001e e e hello I'm just going to use our diaphragm project then they can't hear you on YouTube oh yeah they can't hear us I don't think you can project quite that far right that's unusual because they're always on yeah that's they're always on normally you can hear it streaming all right okay so it's going 659 let's go ahead and call this meeting to order uh with a reminder to silence your electronic devices also a reminder this meeting is being both audio and video recorded um Miss Williams can we get a roll call please yes chairman Alexander Mr Paul Alexander here Dr shantee Jones here Miss Ellis lotnik here Mr Michael cuming here and Mr Zack Graham here all right thank you m Williams and we like to welcome Mr Graham to the school board
002thank welcome sir looking forward to working with you and in honor of your first meeting would you like to lead us in a moment of silence in the Pledge of Allegiance please the 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 sir all right do we have any additions or corrections to the agenda no chairman all right seeing no additions or Corrections needed can I get approval a motion for approval in a second motion to approve second all motion second all in favor I I all right moving on to the public hearing for the fiscal year 2026 superintendent's proposed budget um if you are here to speak during the public hearing please
003see Miss Williams which I believe we have one person signed up we have two two all right awesome yes all right so um I am opening this public hearing uh the purpose of the public hearing is to allow comments directly related to the fiscal year 26 superintendent proposed budget purpose of the hearing is to allow comments directly related to the fiscal Senate superintendent budget guidelines citizens wishing to speak must sign in uh when called to the podium please provide your name and Manasses Park City address or if staff title and work location each person has allowed three times minutes to make comments Miss Williams will let you know when you have reached those three minutes um Miss Williams you have noted we have two people signed to speak all right yes sir I am going
004to first call Miss Rachel Kirkland Rachel brand streets of taxair always to okay that doesn't count against me Dana okay um I actually wanted to come and speak on behalf of the budget specifically um something that is not impacting me directly but would impact the people on the day and that is um the pay increase for board members uh as many of you know I served on the school board here in Manasses Park from 2008 to 2023 um in 2023 and during that time we were locked in at the same rate of pay I know this um what is in the budget is a significant job of I remember it is 6,000 7,000 yeah um and 6,000 for board members and 7,000 for the chair um I can't stress enough to the taxpayers of this
005community the amount of work that goes into being on the school board it's not showing up for meetings two uh two Mondays a month it is going to conferences it is putting time in having meetings uh being at events um you get what you pay for we have a quality board um in this and we have for God so many years and it's about time that that quality is rewarded by a pay rate that compensates the actual effort and is par gives parity to us compared to other divis Visions as well as us to our appropriating body and I still say us because that was a long time to be on the board and not feel um so I want you guys to know that I support that aspect of the budget wholeheartedly if anyone
006had a question or a concern about it I would gladly speak to my experience because I cannot say how much this is richly deserved so thank you very much and at some point you will see me leave because that's a thing I can do now thank you madam chair next I'm going to ask for Miss Shara Hicks uh Shara Hicks 9312 East cor delay Drive um I'm been a member of this community for 21 years I've had three children in the school system currently two in high school and one is now in college um as you're looking at the post school budget um for the upcoming school year I would like for you to consider some things affecting our gifted population in the gifted program as a whole and how changing Staffing in the gifted
007program affects the whole school system gifted identified and general education students and of course the teachers whom we always need to support um the MPCs fiveyear gifted plan shows bulleted items that need to be worked on from screening procedures to delivery of services professional development is a long list on on there um much of this I think could be addressed with um adjusting gifted program Staffing So currently across our school Staffing is dedicated to gifted program would be the equivalent of onethird of a central office position um one and a half building level positions meaning there's one person at cougar a fourth of a position at the elementary school a fourth of a position at the middle school and the high school is where we have the least specific programming for identified gifted students and
008they need help there um so that's our current situation looking at the budget ideally um a coordinator or a specialist dedicated to gifted education only and then a gifted resource teacher in each building to support both the teachers working with identified students and address the needs of high ability identified students that would look like one central office person in four building positions that would be ideal realistically um it would be so beneficial to have for example um instructional coaches in all four school buildings currently there's instructional coach at the elementary schools but none at the secondary level um providing one at each School building would provide support to all teachers to grow their craft of teaching and increase the RoR of work across the board for all students or um having a dedicated gifted resource
