001Mr. Zack Graham >> here. >> Chairman, Miss Jen Moyers is absent. >> All right. Thank you, ma'am. Uh Dr. Jones, would you care to lead us in a moment of silence in the pledge of allegiance, please? >> Stand for a moment of silence. I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands, one nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. >> Thank you, Dr. Jones. All right. Um, do we have any additions or corrections to the agenda? >> No, Chairman. >> All right. Seeing no additions or corrections, can I get a motion and a second for approval of the agenda? >> Motion to approve. >> Second. >> Motion second. All in favor? >> I. All right. Moving on to a public hearing
002for the fiscal year 27 through31 capital improvement plan. Uh Mr. L. Should I read this or can I >> Okay. Do we have anyone here to speak for public for the public hearing? >> No, chairman. >> All right. So, don't do I still need to open and close it or are we good to go? You have to open. >> All right. I would like to open the public hearing. If you are here to to speak uh during public hearing, please see Mr. Deloreier to sign in. Uh can I get a No, I don't need to vote. I am opening the public hearing. Uh the purpose of public hearing is to allow comments directly related to the fiscal 26 through 30 capital improvement plan. The agenda says 27 through 31. >> 27. >> Okay. All right.
003Just take 27 through 31. Um this guideline citizens wishing to speak must sign in. When called to the podium please provide your name, mass park address. Each person is allotted three time minutes. Mr. Wy will let you know if you hit that time. >> Now do we have anyone to speak? >> No chairman. >> All right. Uh seeing that we have no one to speak, I'm now closing the public hearing for the 27 to 31 capital improvement plan. >> All right. Moving on to consent agenda. We have uh can I get a motion and a second for approval of consent? >> Motion to approve the consent agenda. >> Second. >> Motion and second. All in favor? >> I. >> All right. Moving on to superintendent spotlight and announcements with Dr. Rates. >> All right. Good
004evening, Chair Alexander and members of the board. Once again, tonight we are going to start by spotlighting our music department. Uh, tonight we're talking about the Manasses Park Middle School. There we go. music department. Then we'd like to share some good news about our young band and choir students and how they represented Manasses Park City Schools at this year's district band and choir assessments. The band assessment took place at Woodbridge Senior High School and the choir assessment was held here at Manasses Park Middle School hosted by Miss Kelly Burcher. Our students worked very hard at learning the musical material leading up to the event. And here are some of the results. Our sixth grade concert band performed grade level one music and earned an excellent rating. And we'd like to note that they were the
005only sixth grade band to perform in the district assessment. The seventh grade concert band performed grade level two music and and earned a superior rating. The eighth grade concert band performed grade level three music and also earned a superior rating. >> The eighth grade men's choir started off their assessment event earning a superior rating. And the eighth grade women's choir followed up the next day with a solid performance of their own, earning yet another superior rating as well. As a result of our top band and choir performing groups earning superior ratings across the board, we are once again eligible for the VMEA Blue Ribbon Music Award. As you recall from previous years, this is the highest award given to school music programs in the Commonwealth of Virginia. It honors achievement excellence in band, orchestra, and
006coral performance. All top eligible performing groups must receive a final superior rating at the district concert performant assessment to qualify for this award. And we want to put a special thanks out to our music teachers, our administrators for supporting these students work. And we want to highlight uh the work of our elementary band and music teachers for laying the foundation needed to make this success possible for our students in future years. And they have concerts like back to back to back this whole month. So we told them they could just watch us tonight. All right. Also this week, this is teacher and staff appreciation week, and we want to take this opportunity to celebrate the incredible educators and support staff who make a difference in our schools every single day. Our teachers and staff go
007above and beyond to support, inspire, and care for our students. And this appreciation means the world to them. That's why we once again have invited our community in to tell us how great our staff members are. I mean, it's one thing for us to stand up here and talk about it. Um, but last year we started um inviting the community to send in some things and this year we've been overwhelmed by the amount of support we've been receiving. So, if you've been watching our Facebook page all day today, you've probably seen these things start to pop up. I did pull a couple off of here for you to see. Um, these were some of the first ones we got in. One for Tiffany Robinson from our middle school. Miss Tiffany, thank you so much for
