001Please. >> Yes, chairman. Mr. Paul Alexander >> here. >> Miss Ellen Sabodnik >> here. >> Mr. Zack Graham >> here. >> Miss Jen Moyers >> here. >> Chairman Dr. Shante Jones is absent tonight. >> All right. Thank you, ma'am. Um, Miss Lot, would you care to lead us a moment of silence? >> Absolutely. You please stand for a moment of silence followed by the pledge. 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. >> All right. Thank you, ma'am. Um, do we have any additions or corrections to the agenda? >> No additions or corrections, chairman. >> Seeing no additions or corrections, can I get a motion and second for approval of the
002agenda? >> Motion to approve. >> Second. >> Motion and second. All in favor? >> I. >> Moving on to consent agenda, assuming everyone's had a chance to review. Can I get a motion and a second for approval of consent? >> Motion to approve the consent agenda. >> Second. >> All right. Motion second. All in favor? I. >> Moving on to superintendent spotlights and announcements. Chairman, I'd like uh Dr. Grasser to come forward and uh share some highlights from the start of the school year. >> Dr. Rates. All right. Good evening, Chair Alexander and members of the board. Tonight, we are going to spotlight back to school 2025 2026. And you know what? I wrote something, but we're just going to talk about these pictures. Um, so on Monday, August 4th, we welcome back all of
003our new teachers and staff to the division. One of uh the favorite thing my favorite things that I get to do in this position is I'm the first person that gets to welcome everybody to Manessa's Park City Schools when they start their journey with us. And so that Monday morning, we welcome this group of people that you see up on the screen um into the middle school cafeteria. And you know, I speak for a few minutes and then I introduce Dr. Saunders and she comes up and gives everybody a talk and welcomes them to the division. And I knew right away as soon as I walked away, one of the first things I said was this is a really good group. Um so I'm really excited to welcome all of these people behind us. We
004have a lot of experience people coming from um surrounding divisions, people coming from outside of the state, people coming from different careers and career changers. One of the first things we do is I have everybody stand up. If you're coming from a surrounding school division, if you're a career changer, if you're a first year teacher, and we always ask every year, if you're a graduate of Manasses Park High School, stand up. And every year, year after year, we have someone stand up when I ask that question, which is really exciting that we're bringing some of our students back in to teach our students. Um, so this was the first day. So then, uh, what we did this year too was we went out and we had everyone ring the bell and then we took everyone
005on a bus tour as we do every year, the tour of Manasses Park. And we changed it up a little bit this year and had it end at the community center and they actually had lunch at the community center. so they could see um you know a place where a lot of our students go after school every day on the weekends to camps in the summer. Um so that went really really well and then throughout the rest of the week they went on to other professional development activities um that was planned through uh Miss Kelso and the instructional department and then we ended that week welcoming all of our teachers and staff back on the Friday the 8th um to get ready for orientation the next week. So here's a few other pictures for you.
006This is still from the um back to school days with our new teachers. Um we thought this was interesting. This is an example of our PE teachers going out and collaborating with surrounding school divisions and posting what great professional learning they're doing and putting that out there, showing everybody that they're getting ready for the school year. And then orientation the next week. And last year I reported to you that we had really great numbers um at our orientation events and this year was the same. We had a great turnout, which I truly believe makes for a really good first day of school. Um, because then the students come in, they know where their classes are, they're excited to come see their friends, see their teachers. They're all visiting last year's teachers. And here they are
007moving into hands-on learning within I think this was maybe the second or third day of school. And just a few more pictures to see our welcome back. Oh, our older students, too. There we go. All right. Right. So, our spotlight tonight, we want to thank um all of our teachers and staff from our bus drivers who welcome our kids first thing in the morning to our cafeteria workers to keep them fed, our teachers, our instructional assistants, and our students and their parents for a successful back to school 2526 school year. Thank you. That includes our that concludes our spotlight tonight. >> All right. Any superintendent announcements? >> No announcements tonight. >> All right, moving on to public comments. Mr. Lauri, do we have anyone signed up for public comment? >> No, chairman. >> All right,
008moving on to the action agenda. Administrative services, school safety, and school crisis plans. >> Yeah. All right. Good evening again, Chair Alexander, members of the board. There's no visual to go with this one tonight, but we are asking you tonight to certify our school crisis plans for the 2526 school year. So, a little bit about our plans. School crisis, emergency management, and medical emergency response plans means the essential procedures, operations, and assignments required to prevent, manage, and respond to a critical event or emergency. Each school board shall ensure that every school it supervises develops a written school crisis emergency management and medical emergency response plan and shall include the chief law enforcement officer, the fire chief and the emergency management official of the locality or their design in the development of such plans. [Applause] The
009group shall annually review the written school crisis plans and the local school board shall have the authority to withhold or limit the review of any security plans and specific vulnerability assessment components as provided by Virginia code. So what you're seeing here, what I think you guys have, um is a copy of our template. Um so what you're seeing is just a template that we use. Every school develops the crisis plans um around that template and you all at any time can request to see a copies of a copy of those plans. Okay, with that being said, tonight we are officially requesting for the board to certify our school crisis plans for the 2025 2026 school year. >> Okay. Any board members have any questions? >> No. >> And just to note, we do withhold those
010plans um for the new board members. We withhold those plans from the public because obviously we don't want to give out what our plan is if someone comes in because we wouldn't want a dangerous or threatening person to have that information. Um so you guys kind of see that but at any point if you are interested in looking at them further you would just contact my office and we'll take care of that for you. >> All right. If there's no other questions then um can I get a motion in a second to approve the school crisis plans? Motion to approve the school cris school crisis plans for the 2025 2026 school year. >> Second. >> Motion second. All in favor? >> Okay. Moving on to administrative services, the proposed change to the 2526 school calendar.
011>> Good evening board members. Just a a reminder, last uh board meeting I brought before um the board a uh a request for two proposed changes to um the 2526 school calendar. The first is the change of the observance of Diwali from October 20th, 2025 to October 21st, 2025. That's the day of observance and to make that uh change, that adjustment. And then to move uh high school graduation ceremony from Saturday, June 6th to Friday, June 5th. And tonight, we're here to ask for your approval action on that item. >> All right. Does anyone have any questions? All right. Can I get a motion and second to for the proposed change to the 202526 calendar year? >> Motion to approve the proposed 2025 2026 calendar changes as presented. >> Second. >> Motion and second. All
012in favor? >> I. >> Okay. Uh we have no new business. So moving on to upcoming meetings. Uh we have a regular schoolboard meetings Monday, September 8th, 6 pm city hall chambers on second floor. Uh, we have a work session September 22nd, 6 p.m. in the schoolboard conference room on third floor. And we have a regular schoolboard meeting Monday the 13th, 6 p.m. on second floor in board chambers. Um, are there any board comments? >> Anyone? All right, seeing no comments, uh, we will adjourn and then we will continue upstairs for our annual school board retreat. No, we will not >> recess. >> We will recess. I even said don't adjourn on my notes. We will recess for 10 minutes. Thank you all and continue the retreat upstairs.