MCPS School Board Meeting 10/21/2025

001Hey, take Bray with you. >> Take her to her seat. We got things to do. >> Item 2.2, two declaration and roll call vote of subjects discussed in closed meeting. I'm looking for a motion to come out of close. >> I make a motion to adopt the certificate of closed meeting. >> Thank you, Mrs. Hodgees. Do we have a second? >> Second. >> Thank you, Mr. Morgan. Is there any discussion? >> There being none, Miss Low, may we have a roll call vote, please? >> Yes. Yeah. >> Yes. Item 2.3, approval of personnel action. I'm seeking a motion. >> I'll make a motion that we approve the personnel action discussed in closed meeting. >> Thank you, Mr. Morgan. Is there a second? >> Second. >> Thank you, Mr. Dobson. Any discussion? All those in favor

002say I. I >> opposed. Motion passes. Item 2.4, seeking a motion for the adoption of the superintendent resolution and roll call vote. >> I make a motion to adopt the resolution to appoint the division superintendent for a term commencing July 1st, 2026 as follows. Resolution stating whereas Dr. David S. Daniel was appointed division superintendent of schools for a term commencing July 1st, 2023 and ending June 30th, 2026. And whereas the school board wishes to appoint Dr. Daniel as division superintendent for a new term commencing July 1st, 2026 and ending June 30th, 2030 at an annual salary of $156,560. Now therefore, be it resolved that Dr. Daniel is appointed division superintendent of schools for a new term commencing July 1st, 2026 and ending June 30th, 2030. And be it further resolved that the chairman and the

003clerk are authorized to execute an employment agreement with Dr. Daniel affecting these changes. >> Thank you, Mrs. Hodgees. Do we have a second? >> I second that. >> Thank you, Miss Diggs. Do we have any discussion? There being none, Miss Lao, may we have a roll call vote? >> I >> Yeah. >> Yes. Thank you very much. We are now adjourned from close session. Good evening and welcome. Thank you for coming to the October 21st, 2025 Matthews County School Board regular monthly meeting. Will everyone please rise and join me in the pledge of allegiance? [Music] I pledge algiance 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. [Music] Miss, may we have the roll call vote,

004please? Roll call, please. >> Present. >> here. >> Present. Thank you. Item 1.4. I'm seeking a motion for the approval of the agenda additions and deletions. >> I make a motion to approve the agenda as listed. >> Thank you, Mrs. Hodgees. Do we have a second? >> I second that. >> Thank you, Miss Digs. Do we have any discussion? There being none, all those in favor say I. Opposed? Motion passes. Item 1.5, looking for a motion to approve the consent agenda. I'll make a motion to approve the minutes of September 25th, 2025 rescheduled from September 7 16, 2025 closed in regular monthly meetings monthly claims MCCS bus request and amended 2025 2026 academic calendar as presented on the consent agenda. >> Thank you, Mr. Mr. Morgan, do we have a second? >> Second. >> Thank

005you, Mr. Dobson. Is there any discussion? I would just like to remind the board members that Miss Diggs, you will be reviewing the monthly claims in uh well, you did October 20th. I will be doing November 17th and Mr. Dobson, you have December 15th. There any other any other discussion? There being none, all those in favor say I. I >> I opposed. Motion passes. Item 1.6, Matthews County School Board Governance Norms and Protocols. >> Mrs. Hodes, would you be so kind as to read out? >> Yes. And for those who are new to attending board meetings, uh our governance norms and protocols are um what we as a board agree to as far as how we will work with each other and um work with uh the the community. Um the two I'm reading the

006first one is communication between and among board members. Board members are encouraged to speak via phone or face to face. Communications between board members and the superintendent. Board members are encouraged to communicate to the superintendent via phone calls, text or email based upon the topic. >> Thank you, Mrs. Hodes. Item two, the BSBA Academy Awards presented by Dr. Daniel All right. So we have two levels of awards from the VSBA. So the first award of recognition is 15 credits per year from that certificate. And so that certificate is presented to Dr. Gibbs and Miss Diggs. Congratulations. >> Thank you very much. [Music] >> Congratulations. >> Our next level is award of excellence. That is 48 credits in two years. And uh these recipients receive a certificate and a silver pen. Uh, that first recipient is

007Miss Hodes. >> Congratulations. >> Um, I'll just do me. >> Okay. And spoiler alert, the second recipient of the 48 credits in two years of service is me, um, Dr. David Daniel. So, >> thank you for clapping. >> Thank you, Dr. Daniel. Item three, questions or comments from the school board student representative. Miss Ward, you're up. >> Yes, certainly. [Music] >> Thank you. Matthews Elementary School kicked off our fall fundraiser on October 13th. We are working with School Store, which is an online platform that gives money to MEES when participants sign up to shop at retail stores like Walmart and over 300 other stores where you likely already shop. In October, MEES started a worldwide reading initiative called Flashlight Fridays. This is a fun way for students to take a 10 to 15 minute break

008to read. And what could be more exciting than using a flashlight to read your favorite book. We love Flashlight Fridays. On Friday, October 10th, the Matthews County Fire Department visited MEES. PreK, first, second, and third grade had the opportunity to see fire trucks and learned about fire safety. Our kindergarten friends got to walk to the fire station on Thursday. MEES would like to thank the Matthews County Fire Department for the treat bags they gave to each student. We are still in the installation phase of MTSS. On October 13th, we had the opportunity to use the new data protocol sheet to analyze data from last year. Today began our first round of grade level based data talks. Using data from the most recent vowels test, teachers were able to draw conclusions and make nextstep plans to

009help students close gaps in reading. MEES is having a blast with spirit week. It is fun to see all the smiles and excitement as students and teachers show their school spirit. There are many things happening at Thomas Hunter Middle School. Students have been busy working on new skills in all classes and really pushing themselves to become better students. Here's a quick rundown of upcoming events. October 20th was the start of spirit week. October 21st was the benchmark assessment for math 7. The 22nd is the benchmark assessment for English 6. and the 23rd is the benchmark assessment for English 7. Also, October 23rd is family movie night. It's $5 per family and it's from 6:00 to 8:00 p.m. The 24th is the math 6 benchmark assessment. Also, the 24th is the homecoming parade and Matthews High

010School marching band field show. The 27th is the start of Red Ribbon Week and the 31st there's a Matthews High School band performance at THMS Field. Thank you to Miss Burroughs for her support of our SCA and organizing the movie night. Please come out and support our SCA Thursday, October 23rd at six o'clock. It's a family movie night and it's $5 per family. We're also excited to have our students participate in science field trips with VIMS and the Chesapeake Bay Foundation. Thank you to Miss Sour for getting this together for THMS students. FYI for Thomas Hunter Middle School families, we're having a parent teacher conference day November 3rd. Please contact the school if you would like to talk to your child's teacher. Our fundraiser is coming to a close, but if Emily if any family

011would like to purchase something, there's still time. Please check the Money Dolly app for items. Thank you to all families that have supported our school. Here is the high school's updates. October has been a fun month at Matthews High School as fall sports are in full swing. On October 6th, we hosted the grand opening of the Brew and Gold Cafe. Thank you to everyone who took time to attend the event. Juniors and seniors took the ASVAB test in the beginning of October and many students also took the PSATs. Our volleyball team held their annual Dig Pink game on October 14th to raise money for breast cancer research and our marching blue devils did a terrific job of playing the national anthem at the game. Thank you to everyone who came out to support the event.

012It's homecoming week at Matthews High School and students have gone all out to show their spirit. Spirit week will culminate with the pep rally Friday afternoon followed by the homecoming parade and the field showcasing our marching blue devils band when the homecoming king and queen will be crowned. We will also be featuring a car show and trunk or treat on Saturday from 10:00 a.m. to 3:00 p.m. in the Matthews High School parking lot, followed by the homecoming dance at 7:00 p.m. There will be a winter sports meeting on November 5th at 6:30 p.m. for anyone interested in participating in a winter sport. Our music department is selling tickets for their dinner and a show fundraiser on November 13th from 6:30 p.m. to 7:30 p.m. including entertainment by the jazz band, orchestra, and musicians from the

013Matthews music department. Tickets are available in the main office. The music department is also having their annual fruit sale right now. Orders can be placed through any member of the Blue Devil or Seahawk band until November 16th. Thank you for everyone who continues to support all the many clubs, activities, and events at Matthews High School. Thank you, Miss Ward. I have one question. What's the name of the movie that is being shown? >> Um, I don't I don't know. >> Perhaps someone in the audience. >> Hocus Pocus. Thank you. >> I have a question as well regarding the fruit sales, the band fruit sales. There used to be a website you could go on to order them. Um, is that still And I don't It may be on our um the board website, the school's

014website, but I was wondering what that might be. >> Um, I actually don't know. It might be on the website though. >> Thank you. >> It's a fabulous fundraiser. >> All right, moving on to item four. We have the HS school facility management update. We welcome Alexis Scanella, the HS regional manager to give us a brief presentation. Thank you for coming tonight. >> Thank you for having me. Hi, I'm Alexis Scanella as all of you heard. Do I use this to forward and back my Okay, great. Um, so again, my name's Alexis. Just a little bit about me, my accent is from New Jersey. So, I'm actually from above the Mason Dixon line. I moved down to Virginia about three years ago. I started at a university with HS facilities management and from there um

015I became an manager in Chesterfield and from there they made me a regional because they just liked me that much I guess. Um I now oversee Powatan, Matthews, Amelia and Chesterfield. Um so that's a little bit about my background. Um today I just wanted to kind of give an overview. I know I missed you guys last month. I apologize for that. So it's a lot of updates following the summer that we had. So we're going to go over staffing just some OP stuff and then just some quality results that we've had since the start of uh July. There we go. All right. So, staffing levels since the start of July one, we were able to hire 10 custodians that were not already on the incumbent list. Currently, right now, we're down about 1.63. Um, and

016we've got two candidates that Jacqueline, the account manager, is bringing in this week for interviews. And hopefully that will bring us um to above fully stale. Um, as far as retention goes, since the beginning of the contract, um, we've only had about three or four incumbents that have stayed with us from the previous employment when we did the transfer from Matthews to, um, HS facilities. So, since then, um, we've turned over about four, uh, hires um, just addressing through, you know, resignations and termination for standards and such like that. Um, we did recognize challenges out here. Uh specifically with local trade job competition, um like in the g geographic factors. Um so we did expand our outreach through referral program. So we kind of upped the you know amount for if you have somebody that

