001e e e you ready I'm ready I got 59 now I'm holding questions asked my answers are in red bold go all caps oh is this a copy for me yeah it's a copy for you want I made a good evening and welcome to the October 15th 2024 Matthews County Schoolboard regular monthly meeting would you all please rise and join me in the Pledge of Allegiance I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America to the Republic for it stands one nation under God indivisible with Li and justice for all item 1.3 Miss Lao may we have the roll call please pres here here here present item 1.4 seeking an approval of the agenda additions and deletions may I have a motion I make a motion to approve the agenda as listed
002do we have a second I have second any discussion all those in favor say I I I opposed motion passes item 1.5 consent agenda I'm seeking a motion [Applause] uh I make a motion to approve the minutes on September 17th 20124 regular monthly meeting um monthly claims Schoolboard uh civil civil Tre policy in 2024 2025 advisory committee as presented on the consent agenda very good we have a motion do we have a second second any discussion all those in favor say I I opposed motion passes item 1.6 we have the Matthews County School Board governance norms and protocols Mrs Hodges would you review the two highlighted items for tonight yes just so everybody here um is aware of what we're doing these are um uh protocols that we've agreed read to as a board um
003so the two I'm going to read is responding to Media inquiries the chair is the official spokesperson of the board the superintendent will respond to today to-day inquiries use of social media is a second board members are discouraged from posting comments liking comments or replying to comments on social media regarding Schoolboard matters thank you item two we have the SBA Academy Awards by Dr Daniel ah here we go all right so it is my pleasure to uh present some of our board members with the vsba um Awards of achievement and up first with 24 credits uh Dr Gibbs receives a certificate and a bronze pen P yes congratulations thank you very much you're [Applause] welcome and the Award of Excellence for 48 credits over two years goes to Mr Dobson [Applause] and of course not
004to be outdone is Miss Linda hajes with 66 credits and two [Applause] years and just because I can um I got 24 credits in one year so oh congratulations moving on to item three with questions or comments from our school board student representative Miss Jen sorry is this on hello okay um and a a report from Matthew's Elementary School Matthew's Elementary School is having a fabulous fall students and teachers have been working really hard in our new reading series Benchmark advance Matthews Elementary School has initiated a new attendance incentive called be present each month the grade level with a highest percentage of students present will be recognized with a class certificate and they will also get to keep our School attendance spee for the first month first grade was a winner for the month of
005September last Friday the Matthews volunteer fire department brought fire trucks to Matthews Elementary School and talk to the students about fire prevention week Mees students had a blast with Spirit Week Matthew's Memorial Library visited our third grade classrooms and gave each student a dictionary today on October 29th third and fourth graders will present their fall showcase called swamped everyone is working hard each day and our Halls are filled with laughter and learning some updates from the Middle School we have had a great few weeks at thms Thomas Center Middle School students participated in mcps spirit week family consumer science students walked in MHS homecoming parade there are several days coming up to celebrate at thms kindness day on October 16th pink out day on Friday October 18th and Red Ribbon Week begins on October 21st
006on Monday October 14th thms staff members participated in the ctober with a chili cook off congratulations to Mrs Williams for winning the competition and being named the thms chili Master thank you to our sixth grade team for putting some fall Decker in our Decor in our in front of our school students are continuing to participate in the knock Challenge and to promote attendance and support students being present we have also begun to incorporate character words into our weekly language at thms this week's word is studi we are halfway through the marking period and would like to request that students that parents check their child's grades in power school there is still time to bring up grades and complete missing work before the end of the grading quarter fifth grade students have been working on the
007social studies performance-based assessment to show what they have learned about different regions sixth grade students have been working on atomic structures and chemical compounds in science seventh grade students will be working on elements of mood and tone in their English class the main hall the main hall boys restroom is under renovation and should be completed in a few weeks check out the Thomas Hunter Middle School website for the school newsletter and lastly a report from Dr grieve at the Matthews High School Matthews High School enjoyed a really fun spirit week last week leading up to the homecoming pep rally parade football game and the dance we really appreciate all of the hard work of our athletic director Mrs O'Neal and our Cheerleading Coach Mrs Doss who organized those events last week our njrc Cadets also
008participated in the 4-day basic leadership training BLT at Gloucester High School congratulations to the Matthews High School Marching Band for their excellent show showing at the Warhill classic last weekend the van placed first in the drum major in Color Guard competition second in the visual and general effect competition and second place overall in class A many students will be taking the PSAT tomorrow morning as part of the college preparation process on Friday October 18th representatives from James Madison University will be visiting students followed by Mary Baldwin University on Mon Monday October 21st on Tuesday October 22nd there will be a meeting at 6:30 p.m. for all students interested in participating in winter sports on Thursday October 24th representatives from Christopher Newport University will be visiting students during the school day and we will conduct our
009annual beta inductions ceremony on the evening of the 24th at 7:00 p.m. this year is a big year for our Beta Club as they earn the honor of being recognized as a National Beta Club of Distinction we are very proud of our beta members during our activity day on Friday October 25th the 46 members of our Key Club will be getting their hands dirty and sprucing up the front flower bed with garding gloves that have been supplied if the pins arrive on time they will also hold their official pinning ceremony outside on the 25th too we really appreciate the donation of gloves and landscaping materials from the individuals and businesses who have donated anonymously to this project as well as all the other support we get from the Matthews Community to provide these great opportunities
010for our students excellent report thank you Miss Shang clearly we are off to a roaring start for this school year great job moving on to item four we have the YMCA preschool presentation by Miss Caitlyn Levens the associate VP of child care the presentation is entitled why toddler care presentation item 4.1 on the agenda and you're not Caitlyn and Mr Buzz Lambert great onf of MCA board and staff thank you um I uh really want to um uh applaud you all for allowing us this time to speak to U this opportunity that we see is a great need here in Matthews um so I will keep my comments brief um some of you may or may not know but I'm up for father of the year and my daughter is playing high school volleyball uh
011right around the corner so I'm hoping to at least get in one Set uh before before it's over um I have brought my wonderful partner Caitlyn Levens Who is the associate VP for child care uh for the YMCA of the Virginia peninsulas and she's going to speak uh more directly to the need for higher quality um early childhood education for children 2 to four she's also going to speak to the ability for us to be a resource for local families to utilize our services while they work and finally to provide a s um a seamless pipeline for Education and Care right here in our community community and I need to make sure that I'm staying staying on here but before I do this and turn this over uh to Caitlyn I wanted to provide a
012foundation for our important work that we do at the Y our y's mission is to put Christian principles into practice through programs that build healthy Spirit mind and body for all and how we do that is through the four areas of focus helping people grow healthier in spirit mind and body preparing teens for Life prevent drowning and of course while we're here tonight helping kids succeed and I just wanted to share um a couple impact um numbers for you all where am I pointing maybe little slow to the take here there we go that's exactly where I need to be thank you so in 24 thus far we have provided an opportunity for 72 Matthews children oh and I'm jumping a little bit here oh we're fighting each other okay I'll let you drive I'm
013G to put this down okay thank you um we've had 142 visits in the last month uh for our child Watch program um at our y uh um we finished this past year with 12 children uh participa in our after school program uh 58 of our second graders from Mees uh were taught water safety skills at no cost to their families or to this community um uh at the Matthews yach club and we also um helped uh build confidence uh and teamwork with our children 63 uh were uh participants in all of our youth sports that we offer I do want to share One More Story uh that we brought into the fold this year and this is our Bright Beginnings program for those who don't know what this is we actually provide uh 20
014children with the opportunity to shop uh to start the school year off with new clothes new school supplies to to really walk into their uh their schools with confidence and in doing so in our partnership with the Matthews women's giving Circle we were able to do that with 20 children but also through Community Support we also provided school supplies for another eight children uh so this program I think um is a testament to the the work of our volunteers and and to our staff to ensure that our our children are prepared uh to be successful in education so with that being said I know you all really want to hear from Caitlyn so I'm going to uh um turn over the Baton to to kaen so she can speak um specifically to um our vision
015for toddler care here in Matthews thank you good evening everyone would you mind just continuing or do you want me to try okay try it okay great so the reason we're here tonight is really to do some or propose some expansive work within the realm of helping kids succeed we know and I know that sharing this ahead of time you may have seen some of this but for the purpose of being expansive and sharing you know with the rest of everyone here the proposal really entails that we start um a a early Ed ucation preschool program ages 2 to 4 within the elementary school or any existing space truly um what we're looking to do is work to provide preschool care for local families to provide social emotional development to make sure that we're integrating
016a holistic approach to education and really preparing our young children for kindergarten Readiness we're asking for the support of the Matthews County School Board to utilize existing classroom spaces we know that this is not intended to be an additional cost it's really just to meet the need within the community and help us to provide that expansive work to go through some survey results these are just charts I'm going to speak to the surveys that you have received ahead of this meeting so the first one was provided by the YMCA in the fall or spring of last year it was really in tandem with the program that is existing which is an after school program for ages 5 to 12 all right um what we wanted to do is make sure that we were really meeting
017the nich in this community that we were really meeting everyone and what was the reason why if we weren't all right what we found is that there is a need for child care that was very clear there was a need for enrichment activities so to Buzz's point about swim lessons and sports and things of that nature but then there was an overwhelming need for a different age group that we were not serving that was actually provided through an additional survey which you've seen which was provided by mcap that really that survey talked about toddlers care it talked about preschool kindergarten Readiness affordability accessibility and reliability really what is the barrier for allowing parents to go to work what is the what is the barrier for making sure that children are prepared for kindergarten and how
018do we show up in that space and that's really the wise vocation is we want to go into spaces where others haven't yet and said we're here how can we do this how can we align this to our mission and so through that we also work with other agencies at the state level this is also really important data to share at the state level we noticed that in conjunction with the US Census and childcare aware which is data out of the um out of Richmond with the state of Virginia that there's an 82% unmet need for early childhood education in the space and so taking a survey that was conducted at the local level and then comparing it to the state level we felt even more strongly that this is a need that we need