008being such a positive light in Cassid's life. Your encouragement, teaching skills, attentiveness, and kindness has greatly impacted her life and her confidence, and I'm truly grateful she has someone like you in her corner. The world needs more teachers like you. Thank you again for all that you are, beautiful inside and out. And then also another one for Miss Balsamo. Thanks for going above and beyond for your students. Erica really enjoys being in your class and that makes us so happy. She is always in a hurry to get to class. Um, and this year we added some little stickers and when they send in their comment, they can choose whatever sticker they want to put on and send to that teacher as well. Um, so we thank all of our teachers, our support staff, um, and
009everyone working every day to keep our kids safe, happy, and learning at school. That concludes our spotlight this evening. >> No, chairman. >> All right, moving on to public comments. Mr. War, do we have anyone signed up for public comments? >> No, chairman. >> All right, moving on to new business. Sport policies first reading. >> All right. Good evening everybody. Uh policy committee just spent uh earlier this evening. Uh you'll see in your agenda about 43 policies uh relevant updates from the VSBA issued in February, March and April. Uh incorporating you know any number of you know minimal state changes. Um a lot of items updated for clarity. I will say vast majority of those are very minor based on the 5-year cycle. So things like clarifying languages, there's a lot of word shifts um
010that don't really substantively change anything, but really just for clarity, there's a lot of updates of legal and cross references as they come up on the review cycle every 5 years. Just the opportunity to do that and then a lot of other administrative changes, not a lot of substantive stuff in the vast majority of those policies. I will highlight a few if it helps you all kind of highlight your review on some that I would characterize as more substantive for a number of reasons. Uh GBE uh which is staff weapons and school language just to ensure it is more aligned with state law. Uh GD support staff is a merger of several policies. No big changes overall but it was just a kind of collapsing three policies into one. Oh, uh, JFCD, weapons on school
011property, and JFD, I think it's E, gang related activity or association. Again, language really there just to point back to state law and ensure consistency and compliance. Uh, KGB and KK, school visitors. Again, um, really minor changes, but more uh, to kind of point back to state law and assure consistency. Same with KP, parent rights and responsibilities. The last two in the trench that you will see are um one new and one rewrite. AH digital accessibility is a brand new recommended policy just to ensure compliance with state and federal laws related to students with disabilities. And then GCBE on family medical leave essentially rewritten. Um you'll see both the revoked recommendation and then the new one. It collapses down essentially an 11page policy down to about three pages. Um for simplicity sake, no real substantive
012change to what family and medical leave is. Uh but really just cleaning up that policy. So those are all there for your review uh here in this first reading. Uh if you have any questions um as you're looking through that, please reach out and happy to kind of help direct you to the right folks if you have any. And that's all. >> Thank you. >> All right. Thank you, Mr. Graham. Um I'm sure we all look forward to reading all of those >> in our It's awesome. Love policies. All right. Um, moving on to administrative services 2728 academic school calendar. >> Dr. Rates is going to share with you some information regarding the survey results as we uh share for the 2728 calendar. Did you unplug it after race? I think I may have stepped
013on a cord. It's coming back. I didn't really step on it. Just a second. It is back on my computer. >> Did I I may have slightly stepped on this. >> Only slightly. It's a first. >> Yeah. If we do it because I do have it up here as well. >> It's like it's just Yes. 15 results for We'll just go there. >> It's okay. >> We're just going to go ahead and get moving and maybe it'll >> be fine. Just try to kick it again. >> All right. Um, good evening again, Chair Alexander, members of the board. Tonight, I'm here to present the results of a calendar survey that we recently completed for the 2027 2028 school year. So before we go into the results of the survey, I do want to uh just
014do a quick highle overview of the two options that we had out in the survey um for 2027 2028. So you'll see two options here. One is option A and one is option B. Um I'd like to highlight at the beginning that um as you all know we are required to have a certain number of days for students. So required to have 180 days for students and then we have um staff members that all work on different days in their contract. So if it's a 200 day contract, 210, 245. Um so both of these options um do meet all of those requirements. They just meet them in different ways. Um so really looking at the differences. Um if we're talking start and end dates, option A has been running on a little bit more of
015the um traditional historical calendar that we've used over the years. So option A has a start time or a start date I should say of mid August, which is about August 16th. And then the school year runs until that first week of June. Option B has an earlier start date of around August 10th, about a week prior, and students are done with the school year prior to Memorial Day. So we would wrap up the school year on the Friday before Memorial Day. So about starting about a week earlier and getting out then about a week earlier. One of the other main differences you'll see is in option A, we have a traditional fall break that we've had in the past where we're off Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday. Um, and option B has a week fall
