed with all of the departments within our school system and all the staff and the people that really serve our students and one of the things that I'm gonna try to do is that each board meeting I'm going to try to pick a department actually kindly give some kudos to them and and let people in the community know a little bit about them so this tonight I wanted to start off with facilities under under the supervision of deputy superintendent dr. copelan and director

153of facilities Steve Gatzke Department is made up of facilities administration which includes purchasing they have building maintenance grounds paint crew environmental and warehouse it's important to note that building maintenance has a crew of approximately 23 people and they respond to over 4,000 work orders in any given year and that is just reactionary work orders that does not include the planned work orders that they accomplish so that's just amazing they have two shifts and these folks work just incredible our grounds crew was made up of seven members that cover all of our school facilities and that I've passed these guys out in Bedford Hills and saw them and I thought it was just one group of you know maybe there are a couple other crews around but it's just one crew that does all this so

154hats off to them they did they do a great job so I just wanted to try to pass along some of the information that I learned during this training so that members of our community can understand you know the special people that we have within our school system that are doing a great job that that some some of them are behind the scenes but they really do serve our students on a daily basis so thank you to them thank you miss Carter just want to say again congratulations to Paul Monroe and I know we're looking at how we can replicate that and have more Blue Ribbon Schools it's hard work yes I would also like to welcome Attorney Hope towns and I know that chair will be leading us in doing something for Nora yes

155just incredible service that she's provided and one of the things that I'm looking forward to and I believe as we have advocated for that going forward that our school board attorney will join us in our school board meetings and help us support us when we can if not always not always this long no now you can't scoot out whatever but that is something that we've been advocating for and I'm very happy about that I do apologize for not being at the 10 miler but I had to speak in in Houston and I just wanted to say on the plane going I set beside a school psychologist from Charlotte they'd be interested in relocating to the area and on the way back I set by a schoolteacher from Charlotte who knows Casey crab and and they

156work together and I thought that was incredible and while I was there school boy remember during Paulie called me and wanted me to tell you all hi I'm excited about being a poem enroll the other day last week was incredible to see hundreds of students come together over at loop Liberty as a part of the food for thought and they prepared thousands of bags that will go out in terms of food and sufficiency and insecurities rather for the weekends and so we've got so much help I'm happy to hear about the fields for glass and hopefully this applic after the committee can find its way a chair motion I try to be obedient you said have something on orange so I changed soups and put on this the best I could retiring this and I

157got my ribbon and I heard those advocates doing the public comments and I want to thank Dan Harrison for coming out and I thought that was wonderful and I want to close agreeing with the chair and the superintendent young man you have stayed the entire your your report was top-notch both of them but have really respect their thank you I have just a few reminders the school board first amendment webinar October 10th from 12:00 to 1:00 at mr. Harvey's office I ask that you all please let us know so that our clerk can send out the menu from Depot we can order that in it lasts one hour and so you'll need to be there before 12:00 I want to give a shout out to Cindy Babb with her did you know newsletter that goes

158out it is great and I hope people do take the time to read what the kids are saying about school and what they're there to do but it's it's a really it's well done and I very much appreciate it and I hope that we can get it out to everyone in the city eventually okay so all right so that's all I have thank you all for tonight where the next item is the notice of closed meeting the school board needs to convene a closed meeting as permitted by virginica 2.2 - 3 7 1 1 a 2 discussion or consideration of admission of discipline manners or any other matters that would involve the disclosure of information contained in a scholastic record concerning a student it's their motion to convene into a closed meeting miss Carter there's

159a second all in favor aye can you oppose we are going to take a break so that they can break down we're gonna stay in here [Music]