019to present and bring forward so how do we do it we currently operate for cdc's across our service area from iste County all the way up to West Morland County and we utilize a stream and three curriculum that was really um developed within um education um with the University of Virginia they partner with um vooe it is accredited um we have a model that's very similar to what we're proposing at Lancaster County right now we're currently in our third year and this we've had great success with the three curriculum with the kind of uh with the marriage between the school system and a child care approach making sure that we're bringing that strong education component and that need for enrichment and marrying the two for an overall encompassing experience for our children and our families
020the financial component is that child care is expensive we know that um education quality education is at times very expensive and so wanting to just be transparent about the fact that this is a very these are is a framework that we're working within we know that we want to serve 14 children in our first year we'd love for that to be doubled tripled as the need grows as word grows but we want to be conservative we want to be um realistic with what it could take in the first year and we want to make sure that our people our program is set up for Success quality curriculum facility enhancements age appropriate activities and a staffing model that works we also want to make sure that the the for all part of the YMCA's mission is
021as Equitable and accessible to everyone within the Matthews Community we have partnered we know that 46% of our current Child Care programs receive some kind of financial or subsidy assistance and we would we would make that available as well the YMCA is very committed we work with the Department of Social Services and other entities to make sure that no one is turned away regardless of their inability to pay and then the partnership framework overall we really want to Target our local families we know that they're may be out of out of County individuals that would also seek this but our priority is to the Matthews County family and folks first access to affordable child care meeting people where they are realizing that programs typically at a school day 8:30 8:45 to 3:00 in the afternoon
022doesn't work for a working family our child care typically starts between 6:30 and 7:00 a.m. and ends at 6:00 p.m. giving parents time to commute where they need to go giving that fulfillment of the education day and then the enrichment activities in the afternoon all right and that Community engagement all the pieces that buzz shared before that integration and and infiltration of pool spaces they get access to being exposed to physical activity outside of school hours Sports EV everything that makes for a well-rounded child is what we're seeking to do and strengthening that relationship with the school system we know that we couldn't do this without you and transparently we really want to be that partner to help make this happen happen I wanted to be very quick I realized there may be some questions
023I'm hoping that there are and if there's if time allows if this is the Forum or if that comes later you direct me members do you have questions I got a couple questions great is this daycare or preschool it's it's both you realize we're a school yes sir and I can't see twoy olds and three year olds in school um I just can't see it um I don't know how they could possibly learn what they need to learn I believe we have there is a foury old program now yep I can understand that one sure but a two three year-old uh I can't I can't see that um you uh if you were looking for a preschool only it would be great but you're trying to do two things at once and I can't personally
024I can't see having a daycare center in a school uh not what it was intended for um well if you don't mind can I speak to that just a little bit so I understand completely especially in a traditional setting where that would seem out of the box and maybe a little unorthodox and maybe question how that would work and whereas I I respectfully understand we've we've proven that it does work we have put this plan into place in Lancaster it started three years ago and we and very similar there were concerns how do we engage a 2-year-old two-year-olds are still learning they're just learning in a different space than a three and four-year-old so it's whereas it's providing the child care component for parents who have to commute for work or just work in general
025the way that the curriculum is structured is that they are learning what they need to learn which is the fundamentals to go into a three-year-old classroom and then a four-year-old classroom and then preschool it's all those building blocks of foundation they are you know they're separated by Group by age so they're not intermingling during education time and then there is that enrichment point that that extra where it comes into the engaging them in physical activity and other things well I believe the best teacher at two years old is their mother they give them lots of love and show them the way um you're talking about 14 children total in this program for the first year that's our Target is that two classes split equally or it would Bas be based off of enrollment so if
026we had a larger need for a three and four we would seek that if it was a 2-year-old we would we would split them accordingly and you're going to foot the bill completely we're working with Community Partners to help make sure that there is funding for all of that you really ize what the liability insurance is oh absolutely I I absolutely I do I've got four other centers that operate very similarly we we we know right now how you going to feed the children that's a great that's another great question we have feeding programs that are in partnership with USDA cacfp which is a a funding it feeds the children hot meals and snacks while they're in our care we would apply if this is the direction forward we would apply for that and add
027them to that existing model cuz we we're set we we feed our children everybody in this school weeds and that's under the guidelines that we follow now I don't know if they would be in that program or it be a separate program uh I noticed you got a person that will be in charge two teachers and two AIDS MH uh is that going to be enough people yes and it maintains our ratio so just so that you know the the toddler ratio is 1 to8 and then um anything 3 and four is 1 to 10 so we would just make sure that we have enough that they could rotate take breaks maintain you know a healthy balance for themselves and be able to do their best work and you would need you would need oversight
028if it's going to be in this school you need oversight from somebody here in a school to see that what's going on and supposed to be going on is going on sure and and that's another really great Point um what we've typically done is that that program director that's built into the model has some kind of cadence of meeting with a designated um lead within the staff and there's a touch base whether it's weekly monthly it depends on the program to make sure that everything is happening the way that it should be and then there's an elevated quarterly meeting with why leadership such as myself just to make sure that the partnership is healthy are there things that we can do to be mutually beneficial to each other um you know I heard a c
029a chili cook off of some nature you know we'd want in on that you know so um really how do we how do we work together for things of that to make to strengthen that partnership okay now we can't spend any money on this program it's not a dime I understand we barely can take care of what we have already and my last question to you would be once a program starts it never stops that I've seen and if this stops on your end because of money we can't pick it up and and I understand that I really do and I and again I think that your transparency I really I very much appreciate it I think the flip side of this is how can we afford not to knowing that there's an 82% potential
030unmet need in this community and also knowing that as we're meeting as a school board that these are future students that are coming through your programs so our goal is to keep it sustainable keep it healthy function within your existing space but just create a pathway for your future students to be a little bit more ready have a little bit of an edge and just Aid in the overall success of Matthews County this H um first of all thank you for coming especially missing your daughter's volleyball game um could you speak a little more about the Lancaster program and if you have any data um for the kid for the Stu children who have now reached kindergarten or maybe even first grade some of the outcome data as far as Readiness for reading I I'd
031appreciate that and I'm not sure it's gone it's gotten that far yet this is the first year we've done um assessments they happen twice a year this is our first year where our graduating class has gone into kindergarten so we'll get some of that data and I'm sure um through our partnership we can share that once we have it I'd love to see that um what I can tell you is that with streaman 3 being a vooe accredited curriculum they do partake in assessments twice a year and then as they're um progressing into kindergarten there's the kindergarten Readiness assessment as well and so it previously I think everyone has probably heard the word Pals before um so it's modeled very similarly through that um and so it really is we also have um classroom observations
032as well to make sure that our teachers are are also um really pouring into our students the way they should now the Lancaster partnership is aside from data is there anything specific that you'd like to know well if we could talk about D data again for for a second um the ones that went into kindergarten was there any um um testing pre- testing completed in the spring when they left the program before they excuse me before they went to kind kindergarten there is yeah that has been conducted we work with um mixed delivery and first Spark so I can try to extract some of that data share this at a later time as we continue conversation MH you you spoke about um that there was I I not sure the word you use ambivalence on
033the part of the Lancaster Community um can you speak a little bit to that and as to where they are right now three years later yeah I think you know so I wouldn't call it ambivalence I think it was just a very similar questioning of how how do we do this when you are starting something from nothing when it's never been done before there's a lot of UNC anxiety it's outside of the norm and again there's the traditional thought of you know parents who are able to stay home with their children but not every family is and we know that you know just by the cost of living and life itself that more people are trying to return to the workforce so those conversations were had three years ago and now to think about you
034know this it's it's it's a little bit different but it's very similar um the Lancaster Community once we were able to get through our initial conversation and be able to show the framework they've truly embraced it they actually built their own school that is on the same on the same campus as the elementary school so now there's the middle high school elementary school and what they call the ecec um and so you know they operate independently but on the same campus as the elementary school and that's fully through the community support of this program again it was um it is a partnership so to kind of go through the model the children arrive um our our staff y staff are there as well as Educators so the teachers that we would be hiring they they
035um they pour into the AC academic day the students eat um they have outdoor time the teachers leave at the end of the school day right so depending on how the day is structured and then there's still everyone's y staff but the enrichment staff from 3 to six are doing enrichment activities arts and crafts stem physical activity and that's again they're fed a snack and then parents come and pick them up at the end of the day and so once the community was able to see um that there was additional funding available through the state that the program as a community embraced it our enrollments there was a weight list going into this year um and they're serving as a total 52 children in their school right now um and so you know you think
036about 14 and then the potential for 52 they needed their own space right um and again that's that's way in the future but that's just a that's just a a a little bit of a window into where this could go if embraced and successful and was there um a lack of daycare in Lancaster like there is presently in Matthews yeah so very similar um the why we operate the previously had everyone of that age group on site at our Wy Child Development Center and so they very similar to a community survey they actually identified a need as well um in in infant care as well so when with this partnership we were able to take our existing spaces transition those into infant care that again feeding into this program now that we're operating offsite at