017you know and you want to bring them in as a custodian, if they work for me for 90 days, I'll give you x amount of money. We heightened that retention program. Um and then I also, you know, we put in for some community signage um and postings as well because we are having more luck getting uh postings from places like mail uh post offices and stuff like that. um new leadership. We brought on Jacqueline Jerbeck. Uh she actually came from West Point Schools uh prior to being with us and prior to that she actually worked at a hotel in Richmond that she ran the cleaning crew for um for years beyond that. Um and she's done a really great job thus far. She is really great with the team members that we have here. Um

018she's real strict with her program and she likes things a certain way and um she is uh definitely been an asset to HS. This is just a back just quick snapshot of currently the people and the custodians that we have um at each school. If you guys wanted to take a look at that, we've got four at the high school, two at the middle, and three at the elementary, and then one person we use as a floater kind of to bridge that gap if we have any call outs or anything like that. uh financials and equipment. Since again the start of the contract, we've invested about $46,000 in new equipment since July 1 in infrastructure and you know uh machinery, including Onyx autoscrubbers, burnishers, um the KAC restroom system, which is like a bathroom, you

019know, power washer. You've got all new chemical distribution systems in all of your custodial closets that include um a widespread of Spartan chemicals that we've introduced and train the staff on using in throughout your buildings. Um tools and supplies. You also have new You have um new trash cans, you have new uh a new microfiber system, new mops, all new products so that the custodians have, you know, brand new stuff that they're working with. Uh training and development. Uh we continuously are training. Uh Jacqueline actually held a safety meeting today at 2 p.m. We do those monthly. Um HS is really firm on our trainings and you know across the board to make sure that you know we have that accountability um to make sure that all of our staff are you know doing what

020we need to do. Um, so since we've been here HS with Matthew, since we started our program, um, I, you know, from what we've seen, we've modernized the custodial program and the efficiency, um, and the consistent cleaning quality, um, overall. Um, and we've been since the summer, um, some big accomplishments that we did were the elementary and the high school, uh, gym floors got redone, uh, by an outside company that we use. Next year, hopefully, we'll do it by ourselves because Jacqueline and our team actually were trained after to their own wood floors. So, if anybody's been over to the high school lately and has seen the, you know, the, uh, floors in the hallways, that's our team doing it right up there in those pictures. Um, also, uh, all areas of BCT were either

021stripped or top scrubbed, um, to reset the floors districtwide. Um, and then wax was also laid on all the new flooring that was installed, um, to the middle school, you know, as the contractors finished that up. There are some areas I do want to note that we do end up want to go back you know either via winter or dur during certain breaks to kind of spruce up the floors. I know you know HS kind of had an introduction in July one so we kind of had a merger from you know incumbent to our staff and then there was a training gap. So there are areas that is not completely up to my standard at least um and Dr. Daniel and I did a walkthrough and there's a couple projects that um I'm looking forward

022to getting done over the winter. um cleaning and organization. If you look around in your custodial closets too, it's a big thing. They wiped all out all out the old trash and you know, we cleaned them out from top to bottom, organize them the way that um they need to be organ organized to run an efficient program. Um we also detail clean uh all the areas in your schools um following any construction or anything that had to get h had to get done as well. Um, again, just some pictures from the high school post uh us redoing the floor that uh was just refinishing with polyurethane. Um, and this is at uh the elementary school, the front vestibule. Um, they refinished that front star there. And just wanted to showcase that as well. >> Just

023some challenges that we had along the way uh over the summer. There was a lot of renovation schedules that required some adjustments, but the team stayed flexible and we were able to be responsive to what, you know, the district needed. Um, we did have some extreme summer heat this year, um, and some AC issues. So, the humidity, uh, kind of got in the way and kind of set us back in some of the areas with the floors just because a lot of humidity does not do well when you're trying to dry wax on a floor. Um, but the staff stayed and corrected and refinish areas as needed. Um, the transition period that we had, again, full adoption of HS uh, procedures were taken on July one. So again, revert back to there's certain projects we

024want to get done in just the time that we had. We couldn't get everything done that, you know, I had originally would like to. Um, looking ahead from, you know, this summer and on, typically what happens, at least in the programs for floor care, they run on about a four to five year program cycle. So each year, typically 25% of the building is stripped down to the bone of the floors. Um and then after each summer, you know, a quarter of each of your buildings are getting fully stripped so that every four to five years your your floors are getting, you know, good as new, brand is brand new, not just top scrubbed. Um after uh winter break closes up and we finish all of our projects, Jacqueline and um the facility director have also

025been working close hand inand to uh work on extra projects that are coming up through the year so that they can coordinate together to make sure that um they're working together on those things, too. Um but yeah, so looking ahead, we're still continuing on investing training. Um we're still doing floor care uh training with the custodians. It's just a a constant um regurgitation. You know, we have new trainings every month. Um and then the quality assurance inspection results. I did want to put some of them in here, but we've only been in here for a few months, so it's not really showing the great data that I want to show you. The next time that I come here, I will have some data to show you. So, because Jacqueline is um we do 100 to

026200 inspections um a month uh and it just kind of shows the discrepancies that we're seeing, right? Um and giving us a grade based off of how we're doing. And then we also use that to compare that to the report cards that we're getting from you guys as well, just to make sure that we're all on the same page and making sure that we're hitting those marks together. Um but that's all I have for you. Those are the only updates. Um just to say I'm happy to be partnered with Matthews. It's been nothing but a delight working with your school district. Um, you know, I feel very, you know, lucky to be a part of it. So, that's all I have for you guys. >> Thank you, Miss Scanella. This was really helpful information. Members,

027do you have any questions, comments? >> I wasn't sure if um if I heard you, do they work on the weekends? Did I hear you say you're going to have a project on the weekend or did I misunderstand that? >> So, no, they don't work on the weekends like typically, but you know, if I if we decide, hey, we want to do a project and there's a day off on Friday and maybe we need to bring somebody in for overtime just to, you know, get something spruced up that we want to that we can't kids are here. We're going to do that. Yes. >> Okay. Yeah. >> Thank you. >> You're welcome. >> Wonderful. I love the energy. Thank you so much. >> Absolutely. >> Dr. Daniel, >> um just to add one other piece,

028I think we have a meeting scheduled for November 18th to um kind of a broader collection of the HS and Matthews County schools teams to kind of talk through um some of these projects and what's going well, what's you know, challenges and looking at the financials and stuff. So kind of a kind of a mid-year evaluation um five six months into our partnership. So that's that's coming up. >> Wonderful. >> We call it the business value report and we do that quarterly. >> Yes. Mistakes. >> One question. Well, hats off. Everything looks good. >> Thank you. >> We appreciate you all. Um, I don't know if this falls under your department, but you can do any other recycling as far as bottles or papers for classrooms. >> We can if that's what the requirement of

029the district is. Yes. If we are require the requirement of the district is to recycle, then yes, that's the program that we follow. We adopt whatever program the district wants us to adopt. >> Thank you. >> You're welcome. >> Thank you. Thank you very much. >> Thank you so much for coming down. Item five, student achievement. Uh we have Mrs. Bray to talk to us about the prek teachers for tomorrow collaboration. >> Good evening. I am very excited to be here talking about prek. I'm not sure if you've ever been in a preschool classroom or if you have, if you've ever been in one in the months of August, September, October. It is probably unlike anything you've ever seen. I think I want to say everything they do is big. So maybe they're super sad

030because they're leaving their mom. So it's a big sad. Maybe they're super happy because their friend brought in, I don't know, special snack. Everything is just big for them. Big emotions. And when things seem down and out for them and it's a big sad, it's followed by um a big happy. Miss Judy always says, prek teacher Miss Judy always says it's the best day ever. And I've kind of stolen that statement from her because I love it so much. A great example would be a student in prek said to me, um, "Miss Bray, do you know how to tie your shoes?" I said, "Yes, actually, I do know how to tie my shoes." And the child, big sad, I don't know how to tie my shoes. And Miss Judy said, "You know what? It's okay

031because you're going to learn." And so that big sad turned into jumping. Yay. I'm going to learn to tie my shoes. And it's just the nature of the preschool class. It's always amazing happening. So, this summer in August, we were at a principal's meeting and Dr. Daniel said, um, you know, we just gotten word that Head Start is not going to be in Matthews anymore. And there was this unspoken kind of panic in the room because from being at the high school, I knew that the high school students worked so closely and Miss Hayes's class and her early childhood education classes worked with those preschool classes and it was right next door and perfect in every way. And so I knew that and kind of panicked for a minute. Dr. Griev was in the room.

032He panicked for a minute. And so we looked at each other with no words and kind of went like and so then Dr. Daniel said, "I was wondering." And we were like already worked it all out and there were no words spoken because we knew that the absolute right thing to do was to partner with Matthews High School to allow those students to come into our prek class. And so I wanted to just tell you a little bit about the three three classes that students at Matthews High School have to work with early childhood education. So Miss Hayes has uh intro to early childhood education and that is classroom based. They stay with her. They learn things about um the development of a child. They learn about um self-esteem um learning just about guiding principles

033um helping children to grow and learn in a positive manner in healthy safe environments. Um and then talk a little bit about career development. If you go into early childhood education, what are some of the options that you have? She has two other classes and they would be in sequence. Next it would be um early childhood education one and then early childhood education two. And so her early childhood education one classes are coming into Matthews Elementary School. Not always, just they make appointments ahead of time. They've spent a lot of time early on in the classroom talking about lesson planning and and more specific um not just overall early childhood education, but more specific in how children um or how a classroom would run. And so once they spend those couple of weeks, they periodically

034come in and visit the classroom and disperse. There are nine students right now. They disperse between our two prek classes and that will go on all year. They um the other day were here for the fire trucks and I'll show you some pictures about that. It was just that they had scheduled that day and it worked out beautifully because we had a great community activity planned. Um but the early childhood education two that is when those it's two students and they are coming in every other day on their um block schedule every other day from 8:05 to 11:05 and they are completely immersed in the preschool classroom from breakfast all the way to lunch and everything in between. So they're getting center time, they're getting whole group time, they're getting story time, resource time. So