016break for students. So, students are off Monday through Friday, that week of Thanksgiving. Winter break and spring break are basically the same on both calendars. We did um look to keep spring break aligned with the Easter holiday and that also aligns with our surrounding divisions. most of our surrounding divisions. Um, so we felt that that was a a good choice on both calendars. So, winter break looking at about the same two week break that we would typically have and then spring break would be the week that we typically have aligned with the Easter holiday. Um, okay. So, the two uh probably biggest differences between the two calendars. So, option A has the second quarter or the end of the first semester ending in January. So typically uh like this year we'll go on winter break,
017we'll come back for about 2 to 3 weeks and then that first semester ends. In option B, the first semester aligns with the start of winter break. So by starting a few days earlier in August, we're able to wrap up the first semester before winter break. We come back from winter break and we are in uh semester 2. The other um difference that you'll notice between the two, there are still some sprinkled in early release days. Um there are some professional development and teacher work days in there, but option A um also recognizes division close days for the holidays that we recently added, some of the non-Christian holidays that we recently added over the years, including our Jewish holidays, our Muslim holidays, and our Hindu holidays. Option B has more five-day weeks in there and
018kind of goes back to before we had those as division close days. So, you'll see more um you know of those kind of consecutive weeks in option B. So, those are the largest differences between the two calendars. And when we put the survey out um to our families and to our staff, I did highlight those differences in there so they didn't really have to go hunting for them in the calendars. Okay. Okay, so the participants um we had 426 responses and I'm going to break these responses down a little bit in a minute like so you can see it um a little bit clearer because we have 203 so 47.7% of parents, 239 or 56.1% staff members and 15 or 3.5% students. Um the reason I broke it down a little bit more when we
019go into later slides is because there are some parents who are also staff members. So you could check more than one box. So overall from the 426 responses, you can see that option B um got 57.5% of the vote and option A got 42.5% of the vote. So one of the questions I had when I really started drilling down into that data was, okay, who's in that 57.5 and who's in that 42.5? So if you look here, we have for parents, we had 173 responses. Parent and staff member, meaning I'm in both of those roles, was 28, staff members 210, and students 15. And so if you look across, you can now break it down by what the percentages were by each one of those responder categories. So for our parents, we actually had 55%
020go for option A and 45% for option B. If you're a parent and a staff member, 43% voted for option A and 57% for option B. Staff members, 35% for option A and 65% for option B. And students, 1% for option A and 99% for option B. Um, so really just kind of pulling this out and looking at it, it does appear that staff members and students had more of a preference for option B and parents had a little bit more of a preference for option A. So that is basically the um overview of the calendars, the options, um the responses from the community for the survey. And I think what we're probably looking uh forward to is maybe having a little further discussion on this, give you guys some time to kind of look
021through this information, look at the calendars a little closer, maybe bring this back for discussion again at our next board meeting. um and then look to maybe make a motion to move on one of the options at our meeting in June would be our plan. So that concludes the presentation on the calendar survey results. Um and I'm happy to take any questions if you have them. I u my question was actually to our student uh board representatives. I just we only had 15 students participate. I'm not saying it wasn't YouTube, but I would just love to hear the board would love to hear your perspective uh while we grapple with this decision if you guys had a preference or any thoughts. >> Have they had a chance to look at it? >> Have you guys
022had they had a chance to look at it? >> No. >> Have you had a chance to look at it? Okay. >> Maybe at the next meeting if you guys can let us know. >> Yeah, we can do that. >> Right. Um I've seen this I've seen the uh calendars and I've seen like the differences, but I haven't seen the survey. >> Okay. What um when you looked at the two calendars, did you have an opinion? >> Um I did also prefer uh option B, which was the one that had like the most like more uh religious holidays, I believe. Um I per uh personally based on like what I like experienced this year, I think those breaks have also really helped. And a lot of people have like that respect towards different um religions
023and different holidays and they've like taking that time to be able to celebrate those holidays without having to worry about oh like I'm having school during that day so I can't partake in this. >> Mhm. >> Thank you. >> I have a couple questions. um is it possible to get and it doesn't have to be now but even when we have the discussion again an understanding of what flips it so and what I mean by that is parents obviously want A staff want B but if you're a parent and a staff you jump to B like what makes the parent who's a staff member all of a sudden switch so I'm trying to understand why what makes what why we because neither group each group is on opposite and So inevitably one group's not going