037the ECE for that age bracket and so on and so forth with the ele middle and high school one last question um percent of um children who might be considered uh low socioeconomic status versus those who are not do you have a break out of that information for Lancaster yeah they're at 56% 56% we low in at low income low inome or for our data it's that they received a financial assistance or subsidy Lancaster yeah 56 thank you very much you're so [Music] welcome get that I don't know how to operate buttons um I wanted to say I I appreciated your comments tonight and concerns I had opportunity to work over at the elementary school when they had um two and three year olds there and in my teaching with them I had those concerns
038about how they would learn and so forth and there were many days it was a challenge but when I came back the next year and I had some of those same students of course they had grown and there had to be external factors from home and so forth but I saw um increased in listening skills with the ones I'd had the year before they knew the howto's a little bit better and the socialization was better when when you would give instruction they heard you easier than they did a year earlier which they should but I I firsthand saw benefits from that program while it was there thank you thank you Mr Morgan do you have any comments tonight just a couple of things real quickly and you've already answered some of the questions I had
039um to some of the other folks up here uh when you say that you are requesting the support of the school board can you tell me exactly what you would be requesting or expecting from this school board yes the only thing I'm asking for is if there is existing space but in a school that we be allowed to operate within that space okay so just a facility pretty much and you're not asking for us to get involved in any of the dayto day operations or responsibilities associated with this not at all okay um is it going to be open to every any and every child is it first come first serve or do you have criteria that must be met how do you select your your first 14 or sure um we typically under the
040forall part of our mission are open for all anyone can apply um what we do in local jurisdictions is that we give priority to Matthews County Families First if for some reason that there were weren't 14 children that wanted to participate but somebody from a neighboring County wanted to get their children in we would work with them as well but priority would be given to Matthews County okay so there's no particular requirements that that must be met it's pretty much first come first serve basis correct okay thank you okay thank you very much all right okay Miss Levens I have a couple question for you thank you um are there any other sites that you're by chance considering at this time we're not pursuing any additional sites there's a quote on your presentation that maybe
041give some of the reasoning behind your selection of our facility and its states by integrating our program with the public school system we will ensure seamless transition for children entering kindergarten enhancing educ ational continuity within the community broad general statement but that's exactly that's exactly it that's exactly the purpose yes and the curriculum that you would be applying would be one that we already use in our schools the streaming in three correct to my knowledge I'm not sure if Matthews County currently uses stream in three for their prek but if but I'm seeing some nods so yes it would be an existing they do have some uh so for example they do have them broken down and specialized by age so what you currently have if we were to have a 2-year-old classroom there is
042a specialty for two-year-olds as well it's an expansive curriculum right in fact it's an integrated focus on academic and social emotional skills with a scope and sequence that spans from birth to five now you mentioned the Wy Child Development Center yes and that center is open 52 weeks a year correct it is from from 6:30 a.m. to 6:00 p.m. correct and the hours of operation that you are seeking can you remind me of those yes we would try to align it with the same hour 6:30 to 6 but our other cdc's are not open 365 day 52 weeks a year we would align it with the school year okay and I do see that you are requesting or proposing 36 weeks of care which aligns with the school year correct however when I looked at
043the surveys over half of the respondents on both of the surveys were looking for full-time care so this is a yearround problem for people in Matthews how would that be addressed that's a great question so we I'm going to use the existing program that we have not with preschool but with our school age program so outside of um when school is not in session we have summer camps at our other cdc's we have preschool summer camps If This Were to come to fruition we would work to expand our current lure to be able to offer some kind of preschool program during the summer it would not be this structure it would be the same time frame but it would not be on site here what we're proposing tonight so possibly the same time frame though
044yep our summer camps operate 6:30 to 6 as well 6 6:30 to 6 okay on our surveys also cost was a barrier MH to care can you explain a little bit about the details about the subsidization sure that may occur yes so there's there's a couple different ways to do that um but this the more traditional subsidy is with the Department of Social Services and so if a parent applies they look at their financial status there's proof of income of some kind um and there's sometimes a sliding scale based on um what they call a co-pay how much is the parent responsible for versus um for versus the Department of Social Services we having that partnership work with them to help kind of mediate that if for some reason that parent is denied or there's
045it's not enough of a discount the why goes behind there is an additional Guardian program that we have internally um through our fundraising efforts to further subsidize and parents can apply through that as well very similar process financial status um proof of U of income and we work together to make sure that the child care is accessible that way that was um to kind of just further expound upon the comment of we don't we do not turn people away for their inability to pay okay um on slide 10 you have anticipated income expected 100,000 from those 14 students correct so you mentioned that that would be first year and first of all just to calculate that out what would that responsibility be approximately about 800 a month it's it's broken down to 165 a week
046165 a week is the average yes the average and so um that 100,000 is a roll up between parent pay and and any possible subsidy so if a parent is full pay that goes into that total or the subsidies that's the total income that we would be projected to make in our first year okay and as you you would expect this to grow as it has grown in others how long would you anticipate that you could fund the program mhm so and that's another really great question we so because we are part of an association uh we work with as a one why approach to make sure that our programs don't don't close um we try really hard to make sure that we're committing the need to to the funding if for some reason um
047we never got any more enrollments if for some reason we stayed at 14 and it never grew and we could never get to a place where what we call um you know the we met sustainability on our own um you know the why would come behind with additional fundraising efforts to make sure that that program stayed open and available okay because based on the surveys we're showing at least 50 potential children based on the small sampling the one survey having 31 respondents the other having 117 but on average about 50 children who may be seeking that age range of Two Three or for care so it's theoretically possible that it would grow to that level yep and so you are committing that you would be able to fund that we in perpetuity and it would
048never come back on the school division to support we would not ask for funding from the school division we would ask for additional Community Partners to stand beside us but we would not come back to the school especially being that we're standing here tonight asking for space allowance okay and I do have one final note regarding the on the curriculum there's an implementation evaluation of stream and 3 curriculum model the data is from 12 of 2021 and I would request if there's any updates to this I would appreciate it but within that study the limitations were noted and the first limitation to the study on the curriculum is stated as follows there are several important limitations to the implementation pilot first this is a non-experimental pilot that does not allow us to draw conclusions about
049whether the use of stream and 3 results in improvements in the quality of teacher child interactions or increases in Children's School Readiness there's a significant research Gap they admit that but specifically with this pilot the toddler cohort was very minimally addressed so there's really not the data um based on the curriculum to verify the curriculum and if there is any more current reliable data or more studies that have been done to prove up the curriculum that would be interesting to to note um do anybody else have any further questions Miss Hodes I do I just to follow up on on a point you made Dr Gibbs um the Y does do fundraising throughout the year right an annual at least once a year they do fundraising right yeah I received requests so yes so would
050that um would you possibly be asking for more money from that fundraiser okay I see it shake of the head okay and and how widespread is that is that to every all all community members or all members of the why how how how do you decide who receives those requests you mean for fun who who you know right now it's existing members of our YMCA and Community Partners you know whatever we determine is within our reach you know our goal would be that you know so I'm sure buz is like yeah if everybody in Matthews would contribute that'd be great um you know and I think that I I think transparently it would be but um but it would really be what is our existing reach how do we stretch that reach um and really
051speaking to the organizations that are committed to the same as ours with helping kids succeed and making sure that our children are positioned well for a prosperous education good thank you I just one more clarification regarding the um admission policy if you are going to can you describe it a little bit more is it going to be based on need based on uh first come first serve model what would be the way that you would choose the first 14 students I wouldn't I I don't like the word choose um I think the the thing that we would do first um is if this moves into our next phase that we would do what we call a pre-sale um you know you make a great point that there were several very limited um response to surveys
052but the potential for several students um we would access into and put it out well ahead of our potential start date to see who is interested um then cross reference that with where do they live I still think that priority to Matthews county is the right thing to do and then when we talk about need um we again we do not look at people's financial status of who is in and who is out everybody is in it's just how we get them in and so it it really at that point does become a first come for serve okay and finally if this program were not to be approved for the school division would you seek another location I asked you initially and you said you don't have anything on the immediate Horizon but would that
053is your dedication to the program so strong that you would seek an alternate location I think that the answer without having consulted anyone would be yes are we are committed to showing up in this space because it is a need and that is who the why is as an organization our preference would be to align with the school system to make that happen any other comments or questions Mr Dobson the main reason you're approaching the school is you want to reduce cost I assume that's the reason not necessarily cost is because we know that there would be um you know we'd have to come into an existing space and make it preschool ready um I don't think that um it's it's really a cost saer it really from a it makes sense that they are
054in a space where there is already a four-year-old program that again they would be able to progress into that um in terms of you know things like rent and things of that nature you know there are other Partnerships that we have within our existing model where that's not um that's not a factor either whether it's a church that donates it it there are other options that are in existence but the way that we want to operate this program is with the school I think you'd be better off if you had your own place and operated it to suit yourself I mean I'm being honest and that way you do what you can do whatever you want as long as you know within reason of the of what you want to do um that's that's my
055only comment on that thank you Dr Daniel um real quick as these discussions um started I reached out to the um Lancaster County School's um superintendent to do a little investigation to ask about data to ask if they have some historical some longitudinal data um her response and not to put words into her mouth at a in a public forum that's you know on on video and stuff but um I asked some questions about the longitudinal data and and they you know they're assessing kids but they're not necess necessarily tracking it because they her words were they felt like it was successful so they weren't continually monitoring it to gauge its success because they felt um historically that it had been successful um and she was also welcomed any of the board members who would