035much of, you know, most of the prek's day they're getting to experience and it's just really been a super positive experience. Um the teachers, Miss Hayes had this quote that she wanted me to share. She said, "It is critical for my early childhood education students to have the opportunity to work and learn in the preschool classrooms at Matthews Elementary School as it affords them the opportunity for hands-on worked-based learning, which is a requirement for both early child education and services one and two courses under the supervision of Mrs. Emanuel, Mrs. Hurst, and Mrs. Drummond. These Matthews High School students are able to put content learned in my classroom into practice in addition to providing additional eye additional eyes to monitor and help keep young children safe and engaged. PreK teacher Mrs. Drummond said these students

036are training to become teachers later in life and it's giving them the opportunity to see what goes on dayto-day in the classroom. It gives the opportunity the students the opportunity to see if this if education is a true passion for them. And then student Vanessa Boyd says, "One of the biggest lessons I've learned is that every kid is different in their own way. I love the environment and the teachers are awesome. Everyone is so nice and so kind. And so the students who go through all of these programs, they have the opportunity at the end to complete the pre-professional assessments and certification, which is an American Association of Family and Consumer Sciences National Industry Certificate. um that they're able to achieve through going through these pro these three courses. Um I would say that we

037are well blessed to be able to work in a community where we don't have problems, we solve them because that could have been a major setback to those early childhood education classes. And so now, not just one pre-K class, which was Head Start benefits, but now our entire preschool at Matthews Elementary School um benefit. And so I just wanted to share a couple of pictures and I am super impressed that the prek teachers are able to snap pictures in the midst of doing everything that they do because they have an amazing skill of teaching a lesson. So, they have all these children gathered around them and they're talking about whatever the topic is and somebody begins to wander and they never break eye contact with the class, but they're able to just say, "Oh, come

038out. You come over here and you be my friend." And they never miss a beat. And they were able to capture some of these amazing pictures. So, I'm really impressed. But this is the entire class, the early childhood education one out with the fire trucks that came full weeks ago. >> So cute. >> Then this one just shows that's um Vanessa Boyd working with the students. The um two the first two that you see there she was reading them a story and they had done a craft project and then she got to go on a field trip to the pumpkin patch with them. So I don't know what's more fun watching the students excitement to see the high school students coming in or the high school students excited to see the prek kids. It's a

039lot of fun. So I'm thankful for the opportunity. Do you have questions? I just want to say it's the miracle of children working with children. We can't beat it. That's fabulous. Thank you, >> Mrs. Go ahead. >> Um, could you repeat again about the national certification you referenced and I think you said there are three classes. >> So, yes. So, it's a series and if you complete all three of these. So, intro to early childhood education, right? >> Which would be just the general overview. >> Um, early childhood education and services one and then two. And then you take the professional assessments and certification which is um American Association of Family and Consumer Sciences which is a national industry certification that helps students achieve a gradu a graduation requirement. >> Okay. Thank you. >> So

040but you know with that they would that would also give them opportunity to pursue a career like as a teacher assistant or something like that. >> Exactly. Thank you. >> Any other questions? >> Excellent. >> Thank you very much. Yes, we'll carry on with item 5.2, the star data update from Dr. Daniel. All right. Um, so a quick um about star reading um our star data. So as part of our multi-tered systems of supports uh we have universal screening in reading and mathematics. So the the star data is a norm referenced formative assessment. So it is not to be a cumulative intensive um assessment of what every kid sort of needed to know that year. It is a quick sort of snapshot. It's intended to be um kind of a a snapshot relatively quick assessment

041to gauge where students are and how they are progressing. So um I've broken out this year's fall data um and sort of tried to lay it out because we're now beginning our second full year of star data and that universal um universal screening um assessment process. So I've broken it out in two different ways. So um the the first slide looks at grade level to grade level. So looking at um that middle sort of set of columns is looking at last year's second grade and then this year's fall um for second grade. And so it's looking at second grade last year second grade this year. And I would caution you all and anybody looking at this later to if you look at the 23 24 sets of columns that first year we we started on

042universal screening in in the winter and then star and renaissance learning who does star rebenchmark. So we had to adjust our scores starting in the fall of 2024. So if you look at the numbers up there, you're going to look, oh my gosh, like second grade was at 64 and 68 and then the next year second grade was at 55 and 42. That's because of the norm that benchmark changed. So the criteria to score at benchmark was elevated. Okay. So we kept higher norms. Renaissance sort of lowered the bar um with their reorming process postco. So, we kept the bar where it was so we had fewer um fewer students performing at that level and I think that was the right decision for us as we're having statewide conversations about increased cut scores on SOS.

043So, while the numbers may not be flattering, I think they're truthful about where where we sit right now. So looking at um grades two through five, looking at our elementary school reading and looking at grade level to grade level. So you'll see um as a comparison looking at last year's second grade in the fall was at a 38 on benchmark and then this year was at 28. Couple pieces again to keep in mind. Most of our cohorts are about between 50 and 60 students between you most of them are about 55 to 60. So every student is going to be a little over um just or just a little under two percentage points. So every student is going to impact those percentage points pretty significantly. So obviously we're not we're not at the place where

044we want in those very early grades in terms of hitting benchmarks, but I think when you look um down the column and looking at the increased number of students at each grade level who are at benchmark, I think it's a testament to what our teachers are doing and how they're helping students progress year year over year. So the next slide is looking at um I set it up so that you could look at or track the cohort of students. So on the left you look at last year second grade and if you go um straight across you then look at that cohort now in the fall of third grade. So this third grade cohort of students in the fall of last year were at had 38% of the students at benchmark. this year to start

045the year there's 49% of the students are at benchmark and one of the things you also notice is in many cases you see um a bit of a what I would call a summer slide or a summer melt so where they were in the spring versus where they came into the fall you're you see a little bit of a of a of a slide or a melt um on their reading performance. That's part of the reason we had for the calendar change was to move summer school from a two-eek summer school back to a four-week summer school. We tried it at two weeks. Um the feedback from admin and from teachers was that it really needed to be four weeks. Um so that was part of the tonight's calendar adjustment in the consent agenda. Okay.

046Looking at grades six through eight, again looking at just the grade level from year to year. So last year sixth grade, this year sixth grade, last year seventh grade, this year seventh grade, etc., etc. And then looking at tracking it by cohort again in reading last, you know, so fifth grade last year starting at the last year's fall, this year's fall, but looking at kind of the same um cohorts of students. It's really touchy. Sorry, I'll back. I don't know if you all are ready to move on, but Okay. So, looking at math. Um, so again, we do reading and math, grades, um, two through eight. So, fall reading, um, excuse me, fall math. Again, just looking at second grade, year to year in second grade, how we're how we're doing year to year. Again,

047I think you see growth um in the numbers of students at benchmark year after year and then tracking cohorts. So looking at so second grade, fall of last year again at 32 going into fall of third grade is starting at 43. I'm not I didn't do it that time. That's >> No, go back to um Yeah. All right. Right there is good. All right. So, um so the star math at the middle school looking at the sixth grade comparing sixth grade to sixth grade. Again, different groups of kids but grade level grade level content. And then comparing looking at the cohort of students yearover-year. All right. So some general observations from the the data at this point. So, um, we we see the summer like a summer slide or a summer melt from spring to

048fall. Um, and performance dipping from spring to fall. Um, looking at kind of cohort fall to fall, a lot of most cohorts saw some improvement fall to fall where we're starting out. But then I would jump to number three and say overall we're remaining not at the starting points where we need to be. Um and I would argue we're not yet at the um the final places where we need to be either. Um I think there's value in the STAR data for sure. There are values in value in having the conversations about why and our student performance. um there there are ways to improve the student performance for the sake of STAR performance. And so I I I say that to say I don't know that every student, especially in the older grade levels, take

049the STAR test seriously. It's not part of their grade. It's not um part of much of anything. It's something they do for 25 minutes on a given class period. So for them to um quality out of it isn't always the case. A lot of our students do have some intrinsic motivation and want to do well in everything that they do. And I'm not saying that students are intentionally bombing the star data. That's not what I'm I'm saying. Like there's not enough good here to say we're doing a great job. Um there's enough bad to say we have we do have significant challenges that we need to begin addressing. Um we also at part of the calendar I think um Miss Ward noted that our CIP benchmark window started this week. So one of the things

050we'll be able to do is look at our CIP benchmark scores which are part of the students grades which are more contentbased and compare those to where our STAR data lines up. So, um, I'm going to put a little more weight on the data we're getting back from the CIP benchmarks than I will on the STAR, but I think when those when that if that data or where that data overlaps, then we know we've got some instructional or some intervention type issues that we need to to address. And again, principles are having those those data conversations based on last year's so performance. Um I think the elementary school has started working on the vowels data that they have back. The veil the vowels is much more diagnostic. It's much more in-depth um of an assessment.

051So they're teachers are working through that data. But this the star gives us kind of a a norm reference sort of across the country sort of where we're doing and how we're performing. And um it's it's still concerning. We've We we still have work to do for sure. Questions on on the data. >> When will you be getting the CIP data in? >> So the the window opened yesterday. Uh there's I don't know the exact dates when each um content area is being tested, but it's a two-eek window. Uh so we'll we should have that um you know by by the end so the end of the quarter is Halloween. So, I'll have that that data pretty quickly. >> So, November meeting. >> Yeah, we should have some data for the November meeting. Yes. >>

052Okay. >> We should have Val's data. Hopefully, we'll also have the state accountability >> um data that has I was anticipating talking about tonight. That has been delayed with no timeline being given at this point as to when they expect to release that. They're still promising superintendent having a week in advance prior to the public announcing of things. So, there's still updating pieces. We go in and and look at the updates and it it changes a little bit every time there's an update. So, it's it's a little bit maddening. >> Any other star questions? >> I would just I'd just like to I know that these numbers do not they're not where we want them to be. They do not look good. They do not this does not feel good. >> But I know that

053there's a lot of concerted effort on data-driven analysis and really looking at stuff and really improving the teacher um methods. And we want to I will speak for the board. What can we do to help support the teachers in this effort? Um whe whether it's additional training or whatever they need to so that they can better help the students >> and having the right resources. So year one of really the year one of MTSS was last year and that was really establishing our assessment platforms. So this year what we've been working on is having what do you've got the data now what are we doing with it? So these are conversations about instructional practices also interventions. Do we have the right interventions in place? Do we have the right people leading those interventions? Do we