009teacher at each campus shared across the two buildings on each campus so these positions could provide more consistent service plans for identified students and have an advocate for their unique learning needs at a building instructional level those resource teachers could also provide professional growth for other teachers as they would help them with increasing rigor and thinking about all students not just those who may struggle uh how could gifted Staffing affect mcps as a whole in the new accreditation system students earn points in different ways and more points for p Advanced scores on so so basically the accreditation isn't just Pass rates anymore it includes increasing numbers of students that are performing at higher levels it's basically like a Mastery weighted index so Advanced performance level proficient basic glow basic um also the scores on AP
010tests are factored now into accreditation readings so if we increase the resources going to gifted students and all students through the support we offer teachers through gifted staff hirings we can help our schools with this new accreditation system so let's work on it because we need some help at all schools but specifically in high school as well that's it okay thank you Miss Hicks thank you all right uh if there's no one else I'm going to go ahead and close the public hearing on the fiscal year 26 superintendent proposed budget thank you for everyone for their comments all right all right so moving on to what do you have consent agenda right yes um assuming everyone has had a chance to review CIP can I get a motion and a second for approval of consent
011agenda please motion to approve the consent agenda second motion a second all in favor I okay moving on to superintendent Spotlight announcements good evening chairman I'd like Dr graer to come forward for uh some spotlights this evening all right good evening chair Alexander and members of the board and welcome to Mr GR we have a lot of spotlights tonight um so we're going to go ahead and get to it all right first off February is love the bus month a time to recognize and appreciate the hardworking bus drivers who keep our communities moving whether it's early mornings late nights rain snow or Sunshine bus drivers show up every day to safely transport our students to their schools field trips athletic sports and beyond your patience kindness and dedication do not go unnoticed you make a
012difference people's lives greeting your students with a smile ensuring safety on the road and navigating through busy streets with skill and care so to all the amazing bus drivers out there we want to say thank you we appreciate your hard work your commitment and the important role you play in our daily lives this month and every month we celebrate you now we did invite our bus drivers but I am told they wake up earlier than like anyone else in the school division um and as much as we talk with uh Patty Hurley our director of Transportation at 4:00 a.m. for snow days she is like up and ready to roll at 400 a.m. so we decided to let them just watch this on YouTube tonight um but we do want to say thank you to
013our bus drivers all right next up we'd like to recognize and appreciate our school counselors a group of incredible individuals who work tirelessly behind the scenes to support guide and uplift our students counselors are more than just advisers they're mentors listeners problem solvers and most importantly champions for the well-being of every student who walks through our doors they provide guidance in times of uncertainty encouragement and moments of out and a place for students to express themselves and their needs on behalf of all of us we want to extend our deepest gratitude thank you for the countless hours you spend ensuring every student feels heard valued and supported thank you for being the light for our students and making a difference in so many lives your work does not go unnoticed and today we celebrate you
014uh we invited our counselors as well and I'll tell you this is how dedicated our counselors are we have um I think there's a multicultural night tomorrow night there's a stem night Thursday night and our counselors are involved in planning all this and they were very stressed that they needed to work tonight to get ready for these events and they didn't know if they should come to the school board meeting or get that work done to get ready for the events so I told them you know what you guys go ahead and watch on YouTube as well so they were planning to watch tonight um to hear us appreciate their work so just know that even this evening though they're not here they're not here because they're still working to get ready to welcome our
015families in the rest of the week to our events in the schools okay February is also CTE month Career and Technical education month and I know a lot of us have had some great experiences when we've gone out to the airport for the aviation day we've gone to our Career Fairs uh Mr gram you'll get some awesome opportunities to go out and see some of our CTE programs in action they're great um but really I I can't always do them Justice because we have so many CTE programs now and they're doing so many great things so I invited Lisa Wolf tonight and she's going to speak with you a little bit more to describe what's going on in some of these pictures and some of the work that they have going right now thank you