056like to do a site visit to talk to the administrators of the program see the program in action to ask questions um so if that's the the board boards choosing we can take a group over to have a look have a look see and you know ask the questions person to person thank you Miss Levens we will be continuing to take this topic up in our work session next week and our town hall next week as well thank you for presenting to us tonight thank you moving on to item five we have the FCCLA Mrs Williams adviser for the family career and Community leaders of America America student project good evening good evening thank you board members for encouraging us again to to approach the the board with yet another project so any that know
057me know I'm a go big or go home person I don't do anything small and when my kids say hey this is a good idea can we if it's within my power I'm going to make it happen I'm not going to speak for long but I do want to give some clarity to community I have been very transparent about the goings on in the family and consumer science classes and FCCLA as a whole but I think there's a little misconception as to what FCCLA is and does for family and consumer science family and consumer science classes are a curricula they are a set of competencies under the CTE or Career and Technical education um umbrella under that umbrella we have FCS or family and consumer science family career and Community leaders of America is the
058Career and Technical service organization that supports and supplies lesson plans and provides opportunities for our young people even as young as fifth grade even though I start um affiliating in the sixth as young young as the fifth grade to start to expand their Horizons and start to think Beyond I'm an eighth grade student so this year we kind of flip-flo things a little bit differently in my classes and we began to explore some of the other competitive opportunities that FCCLA offers because I'm I'm rather competitive by nature and I think that's an intrinsic motivator for many of our kids and not every kid is going to take the football field and wear a jersey not every person on you know not every student is going to go into a field of sports related events but
059I wanted to create a program that would enable students to become the next Community leaders the only way to affect change in a community is to invest in the young if we will invest in our young people our young people are going to grow they're going to learn and they're going going to become those people who make decisions for us in the future so if we want a positive future we need to invest positively in our kids so when I approached this year we started talking first about the FCCLA National programs and Isabella is going to speak to those in just a bit but those National programs are different from the Star Event competitions that we have so far been award- winners in FCCLA with they are sometimes partnered with a star event but not
060always a star event will get you a an award a medal a trophy a ribbon and a certificate and acknowledgement however a national program gets all of those things but in addition these children who participate in National programs can be in the Runnings for financial Awards and scholarships the award the program that we're focusing on this year so far my kids came up with four spectacular programs at which time I said how am I going to do that in five preps as well but the first one we kind of ran with and we wanted to roll it out first we wanted to get into last month's Schoolboard meeting but we couldn't put the final you know pieces together we did March in the homecoming parade this past week and if anybody was there and happened
061to see us you actually did see the The Unofficial roll out of Isabella's program and her project so while she begins to get ready to speak I'm going to give you one of the components that they have developed for this National program understanding these are eighth grade students that are our future drivers my name is Isabella Nukem and I'm in the 8th 3 taking family consumer science exploratory 3 partnering with me is bito fryer who is unable to be here tonight the organization that we are a part of is FCCLA I have been a part of this organization for 3 years FCCLA stands for family career Community leaders of America there are eight National programs in total that you can compete in as well as star events the one my project falls under is fact
062which means families acting for Community Traffic Safety we chose facts because we are trying to help make our community traffic safer for all drivers new annex experienced alike we as a class brainstorm traffic issues that affected Matthews and in our minds the school buses and Richardson's Corner were the most critical we are on a mission to make a change when I talked to sheriff Edwards I was I asked her opinion on the ability to install convex mirrors at Richardson's Corner since it's such a blind spot she agreed that it was and this would be a great idea but indicated that there were a few obstacles to overcome to see that happen I then asked her what the three main safety problems are in Matthews she said speeding distracted driving and passing school buses when they
063are stopped and the lights are flashing we have now created two banners pledge cards we also created a petition for people to sign and that has the acronym that says Matthews cares the acronym stands for use caution Stay Stay aware and not distracted show respect on the road lead by example obey speed limits and signs the goal now after talking to sheriff Edwards is TR is to try to get a thousand people to sign the pledge we are still trying to put the convex mirrors up at Richardson's corner and at the Mexican restaurant we also are trying to get donations to help pay for the convex mirrors we would also like to do something about the buses and we came up with this saying if the lights are flashing don't try passing meaning that if
064the school bus stop sign is out and the lights are flashing don't pass because it's illegal we would like the school board to help get the word out and we would like you to allow to us to display the Banners at both schools primarily we would also like to ask that you be among the first to support us and sign the Matthews cares pledge I chose this project because as a future driver I don't want to be in this situation that I pulled out of Richardson's corner and I couldn't see the car and I accidentally hit them I also think it's important for the buses because when I have kids and they need to go to school I shouldn't have to worry about oh what if my kid gets into an accident because someone tries
065to pass them while they're stopped I also chose this project because I want the this community to be a safer place and have safe roads for drivers now and drivers in the future I also think it's important for all the parents out there to know their kid is safe while at the school or when their kid is able to drive to be able to drive they don't have to worry about that one blind spot thank you wonderful Isabella [Music] wonderful I want to be your first sign up okay just did it yes yes absolutely you should be [Music] wonderful M Williams yes sir why don't you talk to uh the uh driving portion over at the uh courthouse and get to hand these cards out when somebody conducts business that's a wonderful idea sir I
066think it would be great that is aide [Music] I promis miss Morgan we would be brief um that is a wonderful idea I will address that we have already spoken with Miss Griffith who is the high school driver education teacher so that we can get this pledge in the hands of our current learning drivers because if we can prevent bad habits before they start it is easier than correcting a bad habit after it has already developed in addition we will be speaking at our future board of super visor meeting so that we can address the concept of putting the convex mirrors at Richardson's Corner if we had two of those they run about $100 a piece it would be a great solution to a very dangerous dangerous intersection agreed AG yes ma'am Mrs Hodes has
067a comment yeah I just Isabella you did a fantastic fabulous job I just want to let you know that there are many adults who are not able to do what you just did and speak before a public before a crowd so you should be really pleased with yourself and thank you for teaching those skills at a fabulous age thank you so much wonderful thank you great job again very good moving on to item uh six with student achievement please Dr Daniel I don't have any content do you have content on the student achievement it's going to be a tough act to follow no well I guess we'll just have to turn okay did you no so we have to all right I'm going to test it [Music] oh you got me can I try it
068again yeah it's still not working okay all right so um last month we talked about Federal um accountability and federal accreditation so as a reminder before we go into this the federal just looks at Pass rates so when we're talking about state accrediation state accreditation factors in a lot of other variables when we get into it okay one more time all right so for this school year because the accreditation process in Virginia is going going to change so the state U board of education is working on guidelines now the Department of Education is working on the details what they would call the business rules for what those guidelines look like so accreditation currently is based on a number of school quality indicators um those indicators include State assessment results for the 2324 school year so
069again this is what we're talking about for this year moving forward there's going to be what's called a bifurcation so we'll talk about accountability and accreditation accreditation will come to mean just sort of input data are we meeting the instructional minutes do we have Staffing ratios etc etc it will accreditation moving forward will not have anything to do with test results the goal of the state process is to align what will be called accountability with the states or excuse me the state's accountability measures with the federal government's accreditation system okay so it'll be split into two parts accreditation system versus the accountability system so with the moving forward the state is going to have as part of the new accountability system kind of four categories which they'll we called distinguished on track off track and
070needs intensive support what we can talk about what the new accountability system will look like in the future where I think we're going to talk a little bit about it at the work session give you um give the board members an overview I think you have to go through it several times to see it understand it because there are probably about 35 different variables that go into what will be the accountability system and it varies from elementary school to Middle School to high school so the formula is going to change based on grade levels and for us because we have eight typical grade structures it will be even different for us so we'll worry about that so for tonight we're still talking about State accreditation which brings in a lot of stuff so tonight really
071we're talking about um student performance on um SOS so what we're talking about tonight in mathematics at the elementary and middle school is what's called a combined rate so in mathematics it includes students who pass but also showed growth high schools don't get growth they just get straight Pass rates in English um in the elementary and middle schools it includes students who passed reading and writing it also includes growth it also includes performance for our L's students on the weda so L's students are English language Learners so it includes part of their performance on that waeda test as part of the overall um I guess combo or combined rate for English at the high school again doesn't have growth but the high school English does get to include the elll performance on weda science is
072part of the accreditation it's just pass rate there's no growth associated with um science and social studies as we've talked about in the past is not part of the state accreditation model whatsoever okay so going to the elementary school the accreditation rating again we're still talking about kind of the current accreditation model the off track distinguish that's going to be in the future so Elementary School accredited um number of school quality indicators at level three which is below standard is a zero out of five so in this case we're not talking about baseball so Z out of five is a good thing for us okay all right so comparing scores so looking at our growth rate at the element excuse me the combined rate at the elementary school so this current year in English we
073were at 86% math at 87% looking at previous years we're pretty much on par with the previous year in our cumulative threeyear average pretty on par um with where we are at the cumulative um three years please going on to Thomas Hunter Middle School again accredited again again 0 for six is a good thing in this um in this game so um what we're looking at in English uh for the middle school was last year was 88% if you look at the previous year the previous year was 69% so you we saw a great deal of growth happening um at the at the middle school last year math was up to 74% um from 63 science saw an increase to 64% over 60% from the previous year okay the high school um again accredited with