054have the right bell schedules to make sure those interventions work effectively? Um, it also allows us to have questions about, okay, how do we get more students to stay after school? Do we need to, you know, do I need to do we need to revisit the notion of an activity bus or an afterchool bus? Do we need to revisit some other kind of instructional minutes where we've got intervention built in into the middle of the day for everybody? The middle school put that in >> this year for power. You know, they're calling it power up. So, are there it'll lead to conversations and questions being asked. How do we need to structure things differently? Is it resources in some cases? Is it staffing? Do I need additional person here, additional person there? Um, so it'll

055it'll lead to a lot of other questions. >> Mr. here versus in the past is about the same. You got X amount passing X amount floating there. Then you got the same amount that are not passing and or are staying borderline. So looking at the numbers, this group of numbers versus the last way we did it, it looks about the same to me. Okay. >> Now, I may be wrong, but that's how I'm looking at it. >> Sure. When I when I looked at it when the numbers were coming in and when I was preparing this um depending on the grade level um so in our younger grades, we were seeing students sort of um that in need of intervention that that third sort of band, we were able to move many of those students

056up a level or two. It's where are I think still struggling is students who have a difficult time reading or in that sort of intensive intervention need that that that band of students. Those are students who are either have an IEP need very specifically designed instruction or they need um a lot more time with the curriculum with the instruction in a very small group setting. um in addition to their tier one. So that would be a tier one that they're getting their regular classroom instruction, but then they're working in a small group setting on a very specific program to get them up to grade level expectations. And that's where we're trying to figure out, do we have the right intervention programs in place? So our reading specialists have been very helpful. So, our new secondary

057reading specialist has been working at the middle school level and with some high school students assessing our reading intervention program and it's there not a lot of math intervention programs out there. We have Zern, but there's just not a ro there's not a robust um research on math intervention like there is in reading intervention. So, there just not as many math inter programs >> I see in in the old what we had was one-third was failing just about when you look at this except for a few it's one/ird math the way I look at math the only way you become more efficient at it >> is that you go over more mathematic questions >> okay so I don't you use the intervention. I just use the word keep going over and over and over until

058you improve. And but as I see it, it's a little bit better in some >> but not what I would call a greater area, >> right? It's not like our work is done. >> Yeah. >> We're we're we're far from that. Um but honestly, if if it were easy, everybody would do it. Like if like they're you know, there the reason why teaching um is an art and it's a science and making sure that we've got great teachers in our classrooms in front of our kids. So, I mean, that's that's a number one piece and then making sure they we're equipping them with the tools and the time and the schedules in order to do that. I think one of the other pieces we're going to have to have conversations about is how do we

059affect learning outside the classroom? How do we engage in sort of a communitywide literacy campaign and working um trying to get more reading to occur over the summer on the weekends after school hours? How do we boost that? How do we continue to boost mathematical learning outside of the outside of the bells? And how do we continue to engage engage the community in that pursuit? >> Um, and you may have said this and I missed it so I apologize. Um, so when you get the results, does it drill down to tell you what areas are their strength and what areas are their weaknesses? So then the teacher knows what to focus in on. >> You can pull certain reports from the individual students. I think you can pull classroom reports um to look at here

060are the the strands that need intervention or that need remediation. Here are some commonly missed areas for teachers to go back and work on. In terms of the reading piece, I'm going to lean towards the um HQIM and the VLA kind of textbook materials to make sure teachers are kind of staying um aligned with the Virginia Literacy Act for intervention. So, there are support materials that the state has approved for high quality instruction. So there's some I would say it's kind of tier oneb that a teacher would use in in a small group setting and then we have interventions for reading on top of that. So star will give you some of that. I'm going to lean in especially in the reading area to the analysis and the feedback we're getting from the reading program.

061So star reading doesn't always align completely and tightly with our reading textbook series in BLA. So it's it's a snapshot. It gives us kind of a picture. Um but like a lot of selfies, sometimes the first picture doesn't turn out exactly the way you want it to. And so you continue to take more and more selfies until you get the one you want. We're not taking multiple pictures to get the results we want or the results that we want, you know, everybody to see. We're doing the snapshot. This is what we've got. Let's triangulate some data by looking at, okay, we've got this student performed here, but they're, you know, they're up on this assessment. They're up on this other assessment. The star may be the may the outlier in that case. But if I've

062got three out of three, >> they're both kind of in the in need zone, then that's obviously going to activate um some student success teams and some conversations Just wanted to quickly clarify the timing for summer school. Is it half day for a month or the full days for a month? >> It's half days for a month. It's half days. >> Thank you. >> Any other questions or comments, Mr. Warren? >> I do have a comment. Um, and at risk of sounding like a broken record, as I know I will, um, we're it seems to me that especially with reading years ago, it didn't seem to be such a big struggle for children in elementary school to learn how to read. And in recent years, it seems it for some reason it has become a

063struggle. And I have to think back to many, many years ago when I was in school. School day was from 9 until 3. Somewhere along the way, we've added an hour. Now we're 8 to three. Well, essentially 3:00, 2:50, I think, technically. Uh, so we've added somewhere of 50 minutes plus to the school day and we still can't seem to get the results that we want. Um, last year, I believe the 2425 school year, I believe, is when the state rolled out some new reading curriculum, reading guidelines, and it they simply called it the science of reading. Great. Um, to me that was just phonics repackaged and relabeled because we went a number of years and didn't teach phonics. I can recall some younger student, younger kids in my family that weren't being taught phonics.

064And I cannot believe that it's the teachers. I know a lot of our teachers. I don't know all of them, of course, but I know a lot of them and I know we have some darn good teachers. Um, now we're awaiting new guidelines, new curriculum direction, whatever for math. And it just makes me feel like we're trying to reinvent the wheel. We used to know how to do this. All of a sudden, we don't know how to do this. And rather than looking back at what used to work and be very effective, we're trying to come up with a brand new idea, brand new solution. And I guess it's just because, you know, I'm an old-timer that I I find this very very uh frustrating, but it used to work and I just can't understand

065why we can't make it work again. I think um that conversation would take longer than we have tonight. >> It would take extremely way too long. Yes. >> Um I I education and schools in general are the the bottleneck for a lot of society. Um so um what I I do in general think the expectation for reading and math performance has increased per grade level over a generation. Um I think what is expected for students to be able to do on these assessments is different than what it was um a generation ago. But I also think that A lot of people have gotten their hands in and um to muddy muddy the waters on what is effective instruction and what may not be effective. And I want this in the curriculum and I don't want

066that in the curriculum and and moving things around. So it's it's not a simple simple answer. Again, we could spend we could take our entire workday next week um kind of walking walking from why Johnny can't read to where we are where we are today. >> I I I sympathize with what he said >> because I believed in it all along. In 1966, we were number one in the world in education. Today, we're number 27th. Two and two equals four is still four except we're teaching it different, but it's still four. What happened >> on the assessments? They're not asking you just to fill in the blank 2 plus two. Like it's like I'll I think what I'll try to do is at the work session pull some sample questions um from some of the

067so tests. So like it's it's not as as straightforward as that. But again, that's part of it. That's not all of it. I'm not saying the tests are more complicated and more convoluted. Like it's also there's um I mean there's probably a halfozen variables that we can talk about in terms of importance of education and respect for school and its attendance and its, you know, involvement in homework and it's um There's there's a number of factors that that all all play a role in it. >> I remember as a child I would come home from school. I had approximately an hour's worth of homework. So I would sit down and do an hour's worth of homework and then look at tomorrow. We had like maybe 50 pages. Okay? And I' look at those 50 pages.

068Then my mother would come in and we'd go over my homework and then she would spot quiz me on those 50 pages because she had read them too. That's not being done today. And that's a big part of the problem today. I think >> it's part of the challenge. >> Thank you, Mr. Dobson. Mrs. I'm wondering when you think um the principles might have an idea of of what um what needs to be done differently in maybe in the teaching all the things you addressed >> um you think that'll be in >> we'll begin board meeting what I don't want to do is just wait and sit here until the next set of scores come up and then we're having the same conversation. Hopefully not, but >> could you provide for us maybe the next

069meeting give us an update? Sure. >> On kind of what's being done um you know even if it's not even >> just the ideas that you're floating around of how you're moving forward on this. >> So we're meeting with principles on their comprehensive school plans. And so part of the that will be a data driven process to talk about okay how do we improve this year over last year. Um again like a lot of things at the state we're waiting for new state templates to come in. So in the meantime we're using old state templates. So we old state templates aren't going to cover everything in the accountability framework and so new ones will need to cover what's in the accountability stuff. But the heart of the matter is we still need to focus on

070reading, math, science, and how are our students performing on those? And what are we doing to improve scores to go back to the strategic plan where we we're trying to get to 90% for >> everybody across the board, every population, we're looking at 90%. Are we and the question comes up, are we at 90%. If not, then what are we doing to get there? So that's part of the the school comprehensive um school improvement plans that we're meeting with principles. Actually, I think we meet with principles after the week after um I think starting like November 5th and 6th. It's that week. So we'll have CIP data to then look at and assess pacing guides, content attainment, and then principles working with content teachers or grade levels then developing action plans. And it may be

071review sessions or changing pacing or some instructional practices and the like. So, we'll begin having those those conversations with principles first second week in November. So, we'll have some I can come back to the board in November with some action steps. Here's here's what the CIP benchmark data looks like and this is what what we're doing to address it. >> Great. Thank I mean, maybe it's, you know, it may be I anticipate it being better than the STAR data, but we'll see. It's our first time working with CIP benchmarks and CIP pacing and assessing during mastery connect. Um, but it should give us an early indicator of of where we stand for so testing. >> Um, one question, Dr. Daniels. >> Yes, ma'am. on the the principles. Uh do they have I wonder what input

072they're having from parents on helping their kids with homework, not only math and reading, but the whole shebang. Is is that a viable question that they could answer at some point? we can bring that up and ask them like if I I don't think that's a common discussion point that we have in terms of how do we help parents help kids at home, but that may be a conversation that we need to begin having as we talk about learning outside of the school walls and outside of the regular bell schedule or calendar. Um, you just anecdotally you hear like, "Oh, I stopped being able to help my kid in math at such and such grade. When they got into this stuff, I was out." Um, but that's anecdotally. I don't know that that's, you know,