016all um I rarely give up a chance to talk about my CT programs we are incredibly proud of our programs and more specifically our students um some of the highlights we February has been insane We've Been Everywhere We thinkk our bus drivers they take us places we thank our counselors they connect us to programs um and we're just all now busy right now some of the images that you can see up here highlight some of the things we're most proud of right in the center is a picture of the instruction to Industry event that we were at just last week with we took 22 students from our Juniors and seniors in high school out to the Inova Fairfax campus Medical Campus um our students were dressed to impress they shook hands they introduced themselves I
017heard nothing but compliments from every adult that interacted with our students while we were there they explored different Pathways in business marketing Health Sciences Etc they took the resume handed them out they collected business cards they were all out amazing um down in this corner you see we're doing Hands-On stuff all the time that's just a example of what you would see in any of our classrooms on any given day that looks like circuits to me but um could be wrong but I think I'm probably right um we also had our CTE Fair our students put on our CTE fair at our high school where they share their Pathways with other students um we think that our kids tell the story better than any of the adults do um and so we asked them to
018show off that work this year we grew that fair CTE fair that happens during school lunches over to include our eighth graders and so we were able to bring eighth graders over to interact and see what those Pathways look like um it's part of our goals is to figure out how we can deal with the transition years to make sure kids are set up well for the planning their next phase um also in terms of health sciences you can see I've got my nurse aid students in there with their scrubs on and everything we are very proud that we are expanding our health science Pathways to include an EMT program in the coming school year our application was just last week so we have 36 students who have applied to be in either our nurse
019aid pathway or EMT pathway we have 25 seats available so bulk of my day today was gone done reading through essays looking and vetting attendance and setting up the rubrics to see which students are going to qualifi to be interviewed and then qualified to get one of those coveted spots I am proud to say that our Health Sciences Pathways have become some of those Elite programs that we offered at our high school it's becoming very competitive and a prized position to be in as a senior to get access to one of those choices um so all in all CT is going well we are very proud of what we're doing and if given the opportunity I'll come back and give a whole presentation about it later in this year so thank you for the time
020when Lisa was sharing with me some of the information earlier today before I asked her to come up and speak about it herself I was really um impressed by that number of people that have applied for those programs because I think when you first start a lot of these programs we think are we going to have enough people interested how do we get enough kids to be interested and really who are they going to listen to most their peers right the other kids so they're going through these programs they're loving the experience they're having and they're telling people about it and now we're at a point where we may have a waiting list um which is amazing stud seven students who are eligible to so that really speaks volumes of the work that we're doing
021in our CTE program okay next up we'd like to recognize and express our deepest gratitude to a group of individuals who play an essential role in our school Community our school resource officers they are here tonight and you know I think if you ever walk into any one of our schools you will hear how much they love their school resource officers I mean at you go in and they see them they're interacting with kids it's amazing uh they're more than just officers in uniform they're mentors protectors and Role Models every day they dedicate themselves to ensuring our schools are a safe and welcoming place for our students teachers and staff they go beyond the Call of Duty not only keeping watch over us but also building relationships offering guidance and showing kindness when we need
022it the most their presence reassures us their commitment inp Ires us and their willingness to go the extra mile does not go unnoticed whether it's greeting students with a warm Smile Smile lending a listening ear or stepping in during moments of Crisis they embody the true Spirit of service and Community we thank you guys for your hard work your sacrifice and your unwavering dedication to our schools we are incredibly fortunate to have you all as part of our community and we do want to recognize we're going to take a picture so you guys can come on up as I call you out from Cougar Elementary School we have officer Tom Tom albona come on up from MP from MP we have Kelsey Cary who's been with us for like maybe a month I think right
023um yeah just after winter break okay so not very long but again you walk in there and you're G to see her everywhere you see people hugging her she's got a little this hang on I have a picture of this thing you have this thing this little s cougar at Manasses Park Middle School we have Marcel Barrett [Applause] and then also not quite as new but still new to us this year at Manasses Park High School Victor roselli so which school is your favorite Middle School or unless really want to be in the background Welcome to our side bye [Laughter] and finally tonight the one time of year we turn the spotlight around on you all uh we end with the opportunity to express our deepest gratitude to the dedicated individuals who serve on our