074conditions that is that one for nine so we've talked about kind of a division wide struggle with mathematics kind of a K12 um challenge with mathematics and that's that one um indicator area so looking at our English scores at the high school and again when you're thinking about the high school in English that's only one grade level there's one only one so test that takes place at the high school and that's in 11th grade so that was an 85% um pass rate last year again no growth is factored into the high school mathematics is 62% um science was 64% other things to keep in mind with the high school when you start talking about high school if a student has passed students have to take one s so for federal process one so in mathematics
075when they hit high school they don't take a mathematics so test every year that they are in high school so the number of students who are taking so tests at the high school the N the participation number is relatively small compared to the overall population so once you get that one verified credit and you're out of ninth grade you're not taking an additional so test so again the participation um the number of kids particip ipating in an so test at the high school is a much smaller number whereas every every third grader and fourth grader at the elementary school is going to be taking that math test taking that English test every fifth sixth seventh grader at Thomas Hunter is going to be taking an so math test an S so English class an so
076English test that's not happening at the high school so again um the weight the the high school accreditation is based on um a smaller population of students at the high school who are taking those tests um High School graduation and completion index that's a part of the high school accreditation model so the high school that's a four-year cohort model so it looks at students from 9th grade through 12th grade who started n9th grade with us and then ended up graduating then in four years so that was a 93% okay and then looking at Chronic absenteeism again going into factoring to the accountability excuse me the accreditation system I'm still going to flip-flop accountability and accreditation for a little while so bear with me um but chronic absenteeism um if you look at the elementary school
077the elementary school did a great job of reducing chronic absenteeism from 23% down to 177% Thomas Hunter went from 24% to 20% the high school went from 34% down to 27% and the what qualifies a student to be chronically absent is missing more than 10% of the school year so that's basically 18 days um of school basically regardless the reason it's making sure that students are are coming to school so that's a big piece of that questions on the the state accreditation data for right now yes ma'am um the graduation rate so the co cohort would include those students who graduated in August if they were supposed to graduate in June but they graduated in August after completing summer school is that number added included in that graduation rate or is it to is it
078not is it too early to ask that that be included it depends when in August so we had a summer graduate that's actually post the reporting deadline that'll go on the next right okay so it could increase though it could increase okay okay yeah typical typical summer graduates do count and there's um there I guess it's kind of like partial points I think it's for GED summer grads things along those lines okay other questions on accreditation numbers okay can we go to Star report [Music] oh you just you just deleted it I think or you just closed it out on the tab it's okay so a little bit of a reminder we started doing Universal screening last winter we used the star test through Renaissance to give an overall snapshot of how our students are
079doing three times a year so we started it in the winter we gave um the universal screening again in the spring we administer it in mathematics for grades 1 through 8 reading grades 2 through 8 so uh we were pretty excited about doing that having some consistent data to look at to compare over time and then the summer we were informed that star decided to reben Benchmark their data so the star is a norm referenced test so they changed the norming population from preco to postco the result of that became the um the Norms shifted so it made our students look when we first ran the data look artificially better so when we first did the fall um Universal screening we're like oh my gosh this is a like our kids have been doing great
080work over the summer like the YMCA is killing it at summer camp for us um but when we looked at this Renaissance provided us with a crosswalk for how we set our benchmarks to adjust for the changes in the norming so there's a lot of statistical psychometric mumbo jumbo that goes into it so what we ended up doing was resetting where our threshold was for Matthews to make sure we were looking at the same student performance even with a new Norm so basically the norm kind of curved everything up we adjusted kind of the grading scale if you will back down um to make sure we were remediating the students who we felt like needed to be remediated okay all right first slide all right so the thing and there's a kind of a summative
081chart at the end of this so while it's going to be difficult difficult to see the minor numbers on the slides the bar graph itself is kind of what you want to look at so the green is um at Benchmark or above grade level blue is at risk or on watch yellow indicates needs intervention and red indicates urgent intervention according to this screening data so at first grade we had 36% of our students were either at Benchmark or on watch I'm going to let that kind of sit there for a moment okay so then going to again so reminder first grade we're just doing math in we also are doing vowels testing that Miss Levens talked about before Pals has been replaced with vows so students in kindergarten first grade second grade and some students
082in third grade take vowels we'll be talking about vows data probably next month the kindergarten window is still open right now we have the the early data on first first second and third grade and we can talk about kind of triangulate some of the data with what we see students doing in first grade reading on on star or on vowels or second grade star reading and second grade vowels performance and kind of compare to those things match up so looking at second grade reading and Mathematics reading hasn't um we see a reading performance of 53% of our second graders on thisn snapshot this day again at Benchmark or on watch um math again still looking at kind of a 40 47% of students in second grades are kind of where we would want them to
083be so just under half of our kids are where we would want them to be in terms of mathematics okay third grade so as our students so what this you'll start to kind of see a trend with the fall data what we're starting to see is as our students are with us longer we are able to catch them up they're more time in our system we are able to kind of get um get a little more growth so the reading data in third grade we're seeing at 73% math is now up to about 64% again we would love to see 100% uh we would love to get there but again it's kind of grown with students it's also very much so in the fall and after a summer you talk about summer melt or slide
084this this was administered um in September okay fourth grade please okay fourth grade again reading performance again classwide looking at 77% mathematics at about 66% okay fifth grade 64% again now math is catching up a bit with fifth grade math at 78% sixth grade we're now in the 70s pretty pretty consistently 71% and 70% 7th grade 69 and 69 and then 8ighth grade at 68% and then math at 85% so um I had um Miss um Megan Connelly growth house kind of I had her check kind of benchmark scores makes to double check art because when I saw the math at 85% I'm like are we making do we do we do the bench do we you know adjust for the crosswalks she went back and double checked so we're on that I I'm not
085going to say that we're going to have 85% math passing at this point but it gives us what the star data does it gives us an an indication of what students are needing more time and instruction but it also gives us a picture of what we would talk about as our tier one a regular classroom instruction so if when we talk if we go if I kind of take you back a little bit to last spring and we talked about mtss multi-tiered systems of supports and there's a a pyramid so ideally what we would want to see is about 85% of our students would be in the green not necessarily green and blue but we would want to see 85% of our students in the green that means that 85% of our kids would be
086getting the information getting the data in regular classroom instruction and then an additional 10% would probably need an extra dose with 5% then really needing intensive intervention so if our programs are solid K prek all the way through then we're going to have a stronger tier one core tier one setup so fewer of our students are going to need that intensive interent intervention what we're struggling with right now is the volume of our students who are needing intervention and how do we fit that into a master schedule where do that time come from with a new language art series etc etc can you go to the next slide all right so here's kind of the collective um table that I was talked about at the beginning so you have across the top grade levels second
087grade third grade fourth grade and then I've broken out each performance level starting with when we first did it in the winter again in the spring and then not kind of gray out is in that white is the fall again just a reminder that things got rored so we'll kind of compare winter to winter when we get there that winter testing window is in February so we'll look at kind of we'll be able to compare kind of how our second graders did last winter where the third graders this winter we can look at second grade to second grade and we can then begin looking at cohorts across years and looking at at growth as well so the the conversation with that principles are having with grade levels um Schoolboard office is having with building level
088leadership is is okay give me some feedback on some of the first grade data the second grade data um some of especially with mathematics most of us realize that oftentimes mathematics tests are a reading test so you have to understand the vocabulary the math specific vocabulary in order to do the algorithm do the math part to play with the numbers so I think we're seeing some of the reading struggle eek into the math performance on these tests also in first grade and second grade these students are not accustomed to taking assessments on computers um we can talk about how those assessments were administered are you in a group setting is it a onetoone setting that's going to impact a student ability to to take those to take those screening assessments again they're snapshots I'm not
089going to say that the bad isn't as bad but the good isn't as good either I mean it's um it's like like many folks will take multiple selfies before they post them um this is just like a one-time selfie to you know good bad ugly this is this is what it is and we're working on addressing like enrichments for students because one of the things that this data highlights is where you have a student who jumps off the page um and there they're each one of those kind of bars on that chart is an individual student could you back up a couple for me just yeah so in this situation um the student in the reading on the far left like is that a student who we expected to score that high and if not
090we need to be looking at that student to stretch that student um especially in the early grades you'll see in mathematics there's some students who will jump out in terms of mathematics and you're like I didn't realize that we need to identify that student for additional stretching additional en enhancement enrichment kinds of activities so it the universal screening is is beneficial in in a lot of in a lot of ways it helps identify which students need intervention this program can also help with grouping skill-based strategies to be targeted during that intervention time but it also helps us identify students who need maybe we need to look at for identification for gifted programs for enrichment programs and the like okay I've been going fast so do you have questions on Star data do you want to
091can you run back to that last table okay yeah let's go to the um fourth um fifth sixth and seventh grade sorry all right so I couldn't fit it all on one slide and make it visible so I broke it out between kind of elementary school and then middle and 8th grade um to kind of look at um performance over over time so again the layout is kind of the same and I apologize for not having this um loaded for you all um earlier to give you the time to digest it prior to prior to tonight but I'm happy to answer questions whether it's tonight or or going forward in the in the coming days my yes sir this is about the second or third different way I've seen thing proposed since I've been on