073necessarily true. >> Okay. Thank you. >> One more question about CIP. Would it be possible to bring in data for the CIP cohort to show um where we are? Is that I think we get those reports. So they >> that that would be interesting. >> Yeah, they generate a lot of data for us. So and it's usually a pretty quick turnaround. So I should have some tentative results probably by the end of the week. >> Okay. >> Um to see I I went into Mastery Connect today to kind of see if I could find some stuff, but I don't I think it's still ongoing. >> Thank you for the presentation. It's we're at item six, school safety discussion. I mean, I think this is intended to be, I guess, an open discussion um among board

074members um based on some of the um I guess discussion recently within the community. And so I'll I'll start with having providing some updates. Um I don't know I guess I'll start with we should have favorable information regarding the SRO grants. Um I'm we are not the the grant appliers. We're not the grant holders. It's not our place to say one thing or another thing about the grant. But I anticipate some some positive communication about the SRO grants um in the in the near future. Um I'll also we've I think we've talked a little bit about it among the board, but I don't know how public the information is. So Matthews the state offers annual um security equipment grants. So, Matthews was awarded $80,000 for the high school and Thomas Hunter for weapons detection and

075fencing. So, we are um coordinating with a weapons um detection vendor um to do some demonstrations. Um the board, it was a topic for the board during one of our summer work sessions. So, you all asked me to begin pursuing that and getting more information about weapons detection. So, we have um we have about $80,000 to be able to provide weapons detection systems at the high school and here at the middle school. We did not receive any grant money for weapons detection at the elementary school, but um so we're um again we're looking at what equipment to buy. But a a key piece about having the equipment is also developing the protocols around that. So how are we going to staff that equipment to supervise students as they are moving through? It's looking at how

076are we adjusting traffic flow coming in and out of the buildings. When are we deploying the weapons detection? Are we doing it every time the the public is coming in? Um the good news is there are several school divisions around us who are a year or so ahead of us in implementing weapons detection in their schools. So, we can look at some of their protocols and some of their messaging. Um, at this point, the the school divisions that I've talked to about, hey, which which brand did you go with? Are you satisfied with that that system? What are some of the protocols you put in place? How do you staff it? Um, my initial concern was if we're deploying weapons detections and we are looking for weapons, what happens when we find it? and who's

077there when we or if we should we um find it, how you know what do we who who's there and then that goes back to school resource officers and staffing of the school resource officers and how do we work with the the county to make sure that we can get the um get those um individuals in place. So, we're we'll begin having we've had some tentative conversations with principles on thinking through the staffing, the who, who's available, how do we um move traffic off the bus in the morning, um student parent drop off in the morning, how many entrances, like you have to really funnel everybody through one or two places um in your building in the morning. that then can create sort of a backup or a delay of you need to make sure

078your Chromebook is out. If you've if you've got a cell phone that's out of sight, but it's in your backpack per pop, you need to get that out because it'll set off the the weapons detection. So that in and out and just working working through some of those things, but it's it's coming. Um, so I know Mr. Anthony was kind of our point person. He's reached out. forward attempting to have a demo um hopefully during kind of that election that November 3rd 4th sort of window. Um I've as I've talked with other superintendents and other divisions they've invited if we want to bring a team to go look at their morning routine and um take a look at their systems to see see how they work. um that that invitation has um has been extended

079to us last year. So on another item last year, we had security grant money for um what are called environmental sensors um otherwise known as vape detectors. The modern generation of vape detectors also can um pick up keywords, can pick up noise level fluctuations. in addition to being able to discern regular vape from THC vape, etc. So, we had the the wiring installed for the four bathrooms at the high school. We delayed the full implementation of those detectors at the high school um pending some bathroom renovations. At the time, we were anticipating hoping uh to get some bathroom renovations to occur at the high school. We ran out of summer uh because of everything that the county maintenance crew was was able to get done in other places. We just kind of ran out of

080ran out of summer. So, we're working to find a solution to in a nutshell, we've got to get the ceiling closed in. There are a lot of broken and open ceiling tiles in the bathrooms at the high school. So, we've got to get those closed in to then calibrate the environmental sensors, get administrators trained on um what the software for these environmental sensors and what they can report on. They'll sync with our camera system. Um we can figure out like different ways they can alert school staff um from blinking lights to emails to text messages to to whatever to alert alert that that something is happening. Um it it's a pretty cool technology. Like it can kind of map out the space. They're not cameras, but it can map out the space and determine clusters

081of of kids in one area of the space and noise volume going up. So if you hear, you know, you know, a ruckus is brewing in the bathroom, it'll send an alert. or um key words like you want to fight and it hears the word fight and so it can send um like an alert to administration to make them aware. So um so those some of these things have been delayed a little bit but they're they're on the cusp. So um when we talk about we weapons detection, we're including knives in that as well. Are we just is it focusing primarily on guns, handguns? >> It's weapons. I'll be honest, I don't know the technology well enough right now to tell you it's um it looks at the density of the metal and the sensor,

082but It's It's a generation above walking through a standard metal detector. >> Okay. >> Um but I don't know I don't know it well enough. I need to sit through the Okay. >> Um >> the the session with the vendor when I last looked at them. This this generation of of device was new and not totally tested at that point. And most of my time was spent looking at just straight metal detectors. um these these were the the cutting edge the you know these were just at the technology expose and hadn't really kind of >> deployed. >> So we're also talking about using them for the sporting activities after our >> and I think that's part of the conversation. So are we are we going to have them >> um at schoolboard meetings when folks

083are coming in at open house at the band concert at the basketball game at the the parent night, the the whatever. So if we I think you know and that I think that's a board conversation or principal conversation is if we are deploying these then we need to deploy them like if it's like if when we've got people in the building and it's a one of the principles one of the excuse me one of the superintendents I talked to said they deployed them for any school sponsored activity. So, it wouldn't necessarily be um if the high school is hosting dunks, we wouldn't necessarily deploy the weapons detection for for dunks. And they're portable, so you can move them from place to place based on an event. So, in theory, we can and they're battery packed,

084so we can take them out to the football field and have folks walk through them um prior to coming in for a football game or a soccer game or or whatever. Um or take them down to the auditorium for graduation for, you know, a school a school event in the auditorium. >> So, so it it is has to be um there has to be a a person that uses it. You kind of need two people. >> It's not a It's not a machine that's that >> it's a machine and it's going to indicate there's um someone tested positive for something. It may be um a heavy duty three- ring binder. It may be a cell phone. It may be the Chromebook that didn't get taken out. It may be um some of the superintendents that

085you know I guess if you have kind of a heavy um eyeglasses case like a metal like it that can set it off sometimes and you can adjust sensitivity um for for different different amounts. >> There's a sensitivity. >> So so then the do in my mind then the domino effect is going to be you're going to have to have staff. >> You're gonna have to have staff. So and and and also with the bathroom sensors, someone's going to have to be available to respond to >> those. So that's going to mean >> right >> availability of staff at any given moment to respond, >> right? And that's part of the challenge like >> Yes. Um, and you know, if it's if you set up the environmental sensor to receive an email, then like I

086don't I don't want admin or staff sitting at at a computer waiting for an email to come in. >> So, if you don't check your email for three hours later, and you can go, depending on what the information is, you can go back and look. Okay, there's only one student in here. The the vape sensor tested positive for whatever. I go back and check the camera. There's only one student one time. And that's kind of an easy go back to figure it out. When you have six students or five students in the restroom at a time, the vape sensor goes off. It's much more challenging to then figure out who who it was. You're still going to have to go through and attempt to search or figure out who who it was. I mean, it's

087not it's not a foolproof um it's not a foolproof situation because you're still going to have multiple people in that space should the sensor go off. But you can begin to track, hey, every time David is in the restroom, the vape sensor tends to go off. Whether it's, you know, him and two of his buddies or him by himself or him and a crowd of six, like it you can begin to try to narrow down your focus. >> And I think And this is my final question concern. You know, we want safety. We we talk about that. Um we focus on that. We uh there's a lot of discussion about that. But but I think we need to be prepared that when these are in place, we're going to get a lot of feedback back

088from the community about why do we need this? Why is it overkill? I mean, I just think that as a board, there's going to be You're going to have some that support that, but you're going to have a lot of people, I believe, in this community that are going to say, "We don't need that. We didn't have that when we were in school, etc., etc." So, I think as a board, we need to be prepared for that negative feedback. >> I hope that's not the case. I mean, based on um initial results from climate survey, from staff, I mean, that has come up um at the high school. Um several people have brought up the needs um for to make sure we're getting the SRO's back as quickly as possible. Um the need for weapons

089detection. Um and just gleaning the the few social media comments and things. I mean, again, I don't >> put all my I don't put all my faith in social media. Um but the the the that I take from that is I think there's there's there's a willingness there's a desire to make sure we have more things in place um for our kids. I'm hoping that it can't happen here sort of thought process is is eroding. >> If you go back a couple years ago when we had name change of the school was a topic at the school board meeting. We had sheriff's deputies on duty at the doors coming in. You could not have any bag to carry in. Women couldn't bring a handbag or a crochet bag or anything like that. That was not

090allowed. But it was the sheriff's department. So your HRO officer is going to have to be in charge of this. No matter how you deploy it, they have to be in charge of it. Okay, that's that's a given. Now, to go back talking about weapons as an example, when I went to school, every boy had a pen knife. You're not going to allow that today. >> No. >> Okay. So, you have a different set of circumstances there for good reason. I never heard of anybody getting stabbed with a pen knife when I was a kid, but in recent day history, yeah, you have. So, you have to have this all geared to where that SRO officers in charge of it. You can't get around it. And you may have to go from two places down

091to one of coming into the building. >> Well, I think that's that's where we have to talk through with um admin. It works better at Thomas Hunter. I mean, we I think it's easier to flow here. The high school is going to be a little more challenging where the bus loop the buses drop off students versus car riders is on the opposite side of of the building. You can't have car riders going through the bus loop and weaving in between school buses and trying to um kind of navigate that. I think in terms of funding from the grant. I think I'll get the final numbers. I don't I don't have a a solid quote back um for the demo, but I we'll be close to being able to purchase two systems for the high school

092and one for um Thomas Hunter. So um but again, it'll it'll go back to that staffing piece. Um, and that the exact question about the SRO, I asked some of the other superintendents, how are you staffing this? Um, is your SRO where the weapons detection is? Because my assumption was we needed an SRO, you know, if you're looking for weapons and you find one, you know, you you need somebody with a weapon there to do something about it. Um but they um the ones I talked to said they just have staff who are um manning and helping facilitate the students moving through and then the SRO is um still moving about. They may and one of the essential pieces, one of the common denominators with SRO is you don't want predictable patterns. Um so they're

093intentionally not in the same place every day at the same time. So um and So, I I think we have to think through who and what and how and um you know, just I guess, you know, be thoughtful about it. It's not as easy as just kind of plugging them in and saying go and then we we figure it out. I mean, we need to do some pre-planning coordination with the sheriff's office on like what is what does this look like? >> I mean, an SRO can't be there during the school day and at night also. I mean, >> correct. Correct. Well, again, thinking about, okay, so you know, one of the questions I asked about was like after school activities. So, what are you doing about like after school practices and kids coming in

094and out from practice? Are you having somebody manning that? How do you, >> you know, how do you manage manage that piece? So, lots of lots of questions to be asked. >> Mr. Morgan. >> Yeah. I just have a quick story to share. It'll be quick. Some years ago, I worked part-time in security over at the hospital in Gloucester, and none of these security officers were armed. Um, after begging and pleading, we finally did convince them to put two officers on a shift, but still no one was armed. We had a situation one weekend that was very frightening to a lot of us. And at a meeting following that with the facilities director, I asked a question, do you think that we will ever be armed? And the director said, yes, I believe you will.