024to be happy with the decision that's made. So I'm trying to understand what causes that shift to make a parent who's also a staff member kind of all of a sudden move over to B. Um and then also a couple questions. How do how many snow days are we building into the calendars now? Obviously, this past year was was something to consider and I wasn't sure if the same number of days were reflected in that. And >> so, I I'll answer the uh snow day conversation. So, um we don't actually build in specific days for makeup day for snow. What we do is um you know, Virginia allows us to have 180 days or 990 hours. Uh so we calculate when we get into a position where we have days of school that we are
025out un unscheduled days of school due to weather that begins to collect a number of hours that we have to reduce from our total hours uh in the school year. So we begin to look at hours. Okay. >> Currently we um even in this school year uh we still are meeting our hour requirement the 990. We're exceeding it for the most part. Um and that's a calculation that we do uh for the state. So that is not necessarily um a driver for building those days in as maybe we would have had in years past. >> Yeah. I was just trying to determine I was just wondering if we were like if let's say we had 12 c you normally built in but were we shaving it down to 10 kind of hedging in order to
026kind of accommodate in other areas but that makes sense. Um the one I brought this up with Dr. honors and this is kind of one that uh I think is worth I'd be interested to hear what the schools can offer and this is a very this might be narrow but we've all for years we've heard that the AP students who take AP classes in first semester are at a disadvantage because the AP exams aren't until the second semester. So shortening now finishing the first semester in December is actually going to expand the amount of time for those kids but from when they're ending and to actually taking their exams. I know uh there was discussions about the school potentially putting together opportunities for those first semester kids to kind of get curricular, you know, crash
027course, whatever. But I I just be interested in some of those kind of things. And I know that's the one that pops into my head, but I'm sure there are other other impacts. I would just try to figure out if there's ways that the schools could kind of if we did go to option B, figure out some solutions to those issues as well rather than just kind of being like, well, this is kind of it is what it is. >> Yeah, I know that um Miss Kelso's already thought put some thought into that. And really, you know, there's >> like you said, there's other challenges that come with that regardless of the calendar. Um it kind of gets into that. Well, what what do you so test first, right? And if I do this one
028first and this one last, I get another month in this subject. And so I think we're instructionally we are used to looking at those issues and trying to make those decisions to make sure that we protect that. >> Right. I just and I want my my question is the reason I asked the question is because I would think like as a parent I would lean towards one over the other because I don't want my the dead time in curriculum between when my son finishes. So, I'm just saying that could influence the way, but if a parent knows these are all these are things we're going to supplement, then maybe potentially it shifts some of their back over to the other. And then the other question I have is a few years ago we shifted the
029schedule and I think for that first year that we did it where I think we went back to school earlier there we had to kind you know how do we handle with the state and the absenteeism numbers families that have planned stuff based off of what they thought start dates were going to be around or they always rent their beach house the same week every year kind of thing. Just was curious if we accommodate to kind of >> Yeah. I mean, I think that's why we're looking at 2728. >> So, we have we're set on 2627. So, that that calendar has been approved by the board. So, really starting to have this conversation now so that if you need to make arrangements differently, you can try um recognizing that regardless of that start date, we
030often have um you know, families who make decisions that don't align with the calendar. Yeah, I kind of forgot it was a year notice. >> We got a little bit more >> people can live with that. Okay. All right. All right. That was those were my only questions, but >> sorry, I had another question. Um, I saw I saw going back to the rel religious holidays. I saw Dewali on Octo on calendar A. Um, and I think we had a a community member reach out about Eid. Um is it too late to consider adding that to the calendar either of them? >> So right now on option A um I left the current holidays that we are observing in the current year. So those holidays are um Rashashana, Yam Kapour, um Diwali and then Eid
031Alfetur. Um there is a second Eid Alhada that some surrounding divisions recognize. We have not moved to recognizing that at this point. If you don't see one of those recognized, it's probably because it falls on a weekend. Um, so every year when we're doing the calendar, if say Dewali falls on a Saturday, it's not actually then recognized during the week the next week. So that's why you may not see it on there. Um, but the four that we've been recognizing over the past two years are the ones that are included in option A, but certainly we can look at any other ones. Yes, >> thank you. Yeah, I saw one listed out. I didn't see the other, but the fact that it falls on weekends, thank you for that reminder. to kind of related to