092the board and out of everything I've taken in we still have about onethird of the students failing that that number really hasn't changed how it's been presented three different ways so I mean we're kind of beating the bush or something because we haven't found what the real problem is yet if you understand what I'm saying I do I think it's I can't speak to what H has happened prior to me getting here um one of the processes that we began implementing in the winter is this mtss approach that we're getting support from the Department of Education to address so we're working on building infrastructure with data and looking at data and so we can make pretty um precise decisions on what skills need to be addressed with what students that that's not a practice that
093is often familiar to teachers so historically you may just look at performance on the chapter test that you gave a student well you need to be able to compare the rigor and the quality of that chapter test against other students um Across the Nation or across the state to look at okay well am I teaching it at the right level for students to to be successful on an so test this helps us gauge what we are doing so maybe that chapter test needs to be a little bit more difficult or I need to have different I need to make sure that I'm covering different skills along the year so it's a lot of tweaking it's also it's going to be imperative that we retain really good teachers who have the skill set to be able
094to tweak that curriculum and tweak their instruction and then know how to use data to inform who's in what groups and U being able to do small group instruction during a larger block of time so we've made a bunch of adjustments starting in the winter over the summer with different Master schedules here at Thomas Hunter to provide more time for reading instruction more time for math instruction do you know how they prepare a test question for the SOS How do they look at it how they decide how to word it no I think that I mean I there the doe will push out um for nominations for teachers to participate in curriculum development and test question development um and it's kind of a competitive process to get a teacher on that committee but what's become
095increasingly difficult over the years is we don't get released test items so you don't get to see the the old test kind of practice one of the things that we've done is we've joined CIP which is the comprehensive instructional program that 70 School divisions in the states um kind of pull resources together pull teachers together to develop test questions they've been working at it I think for 10 years I think it started in 2013 uh they run a ton of statistical analysis on all the students in that cohort in the um in the Consortium and so they run the Benchmark performance against so performance and it's pretty tightly aligned and predictive um so we've signed on to CIP uh principales began pushing that out as uh resource to our teachers next year we'll look for
096a more formal imple implementation process for that but teachers will now have access to peer reviewed High rigor benchmark assessments that they can use to sort of help them align their pacing align some of the curriculum it's not a lesson plan after lesson plan but it's a pacing guide um support tool and testing resources for teachers yes ma'am um so I think as you you referenced it's clear that our teachers are really working hard to see some of that data up there yes um my next question has to do with who when there might be tweaking the word you use is needed who assists the teacher to help them first of all point out that they might need some help in tweaking and help them actually tweak their curriculum right now it's a team approach
097so the teachers on that grade level team are working together uh the principals are now having data meetings working regularly meeting either with grade levels um kind of here they're working in departments at the high school so it's kind of a peer model right now one of the disadvantages about being in a in a really small school division is that we don't have curriculum Specialists we don't have a math specialist in Matthews um my assistant superintendent is also our HR person is also um compliance and and does a ton of other things so a lot of school divisions would have have an instructional supervisor who's helping lead a new math or a new um reading curriculum in program so we have to rely a lot on the principles to know that to know a broad
098array of content a broad array of s so's and then work with teachers on strand data but a lot of it is us trying to um get teachers together within our own buildings but we also work pretty well pretty nicely in the sandbox with some of our regional Partners so we had some math Regional professional development that took place over the summer we've got some Regional kind of language arts and professional development help that that's coming in to lend some support thank you and my last question has to do with um is based on the information we just saw is remediation um starting to occur now yeah so they've sent out remediation letters um we're trying to we're wrangling kids we're sending phone calls home teachers are calling um they they've gone through now their
099star data and they're we're coming about we're just past the Midway point in the first quarter they've seen this data they know the kids that they need to get so they're being um what I talked about kind of last convocation about being aggressive for student achievement so they're reaching out they're making phone calls both in many cases for attendance to make sure their kids are coming to school but also then staying in after school programs and trying to get creative during the the regular day to grab kids for interventions and Remediation when they can thank you you're welcome yes M digs Dr Daniel I understood you to say that reading is affecting math scores did is that because the student is not comprehending what the math term is can you clarify I can assume but
100I think that's probably a good question for me to then have with first grade teachers and second grade teachers to go in and diagnose is it are we not teaching specific math vocabulary or is it a broader ma is it a broader reading comprehension challenge so part of math instruction is content specific vocabulary so when it says combin do you know that means to add things so words in mathematics will often have different meetings than they would in a general context right and so that that may be part of that but I think that's part of the the collaborative approach on the grade levels for them to kind of do the autopsy if you will for that that test result and kind of break break out the data a little bit and the software will
101do a little bit of that work for you but it doesn't replace teachers knowing their kids and being beside and having conversations about especially with math you talk about math speak so it's having conversations with students and knowing knowing the kids in your classroom thank you can I ask Miss bray to come up hey Miss Bray can you join me okay because like she knows the first grade so yeah first grade teachers were really worked up about the star test for their students because no student received a read aloud and so the students did not typically understand the question that was being asked of them it was a huge concern across the grade level and we had lengthy discussion about it would you say that is when you say don't understand the question are they
102not understanding the vocabulary the words of the of what the question was asking so it was like okay boys and girls today we're going to take this math test good luck to you and they would raise their hand and say you know what does number one say well I can't help you with that you do the best that you can it was a very stressful intense situation for first grade teachers and for first grade students yeah thank you am I done I don't know is Miss Bray done with that said I don't think you're done Miss Bray come back no you aren't done um so with that said um is that something like next year they would like educate you know prep them on before the test comes prep's probably not a good word provide
103you know just more information about those kind of or is there not time before you give the test to even do that is this true I think this is the first year first grade ever took the star math test is that correct not true song of Lies not true I think they took it in the winter so they took it winter um winter and spring last year okay but they have first so we're on a learning we're on a learning curve correct I want to address your about the math because I think was grade one of the teachers they have gotten together and talked about just spiraling from K through four what is the ma language so so if we say slope and you say angle you know like what is the language so the
104math team sent that inms and I think we discussed that I know in the English section for the strategic planning we talked about that that's exactly what I was going to allude to was as part of our strategic planning process this summer it really came to light that we Haven haven't had a defined detailed K12 curriculum that is aligned to you know year to year or kind of at the right level of rigor for reading mathematics social studies becomes a bit discreet as does science but you really have to have kind of a spiraling curriculum K12 I think we've relied historically on well this teacher kind of knows what they're doing we're hiring experts to come in but continuity of vocabulary of covering topics has been missing so it's going back to your point Mr
105doson it's going to take um more time to get that curriculum built to get those skills to see the benefits of the consistency and continuity I got another another question uh because it seems to be problem with words but they identify the symbols of math plus minus divide I mean I would have to that would be part of going into um well first graders would be multiplying and dividing but in terms of knowing some of the the symbols I wouldn't be able to speak to that from my level looking at the data but that's where the teacher level data and teachers knowing how to access the reports that come out of star can go in and look at specific skill deficits so that they can address those skill deficits so it's whether or not they
106can recognize whether they have onetoone correspondence and group to whole identification at at the lower levels while we continue to grow in our student achievement portion of every business meeting I think those kinds of topics would be great to hear a little bit more in depth but what I want to just say to round this out is due to the strategic planning work sessions that we had the way that you're talking now uh really using a diagnostic approach and creating a datadriven division for the maybe for the first time in a long time I appreciate that I know it's going to take a long time but I am confident we're on the right track and these conversations um that are interesting to all of us up here and hopefully every parent in the division and
107all of the citizens are key to strengthening our schools and our students and their their livelihood outcomes so I appreciate it and thank you very much for this presentation and I would like uh the members to all have a copy of what what you've shown tonight so that we can yeah I'll get I'll get it loaded up I apologize I will add one one piece too so our representative from CIP came and met with us and did a little bit of it may not be called training but kind of an intro to CIP and and shared some data with us one of the pieces of data that that struck me is he looks at again the federal kind of Pass rates so he mapped every division in Virginia looked at their overall pass rate for
108every student who took a test regardless of the content regardless of whatever total number of students taking a test in overall pass rate and he ranks those annually where he ranked ma Matthews was the 12th highest gaining School Division according to his calculations in Virginia last year so while some of this is not what we want to see we're moving we're taking steps in that direction by making gains making significant progress in the work that we're doing the work that the teachers are doing addressing student needs and student deficits so we're we're doing the right stuff it's just it's going to take it's still going to take some time to get us there but um I'm very optimistic so excellent okay all right thank you Dr Daniel moving on to item seven citizens questions comments
109or requests this is 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 speakers shall not address matters involving students or personnel as these topics May VI 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
110back 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 speaker is Donna ma Donna M Foster Virginia I frequently hear from the school board that it takes a village to raise a child this was famously claimed by Hillary Clinton in 19 96 who really meant a government Village and it represents a hostile attitude toward parents according to Alex Newman his book indoctrinating our children to death I am making this book available for research online when I was teaching at TC Walker Elementary in the early 1990s the principal told me that he believed three and four-year-old should be in public school because the parents couldn't be trusted this is so contrary