095And I asked the question, when? He said, after someone gets killed. >> Yeah. So, please as a board, let's don't wait for a tragedy to happen to take the necessary necessary precautions to try to prevent it the best as we possibly can. >> Thank you for those words, Mr. >> There are no further questions for Dr. Daniel or comments. We'll move on. Okay. Thank you. Thank you for that. Very informative again. Item seven, citizens questions, comments, or requests. Comments not pertaining to personnel or student matters. Protocol for public comment period. Matthews County residents and school employees wishing to speak should sign up with their name and address on the sheet provided. Each individual will have three minutes to speak. Comment period will end after 90 minutes. All comments should be directed to the school board.

096Speakers shall not matters involving students or personnel as these topics may violate confidentiality and are not appropriate in a public forum. Public comment is the school board's opportunity to listen to the speaker. Since our purpose is to hear from you, the board will not engage in dialogue with the audience or whomever is at the podium. Matters requiring a response will be directed to the superintendent for research and response. The superintendent may report back on such matters at a subsequent business meeting session as appropriate. The school board carefully considers your comments when deciding on matters brought before us. We appreciate your attendance and your input. Our first speakers tonight are Mr. Ken Childress and Mr. Brian Donnelly. Kenus Hudgins, Virginia Matthews Robotics Club. I just want to give a update on a high school robotics program.

097The high school has a club that meets once a month, one hour. Uh we participated in that. We had um that was on September We had 24 sign up and 17 attended. And uh Brian and I have a Matthews Matthews Robotics Club. We meet once a week, one to two hours. The first meeting was on October 22nd. Uh we had seven students and four mentors, parents, um and some people that wanted to help. We meet at 3:00 on Wednesdays and this I thought this was a good start and this program cost enough for the school. I want to thank the school board and the high school administration for giving us this opportunity to bring back robotics to the high school. Uh Brian Donley, Matthews, Virginia. Just to amplify a little bit of what what what

098Ken was talking about. Um in our two club meetings so far, uh we've established our safety program, talked about a skills building program and the and the the club conduct in general. We'll be getting more into that. But then in tomorrow's uh schedule, we're doing hands-on activities, soldering uh learning activities, uh usage of a multimeter, and then we have a competition robot that will be um analyzing a hands-on a little guided discovery, uh where the the participants will have a robot right there in their in their hands and we're going to figure it out, see how it works. So, a little hands-on thing. In January, there's a regional competition of enrichment uh for robotics. We won't be participating, but we uh we are hoping to attend as a as spectators, and we'd like to invite

099you to come with us. It's a great it's a great learning thing. Uh if you haven't seen one, there's nothing like it and and it'll really give you a sense of what we're doing in our program. >> I I don't have a date, but I will surely get it back to you. >> Great. >> Digs. That was >> that was your question too. It was all our question. This is great. This is fantastic. Thank you so much for your efforts and your again energy for this program and it sounds like it's paying off and the students are really excited. >> It's coming along. Thank you very much. >> Thanks for being here tonight. Thank you, [Applause] >> Miss Amy Bohannan Stewart. Good evening. Um, I'm super excited to hear what Miss Bray had to say

100about the Matthews High School students helping the helping Matthews Elementary School. Um, so anyway, that sounds like a win-win situation. I do come here tonight with some major concerns that I feel compelled to draw your attention to. I am a taxpayer and former Thomas Hunter Middle School teacher as well as a parent of a recent Matthews High School graduate. I'd like to think that most of the problems in our society, government, and in places like our schools are due to a lack of understanding. And I'm convinced of this because well perhaps um you know, I just want to think the best of people whenever possible. I'd really like to think administrators just don't understand why we're hemorrhaging staff here in Matthews. Hopefully, it's not deliberate because there there's a limited number of people that are

101willing to work here. I understand why Matthews is hemorrhaging staff as I was one of the staff members that bled out. Uh the best way for administrators to understand why we're hemorrhaging staff would be to help would be to step into the shoes of your teachers and support staff. Sometimes it does seem like we aren't doing enough to stop the hemorrhaging of staff. There is something that our administrators should be doing right now to fix it that's absolutely free. Just as teachers should ask themselves if they would want to be a student in their class, administrators should ask themselves if they would want to be a teacher or member of support staff in their school. Matthews loses staff mainly because they don't feel supported or they feel like they're set up for failure. One of

102the best ways to make teachers and make staff feel supported and like you're at least trying to understand what they go through is for all administrators to sub at least once a month for at least one entire class block. This helps administrators understand if their policies and schedules work well. It will help administrators make better decisions in the future. And I'm saving my biggest concern for last, and that's for student and staff safety. And I feel like this should be at the top of everyone's list because student achievement is hindered when students don't feel safe. I'm disappointed that spending on positions in the schoolboard office has been greatly expanded before we have SRO's in place or even have deputies at games like we used to. When my daughter was playing volleyball two years ago here

103at Matthews High School, we had deputies at our home games. I attended two Matthews High School volleyball games this fall and I did not see any deputies at either game. The other thing that leads me to be even more concerned about safety um for staff and students is that our sheriff felt the need to remind parents to let her office know if any crimes happen to their children, whether they are inside or outside the school. It sounds like it's possible that schools may not be reporting everything that they should to local law enforcement. When I was working in this school system, I felt like we used to have a much better relationship with our local sheriff and deputies. We regularly saw Deputy Barry around at faculty meetings, and I felt like my principal, Mrs. Bird,

104had a great relationship with her. It can be that way again, and it must be that way again. In addition to keeping students and staff safe, it will build trust with the community. if someone independent of school administration is in this building keeping a watch on things. Thank you. >> Thank you, Miss Bohannon Stewart. Is there anyone else who would like to speak tonight? Sharon Fry Sharon Fry, Port Haywood, Virginia. When I left home tonight, I got an email and Mr. Morgan, you said, "Things have changed and what has changed?" And my email said it all. It was written to me and it says, "Dear God, we took God out of our schools a long time ago." That's sad. We thank you for your guidance for us all here tonight as we seek to make

105good decisions for this school and this community. Please keep our schools and our community safe from harm. Please give us rest from any worry and peace to trust in the outcomes from what we have voted on. And after this meeting, guide us safely home and let us awaken to your love in the morning. in the name of Jesus Christ. Unfortunately, we humans, we sheeple, we US citizens or whatever long about 1962 or 1963, we chose or the government chose for us to take God out of schools. We have to bring God back into our schools and give our children a God-given life, a life of faith and trust. over government and over authority and administrators. Not that there shouldn't be regulations. As far as the STAR test data, I'm watching and I'm watching. I'm watching.

106I haven't seen any change. And so I was I listened and I heard these kids aren't motivated when they take this STAR test. Well, why take it if they're not motivated and you're not going to get a good outcome? Why take it? What? It's not going to display the results we want. The results are poor. So, give them some motivation. Give them a prize. Give them a star. Hey, the top kid on the star gets something. They'll get make them strive for achievement on the star. Or why even take it? We're wasting our time. And then I heard SOS. Well, maybe they can't take the STAR test because the SOS are worded differently. And I don't know. I saw eyes roll up there, Miss Dr. Daniel. But the thing is, I thought you said I

107thought you said that you're going to have a meeting with the board to see to see how the SOS are written. I might have misunderstood you. >> Okay. Okay. But I would like to know I would like to know if they're sabotaging our children because in all aspects two and two is four and how can the SOS make it any different? And I also agree with uh Kelvin Morgan uh homework. That was a good question. Are our children doing homework? I always had homework. I didn't have parents there to tell me if it was right or wrong, but in the morning when I turned it in, I got extra credit. Oh, you did your homework. You give I'll give you a point here. I'll give you a point there. Homework is essential. I appreciate your

108job. God bless me. I didn't get it. Thank you, Mrs. Pride. Is there anyone else who'd like to approach the podium? Randy Applegate, teacher at Matthews High School. Just want to reiterate and thank Brian and Ken for working with the robotics. There is an appetite for robotics uh 6 through 12, probably even younger than that. And they've been engaging with the 4 program and other things, but at the high school it is a critical pathway and it can can lead to a lot of great things moving from high school and the stuff that they're teaching. I was able to attend their meeting. I'm doing kind of both the audiovisisual and the robotics kind of overseeing both of them. So, it was a little tough for me to get to the whole thing, but there is

109an appetite there and I want to thank them for for being there and I I appreciate your support. We've got some stuff to work out with space and whatnot, but all that is in the process. And I just want to thank everybody, all the volunteers. >> Thank you, Mr. Applegate. >> Thank you for your support and all you're doing as well. >> Is there anyone else who'd like to approach? >> My name is Julie Clark and I live here in Matthews. I have studied research school shootings since before Coline. My research was in the book raising a nonviolent child by author psychologist John Roseman. Many parents here in Matthews she knows of my research and parents are coming to me constantly. They're writing to the board that their children their grandchildren are being threatened with

110bladed knobs. It's being written off as horse. That's not horse. About the same time I heard this story from a grandparent. There was a story in Tennessee where a boy brought a bladed knife to school, a bo box cutter, and threatened others with it. Nothing was done to this child. He came back with a gun. He shot another student and then killed himself at school. that it's just not being taken seriously enough from the things I'm hearing daily from parents and grandparents in this county and they all tell me that they're writing to the board. They're calling and nothing's being done. With your permission, I'd like to copy one step ahead. The book is titled Staying One Step Ahead: How to Prevent School Shootings. Tom has been to over 66 school shootings in in counting