032that the wanted to ask about the week-long fall break at Thanksgiving. I haven't seen that in other communities. Is that that that doesn't seem common. Is that accurate >> around this region? If you looked and compared calendars right now, currently it's not. I can tell you um 20 years ago when I taught in Florida, that was very common there. It was called fall break. You got a week in the fall, a week in the spring, and two weeks at the winter break. Um, so I do think it's it is maybe not common, but it does exist around the country. Yes. >> So I was thinking, you know, can we maintain the status quo on what that fall wreck looks like and then kind of reappropriate those to maintaining some of the cultural and religious holidays
033that are absent in option B that this kind of balances more of the status quo, but we're still shifting earlier in the year, which it seems like people desired. Um my second one my second question was with the the quarters aligning with you know before and after the winter break normally we build in like teacher work days. What would be the kind of the plan with that falling with winter break? >> So I think in option B with it falling winter break we do come back on the Monday um to a teacher workday and then the students return on the Tuesday. >> Okay. I just looked up the just because I was curious what we approved. I I forgot what we had approved for 2627. Uh the last day of school next school year is
034June 9th just for everyone. And um the start date is August 17th just to kind of compare in case you were curious. Um it's a big jump to May before um Memorial Day. And chairman, just uh to kind of address um Mr. Graham's question, yes, it's a numbers game. Anytime you remove one day, then you have to find that instructional day somewhere else. So, it changes either the start or the end, and it begins to um adjust pretty much the entire calendar. So any way we cut it, we have to have 180 days um assigned for school for instructional days. And so yes, those adjustments can be made, but it will impact other things. >> So I guess are we getting feedback on the lack of five five day weeks? I've seen that elsewhere. I
035haven't heard that a huge issue here. Is are we trying to fix that? >> November. So yes, I mean we have heard um instructionally uh the challenges from our um of our staff members and just the inconsistency and that can be attributed to quite a few things this year. Um it you know both the way the calendar is aligned as well as this was a unique year as far as weather. Um and so that in itself um you know has caused some disrupted time frames for instructional purposes. And so when we really think about um having consistent blocks of time to um to really move instruction along, that's what the um proposed alternative was. So there's been some feedback. So providing the board with two very different options and allowing you all to have discussion
036and and hear from the community because ultimately this is you know the decision of the board to set the calendar. >> I sorry I had one more question. I just re recalled that 99% positive the VDOE passed that the SOS will be the last two weeks of school. Correct. Is that just based on whatever calendar we approve? Um because I know most surrounding uh school district school divisions are going to be ending in June. Does that affect us negatively? I just want sorry I just want to like explore all the options. They'll set the uh VDOA sets so testing windows and they're usually pretty wide to accommodate um >> you know like places like call pepper have already tested they're already done. So they're they're um we would be able to fall within the so
037testing windows that have been would be assigned for that year. >> Okay. So I'm >> fairly confident about that. Yes. >> No matter what calendar we chose, we would still fall within the window for those last >> supposedly last two weeks of school. >> Yes. >> Okay. Last question. This is philosophical. This is more just a what what are your thoughts? Um this might sound odd, but does either calendar give us a competitive advantage as it relates to recruiting? in there. >> I'm just curious because I mean like is it weighted I mean is it that big of a deal to where that would sway someone or is this kind of you know it you think someone's going to make a decision on their job based off of their salary? >> I mean if you
038look at the staff results maybe. >> Yeah. Well yeah I mean well that's thing they're close to split but I was just curious if it was if it was I'm just trying to make sure that we kind of fac you know balance all the factors and that's one that I'm interested in. I think with anything there's, you know, pros and cons to all of them. Um, and I know other divisions in the area are all looking at different calendars for coming years as well. Um, so I'm not sure. >> Yeah, >> I think it probably depends on the person. >> Okay. >> Any other questions? Ellen, you >> Yeah, sorry. one you that was a great point because I was about to say like they would essentially have all of June and July off but