111to the truth God gave parents the job of teaching and training their children in the nurture and admonition of the Lord parents are the first institution created by God with his mandate to rear them up this is education that works likeminded community members can assist even organizations following biblical values and principles can be beneficial however Godless inst institutions like public schools who follow ferally funded guidelines set by the UN Agenda cannot be trusted the last place for a 2 to fouryear Old daycare preschool program is in the public school it's bad enough that the Y organization Nationwide is partially funded by federal grants and still calls itself Christian while promoting ungodly values like transgender ISM the Biden build back better plan promotes Universal preschool as Newman writes the goal is to get all of America's
112children into government indoctrination programs even earlier and to remove the parent from the picture almost entirely a YMCA daycare in the government building is just one step toward a mandated program to replace all parents the camel's nose in the tent this is not God's vision of making a healthy whole happy Child leave toddlers to mom's and dad's discretion anything they learned from home would be better than government School It Takes a Family to rear a child thank you for listening thank you Mary Stevens oh there step's left okay Gavin Nukem Debbie farmer well the way that um we were in a meeting last night and we brought up this discussion a little bit and we all seem to or a lot of us come to seem to the um same conclusion that we already have
113one group of 14 that's for years old in the school in the high school and I don't think they should be in the high school if they wanted to be do do that program it should be at the elementary school there's high school kids there's big kids there up and down the hallways you know and there's more risk of a high schooler doing something or a something be some big threat with the school that it would be at at an elementary school but it goes back to where if if it's going to be just a babysitting thing then that that has nothing to do with the schools it should be with the why okay so then I'm sorry they left because what I had to say was as much to them too because if it
114sounds like a money-making thing for them if they could make $100,000 a year off of what they charge and whatever but yet they have all the money all the fundings to get the money for this program well but yet they they don't take into consideration the whole rest of the county they're pushing these kids at two years old that need to be home with Mommy or in a in a babysitting home life where you're in a home and you're got maybe one or two other kids but what they the why does not take into consideration you've got the babies you've got the teens and you've got the seniors or the adults and then the seniors we'll go that way so the point that I wanted to get across to them was that they have all
115the money money and all the fundings that they can get to get these little babies into school that they're going to have pre kindergarten kindergarten 12 years of school that's 14 years if they start them another two years ahead of that that's going to be 16 years they go to college they go to get a a major degree a doctor or whatever they may have 10 more years to school that that's a third of their life they're going to be in school okay but going back to the part where they don't offer anything for seniors if they can come up with all the funding for these kids to go to school these babies to go to school then they need to do something for the seniors they do not offer senior silver sneakers program because
116they say it's too many seniors in the community but yet we don't have that many babies we don't even have that many kids in the school system itself you know I'm Sorry Miss farmer your time is up okay thank you ask for address oh will you please approach the podium again and give your address Debbie farmer Cardinal Virginia name Meredith mcdal sorry if I got that you got it perfectly right okay great um hi I'm Meredith McDougall uh I am a Matthew cison and a mom of two toddlers um public speaking is not a strong soup so I apologize if I look down at my phone um I have n navigated child care for the past several years and I can assure you it's basically a part-time oh my husband says it's a full-time job
117trying to find and secure consistent quality care I was also a parent of children who were enrolled in the local facility that had to close down sadly because of unforeseen circumstances dozens of families locally were left stranded to find Care at the drop of a hat and some were forced to step out of the workforce temporarily or permanently in order because they were not able to find care locally I was able to reach out to a staff member of the previous facility and she told me that approximately 75% of the enrolled children were on subsidy finding facilities that accept state subsidy is one of the many hurdles that low-income F families face and having a local facility that accepts subsidy would be a godsend for many local families many home daycares do not accept subsidy
118because of the paperwork involved but the Y knows how to manage all of that already my husband and I are blessed to be fortunate enough to send our kids to the monu in the next County I looked at the why for child care when the local facility closed however my kids were too young to to go there now that they're confident and familiar with their school um it makes it hard as a parent to pull them them out of that school and move them to a school that they're not familiar with I know that several other Matthews families at our at the monu are struggling with what to do once their todders are public school age because they know how comfortable their kids are in the school that they're at so as a parent in
119my opinion it would be that the public schools would benefit from not losing students Partners if they partnered with a local facility that makes the transition to kindergarten easier I know that Dr Gibbs you said that there was a data Gap in the program that the Y mentioned however there's no shortage of data in research when it comes to what those early years can do in terms of getting kids prepared for kindergarden in school early childhood is the period of the most traumatic learning gains in our lifespan our entire lifespan 0 to five that is that's research and founded research also suggests that students do not have who do not have access to learning two to foure age group tend to end up two years behind their peers when they get into kindergarten said them
120back for years to come so to hear from a Schoolboard that two and three-year-olds don't have anything to learn in a school environment is concerning as a mother and citizen of our County and as someone who is raised by a single working mother hearing that the only teacher that they need at their age is their mother I'd like to point out that many moms do not have that option if they want to financially provide for their family I'd also like to remind you that the 82% of unmet needs that the Y mentioned and by the way they're still here they're in the back of the room um they will choose to if they are forced to choose to enroll their children elsewhere and if they they are also the families that vote and if you
121choose to deny using unused space in a middle school for something that is so critical like child care in our society I just hope you think about it that's all I'm asking thank you good evening I wasn't intending to speak tonight but um but I would like to add to this conversation my name is Virginia Samford I'm the director of special education here in Matthews and have served in that capacity for this is my eighth year um I appreciate I'm so glad that we are having this conversation about Community Partnerships um and supporting our youngest Learners years ago um I did not intend to stay home with my children I intended to teach um you know after my maternity I had twin daughters I could not afford to um put them in daycare because it
122the cost was significantly more than our mortgage at the time so of course I was thankful for that opportunity as a young mom to be able to um provide them with the experiences that that we did together not all families are in that situation um I appreciate Mr Dobson's support on our special education advisory committees I appreciate the questions from the board tonight but I do feel a responsibility to make just a couple points so I think we all here would agree that a 2-year-old best placement is with their mother I think we're all in agreement of that but it's not always the best placement for the child okay it's not many of our um community members here in Matthews grandparents are raising these children and they are asking for help they're asking me they're
123asking our fapped family action planning team at Department of Social Services they are asking we have aunts we have uncles we're trying to find um Partners to provide supports that families for whatever reason are not able to so um the next point is is that we I appreciated Miss McDougall um I hope I said your name correctly comments um we have learned so much about early intervention in the past years I am very happy to provide data on what has been learned about the benefits of early intervention for our youngest Learners in order for students to enter kindergarten with a prerequisite social emotional behavioral and basic academic skills needed to be successful we need additional resources we need supports for them early intervention helps children learn basic skills that typically develop during the first years
124of life but that doesn't always for whatever reason divorce death addiction poverty priorities research has shown improved academic and social skills increased Independence and self-confidence and a reduced need for special education services later in the future so the goal miss Sanford the time is okay well thank you for your time thank you very much thank you is there anyone else who would like to approach the podium Richard Hicks North Virginia so again our school system has classroom space for, 1300 plus students and enrollment under 800 the school system clearly needs to shut down a school building but no you are spending money making repairs to a building that should be shut down can you say mismanagement our school we've been been reported that our high school has a leaking roof appliances that don't run facilities
125with other problems if you can't take care of what you have you have no business getting into the rental business note here you might consider the Board of Supervisors rental business with holding a wall which might be classified as a failure let's scratch that a disaster this board and the school system needs to concentrate on their Prime Mission Reading Writing arithmetic for K through 8 and stop doing all this other stuff I see that the YMCA anticipates expenses of 200,000 an income of 100,000 who is making up the difference where is that money coming from would you do business with an organization like that they have a staffing model 14 students and five staff that's 2.8 students per employee and they don't have to grade any homework at night good work if you can get
126it a final note a million dollars to fix a ling leaking roof is ludicrous identification of leaks on a rainy day is relatively easy get out a ladder and a flashlight and follow that stream of water to its origin all it takes is some initiative thank you thank you Mr Hicks is there anyone else who'd like to approach the podium good evening uh I'm Janis Phillips my address is 250 Harbor watch new Point Virginia um I would like to address the U preschool presentation unfortunately I wasn't here for the whole portion of it however one of the things that we know about Matthews is that our population has decreased by 6% in 20 years not a big number pretty much much in line with the national averages however the big thing that you have to
127pay attention to with our census is that we've had a big shift in that um while our senior citizens their numbers have grown by 30% or more our working age citizens have decreased by 30% or more so we are facing a real problem at this County if we can't reverse that Trend and that we will not have people who provide services who are are working a community thrives based on young families and we need to attract and keep our young families that is our that's critical to this community and I think this um it's important to to do that schools are the number one driver and child care lines right up with that if we can have excellent schools and good child care I think we would have young families coming here to live they
128would probably have to commute for work but a many many families have done that for years uh and I think we could see our County Thrive but I think and I am optimistic I think our schools are on the right track I am very pleased at what I see um and I think that the child care is the big issue as we've seen from the surveys and we it would be well addressed rest uh and I like the idea of using an existing building uh it's a lot of pluses but that's your your call thank you thank you is there anyone else who'd like to approach the podium good evening Sharon for highport Haywood I'd like to address the why coming here into our public school system system if you look go online and you