111uh Yuvali. He studied them extensively. And one thing he writes about in his book is um he talks mostly about intruder shooters, but the median age of school shooters is 16. Most school shooters, 80% if not more, are students. The youngest school shooters in the US were six years old. One shot his teacher, Newport News, Flint, Michigan. A little boy brought six-year-old boy brought a gun to school and he shot a classmate who wouldn't kiss him. The youngest mass sniper school shooters in America were 11 and 13 years old in Jonesboro, Arkansas. They had carried 11 guns to school. They set up outside in the woods behind their school and picked off students and staff as they came outside when one of them went inside to pull the fire alarm. The woods brings me to

112this story told to me by a cafeteria worker here in Matthews County that school metal detectors may have their place, but they're terrified with the back of the school being left open, service doors, cafeteria doors, and they know that the students know these doors are open. Also, with metal detectors becoming more in use, school bus stops are being targeted. Bladed weapons and knobs are being hidden on playgrounds, under bolt, under buildings, under mulch because they know how to bypass the detectors. A superintendent in a county not far from here posted in the newspaper when they got their metal detectors that the metal detectors would only be used when they had enough deputies on hand. This was posted in the newspaper. The county community should not know when they're going to be used. The students should

113not know when they're going to be used. If anybody wanted to do something, all they'd have to do is look for a deputy car. No deputy car, everything's fine. Deputy car, they know not to bring their weapons. So, those are just a few things to be aware of. Yes. >> Sorry. This is very I'm I'm very glad you approached the podium. Your your three minutes is up, but I'm very appreciative of you coming forward and speaking with us. >> You're welcome. Thank you. Thank you. Would would anyone else like to come to the podium? No one else would like to approach. Thank you very much for all of those of you who did speak up. Thank you. Um we will move on. to item eight, superintendentformational reports from Dr. Daniel with 8.1 the absentee report.

114>> School board >> that will be after at the >> end. Thank you, Mr. Dobson. >> All right, members of the board. Um, attendance data. So this um data that's in the packet and is up on the screen covers the first part of August and then into September. Um so it doesn't um it hasn't captured our October data. Um so one of the things that Miss Thomas has added for this report is then the the tardies um for the year. Um and then as always we've looked she's looking at students with five um parent excused absences. So the number of students who have exceeded in the first really at this like when this data is collected about halfway through the first quarter or an eighth of the way through the year. Um again as a

115reminder students get five parent notes per semester. Um, so that then gets reset for second semester, but the chronic absenteeism then is over 17 days over the course of the year. Um, so you've got some comparison number this year versus last year. Um, attendance warning letters. Um, I believe we begin sending warning letters at three absences. Is that four absences when a student reaches four absences um, in the semester? Um, so that's when we begin that process. So like so if you look at Matthews High School for example, um while we're zero this year compared to two last year who have exceeded the absences, you still have a number of students who have received those warning letters that are being sent home. That's that's a lot higher. Um but yeah, we're we're lower. And then

116in the um number of attendance plans being developed. What honestly I found particularly interesting about um this by adding the tardies for the day is looking at we have more elementary students um tardy to school per day than we do high school students. I think that the general thought process would be our high school students as they're um driving themselves and whatnot. they're kind of rolling in sleepy eyed teenagers. Um, but really what we see more of is um our elementary students who are um late to school and how much of that is is developing patterns, developing habits um early on in elementary school. So um so that's kind of an early tracking mechanism for where we are on tardies. I'll say our tracking last year of overall attendance, we were kind of in pretty

117good shape. Pretty good shape. Pretty good shape. And it's really we continue to monitoring it and working with families, working with multi-disiplinary teams, student success teams that Miss Thomas is and and the principles have formed to assist students working with the court system, which is remains a challenge. Um, but I think those efforts paid off. But what's really critical is that last month of school and making that last month of school engaging, important, um, effective to make sure that students aren't just sort of taking off the last two weeks and that really throwing our chronic absentee numbers really out of whack. So, I think the schools really did a great job last year honing in those um excuse me, those last several weeks of of school along with the you obviously it's it's a year-long

118effort. You can't start worrying about attendance in April. Um so, monitoring it, working with families, communicating it. I think um schools kind of reached out like attendance awareness month and being on time to school and some of those sort of outreach programs, but it's it's going to be a constant um constant project. >> Um any questions about absenteeism report from the board? >> I just had a clarification question on the tardies number of students late for a month. Is that >> all individual discreet occurrences or are these multiple some students will have multiple tardies and >> so it's average average students per day >> average >> right so that's average tardies >> so on the totals >> oh I say okay the next column over sorry um I think it's incidents I didn't ask her

119that specific question but I think for the for the month there I don't think there are 163 nonduplicated students. I think there are 163 incidences of tar. Yeah, I would imagine having been a high school principal. >> No, having been a high school principal, I'm guessing probably a third of those are repeats. Um, they're probably um you probably have >> repeat offenders >> 35 to 40 kids who are making up the 163, but I'm just um I would have to look at the list to to check that. Oh, it didn't. >> Can you hit the next screen for me, Caleb? >> Pack it, too. All right. Other information for the board. um for your information. So, there's the high school financial report, the Thomas Hunter financial report, field trip request for Thomas Hunter um again,

120elementary financial report, field trips for the three schools, and the FY26 September expenditure report. Um I will say as we I was reviewing um this expenditure report, there are some I think Excel formula errors that then got pulled in. So, Miss Hunley and I are going to um Miss Hunley is going to work on kind of fixing those. We will update um the correct corrected version of the financial report and board docs and send a note to the board members to let you know when it's the corrected version is is there. So, I apologize for um some of those um formula errors in Excel. Just um so the board knows we what happens is we extract this report out of RDA, then format it into Excel. And so it's it's multiple multiple steps in formatting

121and things along those lines. So, and again, this is kind of a new formatting process for us. So, we're we'll get these corrected and posted for everyone's review. >> Well, I would like to say that I really appreciate this new format. It's easier to read. It's expanded down to the line item level. of a line item level than we have been used to. That's very helpful and I appreciate the effort that it's taken and thank you so much. Okay, >> I think that wraps if there are no questions on any of the reports for 8.2, I think we'll move on to nine. >> Great. schoolboard informationational reports. So, first we're going to start with uh 9.1 the BSBA delegate assembly discussion and uh the annual BSBA conference is coming up in November and Mr. Morgan

122will be our delegate this year and um you have some information to share with us. I do have some information to share. >> Um coming up at the annual conference for Virginia School Board Association, they are proposing um some legislative changes that will have to be voted on by the delegates at the annual conference coming up. Um I will read these. I think each board member has a hard copy, but I will read these proposals for anyone out here who doesn't quite understand what we're doing. Um, the first legislative proposal is an assessment reform and accountability reform. and it reads, "The VSBA supports the establishment of a balanced assessment and accountability system as defined by local school boards that utilizes a more complete picture of student learning by providing both measures of achievement such as

123so tests and state approved authentic measures of individualized student growth over time. Furthermore, the VSBA supports a reduction in the number of SO tests to carefully selected grade levels and content areas to permit the reallocation of assessment dollars and instructional time. Virginia School Boards Association also supports a comprehensive review of state content standards, curriculum guidelines, and assessments to ensure that policies promote culturally responsive educational practices free of systemic racism, discrimination, and background knowledge biases. VSBA supports maintaining a system of accountability standards which weights growth measures at least as heavily as proficiency mastery measures in assessing elementary and middle schools. Additionally, VSBA supports evaluating English learners appropriately, continuing to exempt them from the achievement and growth calculations for 11 semesters. If the board of education passes standards that do not do this, BSBA urges the general

124assembly to pass legislation that would require those standards to be modified accordingly. Following paragraph would be the new language that is proposed to be added to this legislative reform. Virginia's public schools are committed to delivering high quality instruction and ensuring student success. Therefore, BSBA supports legisl legislation to provide school divisions with a minimum of one full academic year to prepare for and implement any major policy changes that affect curriculum, instruction, assessment or accountability systems. We want to have any discussion on that particular one proposal. >> Our awareness uh to date on this as we will have another meeting which to discuss more fully. But I do appreciate you uh going over the uh items and then the proposed changes so that we can get a flavor for it and so that the community can as

125well. >> Okay. Um if there are no questions discussion on that particular one I'll move on to the next one which is proposal number six chronic absenteeism absenteeism proposed legislative position and this is new and the language is very plain and simple. that said, "Remove chronic absenteeism as an indicator in accountability and accreditation models used to rate public schools." That's a proposed new policy. >> Mrs. Hodgees has a question. >> Is Is that a I thought that was a federal. So, okay. I just want to make sure I'm I'm not mixing apples and oranges here. >> It is. So Virginia has to align their accountability measures with federal and it's part of the federal um guidelines. So I mean I that's obviously a level above my knowledge in terms of Virginia interacting with the US

126Department of Education which you know is undergoing some overhaul right now. Anyway, >> remember that correctly? >> Don't eliminate. >> That's the proposal. Okay. Anything further on that particular proposal. If not, I'll move on to the next one. Proposal number eight. This is enrollment cap for virtual Virginia proposed amendment to existing legislative position. It's going to be some language which is proposed to be deleted and some that's going to be added. I'll try to clarify as I go. It begins, Virginia's school divisions continue to face drastic budget cuts at both the state and local levels and are faced with the possibility of eliminating classes. They're striking through especially advanced placement AP courses. They want to take that out and add including advanced placement AP courses, dual enrollment, and other similar courses. And it goes on,

127technology and online courses such as virtual Virginia can provide a cost-saving alternative to school divisions. Virtual Virginia staterun online course offerings has an overall cap on the number of students in the Commonwealth that can enroll in its online courses at no cost to localities. In addition, there are caps on the number of students that each school division may enroll in each course at no cost to the division. Once the state cap is reached, school divisions must pay for additional students to enroll in courses. The enrollment cap in virtual Virginia should be increased from its present capacity to accommodate more students to participate, including advanced courses in a costeffective manner. They proposed to add this sentence that may not be offered in school divisions without qualified staffing. As citing the rationale, this legislative budget priority needs