039then uh thinking about teacher work week if we were to start so early in a I guess they would come back the beginning of August so they would still get about two months off. Sorry I'm I'm processing out loud. >> You're good. >> That was a good question. >> Any other questions? All right. >> Okay. >> Thank you. All right, moving on to finance policy JNP fines, charges, and annual update. Miss Amy Watkins, our director of finance, is going to present this information this evening for first review. >> Good evening, Chair Alexander, members of the board. Tonight, I present the first draft review of policy JN, student fees, fines, and charges. This one should be hopefully an easy policy. Um, every year the policy is reviewed um as changes are necessary. They come before the
040board for update. Um, our our last update was uh two years ago. Um over the past four to six weeks, I've worked with each of the school administration as well as their financial specialist to review our current fees and ensure that the proposed list of fees before you um are true and accurately will reflect what we hope to achieve in the 2627 school year. For the most part, um the updates were minimal. each school fee list uh had been reorganized or rewarded just kind of consistency across all of the four schools. Uh specific names, locations or branded items uh became got a a more general terminology should we ever choose to um change vendors. Um and a few of the outdated items had been removed. Uh the only proposed new change for this um update
041would be for the lost or damaged cell phone locking stoages at the high school. That was new this year. And as the year has um gone on, it has come to um fruition that we do need costs to either repair damaged or um just replace uh things that may the pouches that have been lost. So the proposed would be to um the fee would be to replace it at either actual cost or replacement of the item. Uh this policy is expected to be presented for inclusion on the uh June 22nd board for um consent. That concludes the presentation tonight. Any questions? Go for it. >> Sure. >> Um, is there a separate fee schedule for activities, athletics, or is this everything? >> This would be everything, >> I believe. Oh, I just lion there for
042>> Yeah, this is what the pause we've always used. Um, athletic fees. I'm not sure we have are we char I'm not aware of any required fees for athletics. >> Okay. Okay. So, like we're not charging rent, you know, replacement fees for football equipment, basketball uniforms, things like that. But the the kind of the behind my question is we've got band fees and chorus fees on here as the only activities we're charging extra for. Uh I just want to understand why the discrepancy. >> We can look into that. I I think there's some general uh language in that policy that could apply to that, but we can we can add more specific language for those items. When the band fees at the camp, that's banned camp, right? That's not that's not to be. >> So
043that's like going away to camp like not to >> But there is one for >> But you're right though. Like I do think like if you check out a football helmet and don't return it, you have to pay the replacement fee for the equipment. >> Correct. That's >> I can't see the policy in front of me right now, but I thought there was general language up in the front. >> I referred to school property being damaged or um stolen would be um replace. I could be wrong. Yeah, I believe there was something in there to that language. >> The um for the cell phone pouches, I'm actually glad to see that added on. I was just curious, is there a way to uh and I I just I don't want to step in the same
044thing we stepped in with library books where people like I don't want somebody to go to eBay and buy a yonder pouch from somebody. Could it could the language space, you know, state that it's a replacement through an the approved vendor or through the school? I just don't want it cuz I know with school books we'll often say like all right well if you can buy it on Amazon and just bring us the book we'll do that. >> I'd prefer not to have to someone said well I found this one on eBay and I want to pay for it that way. >> We could look into that. Okay. >> Absolutely. >> And it looks like that last paragraph the school board upon recommendation that we could charge for any type of item or property that
045was not returned and or damaged. >> Yeah. And just for practical purposes, um oftentimes those uniforms, I think we've got some choir, um kids here. Uh no, no choir ones, either one. Um they are fitted specifically for that student. And so um you know, they're likely maintaining those individually for the student versus um the returned uh sometimes athletic equipment as well. >> Okay. So a rental or a one-time consumable product. >> Yeah. >> Is it okay? >> Vice baseball uniforms, basketball uniforms, issued, returned. >> Yeah. >> Okay. >> But do we have a reduced fee policy? >> That's there as well. And >> what does that look like in practice? A lot of times the the parents will come to the school administration um asking for some kind of financial assistance or fee waiver based
046off of their financial status. I don't think we get into the also um sometimes like for certain field trips there's also um paperwork that can be you can check a box to say that you need to discuss additional options >> and the principal the principal works with the parents sometimes to set up a payment plan uh what they can't afford they work that out with the principal >> but we are not proactively identifying folks who may you know be eligible for a reduced or no, >> it does say that when a fee is charged, you can't that the school does give notice that a fee waiver may be requested >> at when the when the fee is assessed. That's it's all I guess that's why I was looking for that as well. That's a good