024school board this February as we recognize School Board appreciation month we proudly celebrate this year's theme which is champions of Excellence a title that truly reflects the commitment passion and Leadership of our own school board members our school board members are more more than decision makers they're Visionaries Advocates and tireless champions for Education they work behind the scenes to shape policies provide guidance and ensure that every student has the opportunity to thrive they dedicate countless hours to making difficult decisions always keeping the best interests of our students teachers and community at heart to our school board members we want to say thank you thank you for your dedication your service and your unwavering belief in the power of Education thank you for standing up for our schools for our teachers and most importantly for our
025students your commitment does not go unnoticed and today we proudly celebrate and honor each of you so because it's champions of Excellence I tried to come up with something that said Champion see if you agree here and you know what Mr us I'm not give trophy exactly how we roll I'm one for one thank you that's awesome thank you we are the champions is going through my head now you can take that to your put on yourk I love put it next to my name tag thank you I think we should put it next to our name tag we take a picture holding very confused I have certificat for you pictures and everything oop sorry I don't want to run into I like it not where we going they said they also had a picture
026of you all ax throwing [Laughter] so never away from all right ready thank you so much guys I'm G to pass out your certificates while we wrap up here thank you and that concludes our Spotlight this evening all right thank Dr brosser all right to superintendent's announcements uh chairman I think I'm going to pass it back to you so that you have one more Spotlight announcement uh to to give this evening thank you ma'am so February is also School Board clerk appreciate ation one it's kind of shallow for the clerk to have to put her own award in so we took care of that for you this week so I just wanted to thank Dana and Melinda who I'm sure is watching online right now um for everything they've done they keep us uh it
027you'll see Zach how much they keep us on in check all of the in order all of the things whether it's getting us prepped for these meetings the information getting us where we need to be all of the stuff that goes on in the backgrounds it is uh they are a delight to work with known Dana for six years now we've had some wonderful times together and I appreciate her coming back to the board to help us to keep us in check so Dana I just want to thank you we have a little something for you and just want to yeah thank chairman I do also have to announce it's Dana's birthday today so happy birthday Dana happy birthday we did have a [Laughter] certificate My Dana would you like us to sing Happy Birthday
028to you okay good so we should anyway okay on good so moving on to public comments uh M Williams do we have anyone sign for public comment no chairman all right so we can move along then all right moving on to new business the Manasses Park City School Board governance and Norms updates uh chairman in the uh board agenda uh we've put the updated Norms um for you to review since we have added a um a new board member to uh to the group so I'll I'll turn it over to you for that okay um so this is uh for the sake of every year when we have a new member join uh what do is we have a list of norms uh those Norms are published on the district's website so rather than reading
029through all of them now for anyone who's interested in seeing them they can access them there uh basically this is our code of conduct as established by the Virginia School Board Association um so and then again as we have a new member we will all sign the appropriate document and that document is also uploaded then to the the district website I believe so all right moving on to Schoolboard member appointments and committees for 2 also going to uh share this with you as well chairman U they have we have a list of the current um School Board uh committees and assignments and uh having a new board member you all may want to have some discussion about adjustments to those um moving forward all right thank you Dr so yes so basically just real I'll
030quickly kind of go over the uh different committees that we are currently serving on there are some other kind of lower level committees that are not at this level which we don't we won't be discussing tonight but right now we currently have the liaison to parks and rexs which Mr Cummings serves on uh we have the social services Advisory Board which I'm filling in for uh from When Miss CyberLink stepped down uh we have Governor school which Dr Jones and I both sit on um we have the bsba assembly which that is for chair and vice we have the finance committee with Miss sodnik and myself and then we have the academic committee excuse me we have the academic committee with Miss ladnik and Dr Jones and then we have policy committee with which is
031Dr Jones and Mr Cummings um so the only thing we're really trying to figure out right now uh Mr Graham this is actually for you sir is we want um Miss cybering was currently on the social services Advisory board so we were wondering if you might be interested in sitting on that one i' say every other meeting is an iners I think it's every two months uh they meet so the next one is March 12th I believe it is um and that's an inperson it's at the community Center if you can do that um that's great if not um I'm still I can continue to do it um and we can work that out offline um if we need to and then ultimately um at the end in July that'll be when we do the