128to be revised to raise the free enrollment cap that will provide additional flexibility to divisions wishing to alleviate staffing issues by using the state's virtual Virginia program while expanding opportunities for the students. >> You're not sleepy yet. You will be in a few minutes. [Music] I can't recall how virtual Virginia is funded. >> I don't know that I'm totally familiar on their funding mechanism. Um I know I want to say we get 10 slots per school and then a certain number. Is it more than that? Yeah, we I think if if certain classes have space in them, we can get a certain number of students into those um classes, but annually we um we budget for virtual Virginia enrollment costs. It's helpful for students who may want to take Italian or we have a lot

129of students who well not a lot but frequently students who will want to take American Sign Language or just courses that we would never be able to offer here. I think this push is because of part of the accountability framework that's coming down and the three E having um students earning associates degrees and enrolling in dual enrollment API IB um there's some other category that schools would get sort of points for in that accountability matrix but if you're in a um rural somewhat isolated school division, it's going to be difficult to find a dual enrollment teacher or somebody to be certified in those AP courses. So, having access through virtual Virginia is is helpful. And then as enrollment sort of dollars shrink for some school divisions, for a lot of school divisions in Virginia, we're

130not alone um trying to find ways to cut costs. >> Mr. Morning. >> I'm just going to ask a quick question. Um, since we do have another school board meeting, regular school board meeting before this conference, >> could I ask that at our next meeting, I can have a consensus of the board so I know how to vote appropriately on these proposals? >> Absolutely. We will take this information and we'll have time to process it and we will have that um action point, unofficial action point next meeting. Good. Thank you. >> Thank you, Mr. Morgan. >> Moving to item 9.2 is a reminder that we have a schoolboard town hall this Thursday, October 23rd at 6 PM in this building, the J. Murray Brooks Auditorium at Thomas Hunter Middle School. Item 9.3, there will be

131a schoolboard work fall work session on Thursday, October 30th from 8 to 3 at the Chesapeake Bank Community Room. Item 9.4, There will be a joint legislative tour on Thursday, November 13th at 9:00 a.m. beginning here at Thomas Hunter Middle School. Item 9.5. Members would please review any board conferences and webinars, past and future. Also, any upcoming due dates for trainings that are needed. Item 9.6. six board and committee reports by members and the superintendent. Um just want to uh reiterate that the board of supervisors meetings will be attended. Um uh I was in October, I will be in November and Mr. Dobson is in December. three. >> I believe in the minutes from last month there was a change in that miss. I believe Mr. Dobson was going to take November. >> I I

132believe it was in the minutes. can check on this later. Well, I just want to be clear on on what it is. Whatever it is, Well, we can check this at a at a later time. Um, but for now, let's go with what it's stated here. I will be attending November, Mr. Dobson, December. Miss La, we'll get together later on this possibly. I think I saw some change, but won't relay it anymore. Item 10, citizen comments on items discussed during the meeting. Do we have any citizens who'd like to approach the podium? So, good evening again, Amy Bohan Stewart. Um, so I jotted down some thoughts and things. Um, so Mr. Dobson, I would like to thank you for your comment on students needing math practice. Um, I would agree with you on that certainly.

133Um, I made sure my daughter got her practice in uh when when I was a parent of a of a younger child. So, and Il was really great for that and was something that was used many years in this school system. Um fortunately when my daughter was going through the system was just a part of math practice um and it was done away with um last year and um I have some reports of teachers saying that students are saying some students are saying they miss it. Um, and having experience with as a teacher, as a parent, looking over my daughter's shoulder, sometimes I was fussing at her for clicking through the explanation without reading it when she got something wrong. Um, it was so great for practice because even if you were practicing at home

134and your parent couldn't help you figure out what you were doing wrong, it told you what you got right and wrong. And if you got something wrong, it would explain to you why. And there were video little video clips available on there for to help students get an explanation too. And if you got something wrong, it would give you a simpler version of that, a similar problem, but a simpler version. And as you got more and more right, it would make them slightly more and more difficult. And so, you know, experienced it as a parent, like I said, looking over my kids shoulder as a teacher. I don't understand why we aren't still using that. And that may be helpful. Um, you know, I questioned, you know, some teachers, all the math teachers that I

135had in my phone, you know, did you guys use, you know, and and all of them said that they used it. So may maybe considering resubscribing to that would be a great way um to help our mass students. So um also I'm glad to hear some steps are being taken um for weapons detection systems and safety. I appreciate that. Um the school I taught at last year had that implemented a few months I think a few months into the school year after I started at New Kent Middle School. first block teachers um and I was not a first first block no teachers that had first block planning had to help man the weapons detection systems and I uh texted one of my teacher friends over there. She said SRO officer, SRO, school resource officer was

136present there um as they were coming in in the morning. And um and I remember when they introduced it, they had an assembly for all the students and teachers to explain how it was going to work and what types of objects that weren't weapons would set it off. And they had some some may have been like an eyelash curler or something like that, you know, things like that. So they educated the students on how it was going to work and um it I wish I could say I observed the process last year but I did not because I had students first block. So okay I just wanted to give you guys some some ideas on that but anyway thank you >> again. I would just like to follow up on Amy's comment about uh manning

137metal detectors. Red Lake, Minnesota school massacre. An unarmed guard and school secretary for manning the metal detectors at the front door. The shooter came in lo where he had had his grandfather's shotgun and a pistol. He had first killed his grandfather who was a reservation chief and the grandfather's girlfriend. He had both of his guns and stole the police car and went and those were the first two to be killed in this massacre were the secretary and unarmed guard at the metal detectors. So, just something to think about. Thank you. >> Thank you, Miss Clark. >> Is there someone else you'd like to approach? There being none, we'll move on to school board member comments. Mr. Dobson. >> Yes. I'd like to comment on what Miss Fry said. Lawyers took God out of the classrooms.

138That's who took it out. I would love to see it go back in. Children today with all what goes on needs another environment that they can learn in. And I believe religion is a very fine learning aspect of what life is all about anyway. And if we can return to more of Sunday school classes where children can learn things, I think the better off the school system would be. That's my own opinion, but that's what I believe in. It sure didn't work years ago. As far as armament in the schools, we should have now I know people will get upset. We should have people packing in the school besides the SRO. They can't be everywhere. And I don't know how you going to classify that because it seems like today everybody goes ballistic. You know,

139you have like I'm I'm a retiree from the military, but we got guys walking around that can go off like that in a second. So, you can't trust them with weapons. I It's It's hard to say how you would do things. I know when I went to school years ago, we didn't have any of this. I mean, uh, I had boy scouts. Everybody had a boy scout night where you never heard anybody getting stabbed with a boy scout. Now today, you you just can't do it. People, it's a whole different environment as far as people. And so we have to take all these precautions with bringing weapons to school and people just being outlandish, I guess, because if you don't, the first thing you're going to get, I heard everybody says parents are going to

140complain. Well, they're going to complain if you don't do it. So, you have to do it to keep them from complaining. What's the first thing everybody says? Well, there was signs that the guy was a little reckless and this that, but nobody did nothing. Well, today you have to take those precautions so you don't have people coming back saying that and it will alleviate a problem if it does happen. So, I was always under the influence. It takes one person to mess everything up. And now we got so many laws we have to follow and so many different things we have to do to protect everybody. I know it creates a lot of work, but that's the way our society is going. And if you go against the grain, you're just going to bring more

141trouble on. That's it. >> Thank you, Mr. Dobson. Mr. Digs, would you like to talk about Uh, I listened virtually to the WHRO um, information last Wednesday and received a wealth of information that I will discuss further with Dr. Daniel and he'll pass it on um, to the principles. But the um the whole gist or most of the gist of the our program that was presented um was on sale America. And this program has been um in the works in the planning stages since um 2019. And there are five locations up and down the east coast from I believe it starts in Boston and comes on down to Norfolk. Um where we will be having tall ships as we've had in the past from many different countries coming down to our different five ports in

142the US. And um the exciting part for our schools is that we have opportunity to do various things in to participate in this. We can actually partner with a ship from whichever country there are several um coming uh some Argentina, Spain, the UK etc etc. Um they have set aside five miles of docking space in Norfolk for this. Uh it will be happening the if there is a negative it would be that it's happening when school is out um here in Norphick. It's June 19th to June 23rd. But it's going to be a huge weekend. Um, needless to say, and just all kinds of learning opportunities for our children. Um, and they can plan. It's no age limit. They can go from um the little ones right on up through high school in planning if

143they want to participate and how they want to participate. Um, let's see. There's an education center behind Nauticus in Norfolk where the kids can come, parents can come, they will have um be able to come and visit by Zoom if they can't be there in person. Um WHRO um also mentioned that Ken Burns did the um an hour a 12-hour film series on Yorktown Battlefield. Um proposed funding that had been two years in advanced was sadly um nicked by the government. But since that happened, 2.6 million has been given um or has been pledged. So, it's over the 2 million mark. Um, there are all kinds of lesson plans and ideas for teachers that they can download from the WHRO site. Uh, there's even professional development and um just a a great deal of things

144that Matthews County children can be involved with if we choose to do that and I certainly hope we do. So, thank you. >> Great report. I do too. So many opportunities for BA coming up. Want our kids to be involved. So that was that's wonderful. I want >> anybody any other member reports anything to say? We'll move on to um school board member reports. I just I just have one thing to say and that is to make the board aware that we will be having a meeting with uh representatives from boardable which is an option to board docs which is our school board governance uh management platform and that meeting will be held this Friday and then another meeting with the full board will be uh virtual we'll have a virtual meeting with board on

145the 30th at our work session so we can learn more about that product and see if it's a viable option to consider as we know that our board docs product um is suns setting in 2026. So we will be changing products one way or another and I would like to entertain additional options outside of the connection with BSBA. So that is for everyone's knowledge there. That be Friday first one and then next Friday for the second one. Any other questions, comments? All right. Then finally, we'll reiterate item 12, other business by schoolboard members or the superintendent 12.1 town hall this Thursday, 6 pm. Murray Burks Auditorium right here at Thomas Hunter Middle School. 12.2. Our again our school board fall work session is Thursday October 30th from 8 to 3 Ches Bank community room item

14612.3 the joint school legislative tour is Thursday November 13th at 9:00 am here at Thomas Hunter Middle School and our next regular monthly meeting will be Tuesday November 18th at 6 pm in this building Thomas Hunter Middle School in this auditorium there's nothing Thank you for coming this evening. Thank you for your attention. The meeting is adjourned.