047point. There are students and families who qualify uh based on like federal information for like it's called free and reduced meals and then that adds to uh potential waiverss uh being uh ignored as well but it's a specific list of like students based on what is it how much the income I always ask this question when this when we start going through fees, but does the was potentially the free and reduced lunches potentially going away and other things the the bad debt that we used to encounter years and years and years ago always comes to the back of my mind and having to do those write offs. Are we we I know we have it's in a different policy, but the basically the the ability to if we had to go to collections and stuff,
048we could, but the only reason I brought it up is because I know it says on here that, you know, no students report card, diploma or classes can be withheld due to non-payment of fees, which kind of >> self-defeating. >> Yeah. >> But it, you know, I was just going to make sure that still was there if that was the case. Yeah. Okay. >> It still exists. Yes. Thank you. >> That hasn't been any changes to that. Um, but >> in light of where we are, I I don't think it's been used recently. Um, but it's definitely there should we need to or there's a extreme situation that we would need to collect for. >> Does anyone else have any questions? I was looking for the IT equipment on here. So that's under um like
049the third second the lost damage technology devices or peripherals. >> Gotcha. >> And each of the schools have them. >> Thank you. Are we still leveraging students like in the help desk to try to help repair stuff to minimize those costs? >> Awesome. >> Yeah. And I can add to that. Next year, we're we're looking into outsourcing our repairs through a vendor to to alleviate some of the pressure on the IT techs at each school uh for faster and least less expensive repairs. >> When we do a tech refresh, do we look at like no fault found warranties as an option or do we just kind of buy a spares pool and kind of know that we cannibalize? >> Are you talking about optional uh insurance policy for parents? >> Yeah. No, I'm saying like
050no, like I know for a lot of school systems you can purchase a no fault found warranty for someone breaks their Chromebook and we you can just no questions asked. Have we do we I mean I know it's more expensive obviously. I was just curious if we ever when the next time we get into a tech refresh. Yeah, we have the data to look at like how much time and money we've spent repairing versus the cost of that warranty and the less resources it would require to get those replaced. >> Yes, that played into this decision for next year. Matt McCormack and his team took a look at different warranty um packages uh that could cover when we purchase uh new re, you know, batches of computers. uh and he landed on trying two different
051vendor repair vendors that we ship out things and we'll get the devices back within a certain number of days. Uh in the meantime, there'll be a lender uh device for those students. Uh and the cost will track with that. I'll single I ask a couple questions. I'm just curious student privacy at that point. Are they doing are we doing a is it a swap system at that point? I'm just cur I know we're going down a rabbit hole here, but it just made me wonder about, you know, what I know with all the student privacy issues are sending out being repaired and the same unit coming back. Is it >> the same unit comes back? Uh, and yet privacy. Absolutely. Our devices are very secure now. Very >> Thanks, sir. Sorry, I know we just
052hit a tangent. >> No problem. >> Thank you, >> chairman. Just a clarification um regarding the debt question and collecting the debt. There is Virginia law that we are not um we cannot collect debt for school lunches, right? >> Um and the student can't be held um from activities or any of those types of things. It is it is a law that came into play at I don't know 2023 or something on that line. But we currently don't have that issue simply because we of our status. But I just want to clarify that there is legal um there are laws that that prohibit us from sending that for for food debt, >> right? >> Okay. >> Anyone else? Guys, good. >> All right. Moving on. Uh we have no items on the action agenda. Uh
053moving on to student representative reports. >> We don't have announcements uh this afternoon, but we do want to say congratulations and great job to those who participated in the Susicle. Um they did amazing and I know a lot of people are really really proud of them and they really like the play. I heard a lot about it like on social media and at school today. So congratulations to everybody who parttook in that. Thank you. All right. Um, moving on to board member comments. Does anyone have any comments? >> Just happy teacher appreciation week to all of our teachers and staff members um who every day show up for our students and our community. I'm sure you don't hear it enough, but everyone appreciates all the hard work that you do. So, thank you so much.
054>> All right. Um, also I I did see Susicle as well. It it was an amazing performance. the set design was even the artwork, um the band, everybody. It was amazing. It was really a good show. My son went, we went together and he said it was one of the best ones he's been to in a while. So, it was it was a really impressive performance. Um, anyone else? If not, okay, we will go and head in recess for 10 minutes, 5 minutes. >> We have an upcoming meeting. >> Okay. We have an upcoming school board session meeting May 18th 6 p.m. board chambers second floor. Now we'll recess for 10 minutes and we'll meet in schoolboard conference room upstairs >> for a closed meeting. >> Thank you all. >> Thank you.