032next uh when the next board member of appointments come through that's when we'll open everything up and then everybody kind of picks and chooses on what stuff they want to take so uh if you just want to think about that and then let us know we can update whether or not you want to take that board or if not I said it's no harm no foul if you want to kind of get comfortable in this first it's a lot to absorb appreciate um all right uh moving on to action agenda there are no action items so that being the case all I need to do is move on to upcoming meetings uh we have a special school board meeting uh for fiscal year 26 to adopt the budget Monday on March 3rd we also have
033the regular Schoolboard meeting March 17th um 2025 in City Hall Chambers and we have the school board presents the fiscal 26 budget to the governing body Tuesday March 18th 7 PM in City Hall for anyone who wishes to attend that is a city hall governing body meeting not a subord meting all right and moving on to student representative reports there are no announcements or student body topics for tonight's meeting okay thank you ma'am all right uh moving on to board member comments uh Mr Graham would you feel like to you have any comments like to leave us off with yeah just appreciate the opportunity to be here look forward to getting to know you all working with you all Dr Saunders I appreciate our conversation we had uh this morning again looking forward to working
034with you in your team um for folks we found a common Connection in a in Alma moer Indiana not many folks know where Indiana University Pennsylvania is uh whether it's in Indiana or in Pennsylvania uh so we can we can connected on that but again I appreciate the opportunity to be here and look forward to serving thank you sir M Le I just wanted to go back to the uh groups of people that we highlighted on the spotlight and I just want to acknowledge some of the staff that kind of work behind the scenes the bus drivers the counselors the SRO um I think those positions really are the definition of it takes a village um and so sometimes we don't always see the work that they do but it is always appreciated um to
035our CTE teachers thank you for providing our students all those amazing opportunities I know some of those students probably wouldn't have had those opportunities without the work that they do so thank you so much um I think uh career is just as important as college and my personal opinion um to my Schoolboard colleagues I enjoy working with you Mr Graham I'm excited to uh get to know you better as I continue to work with you and uh just thank you to everyone who helps minosis Park uh achieve Excellence appreciate it Dr Jones um I Echo everything Miss ladnik just said Thank thank you to all the bus drivers um our school counselors all of our CTE teachers all of our sro's um Manasses Park is what it is because of you all so we thank
036you Mr Graham welcome to the school board also look forward to getting to know you and work with you for these next two years three is this two years three years yes um and yeah that's all I have thank you coms all right so it's great to see um um all the support with the transportation CTE all you know everybody SRO especially um they do countless work like without them there's so much that goes on with so many moving pieces it's it's a beautiful thing to watch and know how how everything works Mr Graham um welcome to the board let's go rock uh um and yeah let's thank you I I'm sorry chairman Alexander I I remiss if I didn't say thank you to our one for school board clerks I did forget you all
037um for all of your hard work as Paul said earlier we literally would not function without everything that you do so thank you Dana thank you to Melinda I know she's uh watching so sorry that was I I apologize for missing you all if you if you don't mind I need to reiterate that for as an understatement um Dana you know you know I I would be absolutely lost uh Melinda you as well you know it's like training a squirrel would you like to say yes love you Dana thank you so much for everything you yes like everybody said like you keep us together and we appreciate you for everything that you do um as well as Melinda for everything that she does to keep us in line so thank you all and Happy Birthday
038okay I got a couple things um thank you Shara for coming out very rarely get public comments so was very appreciated that when when citizens come out so I really appreciate that um couple think um Miss wolf when you do come back uh would you could do you have any data on the previous classes and kind of what they're doing how they're doing how many of them went into Health fields and kind of stuck with it i' just be interested to see the success R you um sure thank all right um Dr Mary just is good to see you thanks for coming all right sorry in the audience um uh last thing uh I spoke to Dr Saunders earlier about this today uh one of the things we're going to consider start doing is like
039uh the board is now when they have questions we usually typically send them in to staff so that they're they can answer our questions we want to make sure that the community knows that when we're revie when we get stuff sent to us that we are reviewing it and asking questions and then sending it back to them and they provide answers to us it's not just simply that they send us the information and we say great so uh one of the things we're discussing is potentially um starting to share the questions that the board asks uh whether it being a slide of future presentations just so that uh the community knows what kind of questions were asked of the of the staff and what they came back with as far as answers just to kind
040of give everyone a little more visibility into what we're looking at and kind of how we view things um other than that that's it for me thank you to everyone um i p a special place of my heart for law enforcement so it was great seeing all the SRO in here um and if I if there's no other business uh can I get a motion in a second to adjourn motion to adjourn second motion is second all in favor Mee adjourned thank you all thank you