129look up the why and not just their mission statement they are a very woke organization they promote Dei they promote social emotional learning they promote lgbqt TQ and pride I believe they're heavily connected to the UN I believe they're an indoctrination facility as most of our public schools are I believe mothers if you have children keep them at home and love them what they need in their early years is love Matthews County school system does not need to become a daycare I really thought the YMCA's presentation was quite good it was right on point and my question is why didn't they go to a church we have a number of church with big facilities large rooms cafeterias everything they need for daycare why don't they rent a facility in Matthews County that would help us
130if they rent one of our buildings and let all the people come in not just 14 students uh 14 babies let everybody come in rentability and rent a facility do a daycare program here in Matthews that would be wonderful but I don't think our public schools at this day and time and in the financial Straits that we are in we do not need to provide daycare service for families thank you thank you is there anyone else who'd like to approach the podium hi K Dyer Cardinal Virginia um I um have a couple of comments one of is about the child care provider survey results it's very difficult for me to see on the graph the different colors and what for example why did you choose the YMCA as your child care provider I think that's
131important but it's very hard for me to decipher that information and I apologize if I'm repeating some remarks other people have said my hearing is not the best um I think that if we we have a program here from the YMCA we are essentially giving a blessing to this organization and I do have reservations because of their promotion of Dei um and I don't know whether there will be a mission creep for one and two year olds I don't think that's a problem but for three and four year olds are they going to be discussing issues of gender are they going to be promoting the idea that there systemic racism um in in the country uh that's part of their platform if you go and read about them so I am concerned about that um
132I do have questions about um the cost of this um we are being told and I don't care what organization it it is that's seeking to use the schools but that it won't cost the schools anything um I'm wondering if this program would be willing to pay rent for use of the facilities will they pay for their share of the utilities janitorial service um I don't know who's going to be serving the meals but we do have people here here that are serving the students but that's an additional burden so I do have a question about that and um I believe Mr doson also brought up liability insurance the cost of liability insurance which the Y says they would take care of but I don't know whether the school could possibly still incur some liability
133for allowing the why to have the program here thank you that's all I have to say thank you is there anyone else who'd like to approach the podium tonight all right 7.2 Schoolboard comments I want to thank you folks who commented tonight and those who presented tonight also they certainly are differing views and that's that's fine as long as we can know that the school system is doing the best that it can here in Matthews County I personally as a new member here I feel like the people sitting on this board are trying their very best under our leadership to provide for these children and to also main retain good teachers we have a lot of good teachers in this County and I'm so grateful to them and the children as some of you have
134said tonight at a young age they need to be at home with Mom and loving you know the mom and dad loving them or the grandparents I was fortunate as a kid to have my mother at home when I was two and three years old I I don't know that we had daycare I don't mind dating myself I'm older than a lot of you in here but I also see and I know as I have a sister who is babysitting her 2 and a half year old grandson because of child care being the cost that it is she is teaching in her grandson many many things now she was a teacher before but I I see the benefits some of the comments you've made tonight about the why I hear um and I'll leave it
135there I work for them for a while and I saw good work that they did here in Matthews County I can say that um I'd like to address M dugall did she just leave anyway Miss dogall made some comments about um so many of the mothers do need to work and that is true and I see this as an option that we have here that can answer some of the calls for that um Mr Hicks I have um listened to your comments of concern about the empty spaces here in school at this facility and I I hear what you're saying I understand that I am wondering as a board member and as a Matthews County citizen if you have a suggestion for this I don't know anything fac see what goes on I just know
136the numbers are 1300 less 800 and basic shut down thank you for your thank you for your concern I can assure you as far as we are concerned that we are trying our best to do what we can with what we have want to address the the why um if they want to go with a four-year-old program like we have at the high school I don't see a problem with that and they can take the rest of it and go somewhere else with it and talking about the program at the high school we should move them back over here since we do have the room here now and not have them over at the high school I think that would be a a good idea I will talk about some of the space in the
137school um I think there's some planning that we were looking at Miss Williams room isn't big [Music] enough and she does not have prop the proper equipment in there that she's supposed to have and hopefully in the future we can get her in possibly make one of these rooms double down here and give her the space that she needs for her class um bringing the students back they've been at the high school all the time but bring the students from the high school over here now would be a good idea U but there are some other things we we've discussed about eventually moving the School Board office down in here and getting rid of that building up there so there are some things being looked at you know it doesn't happen overnight just doesn't happen
138overnight and uh that's what I'll say about the space down here for now mhm okay um again I want to thank everybody for taking the time to share their thoughts a lot of competing thoughts opinions um first of all we have there's a huge gap in child care now so as I've heard many of you do not believe that um parents should ever use child care but the reality is there are single parents and I think Miss Stanford brought up a point that I had not yet thought about is not every parent is a is a exemplary parent and teaches what their their children need to learn and we see that in kindergarten and Beyond we see that all the time and we comments are often made about people who shouldn't be parents but the
139schools are left to educate them that is our job and that is our our role so I think um not every family is a cookie cutter family with two parents one working one being able to stay at home that's not unfortunately wouldn't that be ideal that is not what our County or any county has uh as far as its makeup um there are two parents that both parents work but there're still low income they still are low socioeconomic status they just don't make enough money to um to F pay the bills and where do the children go what if one them stop working that would even be more disastrous there are single parents for multiple reasons um and and to the point about the high school preschool because I am old and I've been around
140long time that preschool program was designed to be at the high school it is self-contained they do not leave um that room actually they may leave after the kids are uh other students are in class they may on uh on occasion come to the cafeteria I'm not sure if that occurs anymore but it was designed because we have a Child Care Program and that would then allow those students to learn learn how to be a child care provider or even a teacher if that's what they wanted to do that was the design of the program to begin with and that is still the design but they are not integrated with the rest of the high school at all um and if you were at the high school setup is made where the classroom for child
141care bumps up against the preschool program and and they they move back and forth um I do want feel like I need to um address miss Ma about it takes a village um yes it was Hillary Clinton that kind of coined that term and in fact wrote a book about that um but as with Miss digs I've been around a long time and I don't usually talk about myself but I was raised like many of you were raised where our community was our village other parents would would correct us when we were misbehaving and we take pride in that now now I hear all the time why don't we do what we did back there in the 50s and 60s I will tell you my church was my community so to say it take it
142was my Village and it was my Village through through good and bad and and after my mother passed away it became my Village and helped me from keeping to get in trouble so I will say it sometimes does take a village and it's a good thing that there are Villages out there there are bad Villages too I will give you that Mrs ma but there are some very good Villages that make help children keep them from going down the wrong path and I will I will I think we need to look at not just the term but what makes up that consistency um we as a school are left with educating every child that comes through its doors often times they are not ready to learn they are not ready to sit in the seat
143they cannot get along with other students and I'm not for indoctrinating kids I know that's a term that I've heard tonight but some parents don't know what they need to teach kids to have them ready for kindergarten kindergarten is not the option as it was in the 50s and 60s it is not they're expected to know a lot more as we know from the testing so on the one hand we're talking about why isn't our testing any better what can we do to improve our testing what can we do to make our kids be able to read on grade level on the other hand I'm hearing from some we shouldn't be helping those students helping those children learn what they need to start kindergarten and be at a Level Playing Field they are not at
144a Level Playing Field as so many of these children that come come through the doors um some from two parents' homes some from not um so I just want to make those comments it's a it's a complicated question but as a school board I see our role is making sure that every child that comes is is to the ability that we have is ready to learn and it's our job to teach them and not all the children are ready and so I I do support in a general fashion the the why um while being at the school we have many other programs that serve that come to our school and use our facilities many other programs um they use it maybe the auditorium and we support that now I know some pay some do not
145so um I think it's a I think it's a good thing and I think that the data we just saw would dramatically improve um and so thank you just a couple of quick comments um keep hearing the program at the high school referred to as uh preschool I believe and maybe Dr Daniel can help me here I believe that is Head Start which is a federal program um and if I'm not mistaken in order to qualify the family has to meet certain finan cial or economic needs uh which I think is in contrast to what has been presented here this evening um I one thing I want to make clear is I am certainly not out here advocating that we um deny any child of any age an opportunity especially a learning opportunity don't don't
146misunderstand me there however I don't I'm not convinced yet that it there are some some students some children in this County and in this world that are less fortunate than others some maybe it's just an economic situation some maybe it's just U not a real good home life for lack of a better term I understand that and it's great to be able to help these kids to to give them a head start so to speak to to give them a fighting chance and at the same time where does public school responsibility end so personally I am not anywhere near prepared to make a decision on what was presented here this evening um I've heard good comments pros and cons well all the comments were good but some pros some con um and there's a lot
147of information is going to have to be digested for lack of a better word um but I think what the Y was presenting was was in contrast really to what is currently going on at the high school if I'm not mistaken so that's that's my thoughts and comments thank you well before we move on I just want to thank everybody who's no longer here and who's still here for the comments that they made obviously this is a uh a very significant item on the agenda that the board will consider very thoughtfully and on an ongoing basis uh there are no more comments I think that I can that I can add to this uh but be assured that the board takes this matter extremely seriously and that we will continue to hear from the public
148and we hope to uh again we'll be having a work session next week and the town hall that is next Thursday the 24th please feel free to come to that and speak um I do think that it is time for us to move on we will move to the next item it's uh superintendent informational reports by Dr Daniel okay item 8.1 the uh Matthews County Public Schools strategic plan so a quick update as to where we stand in that process um a draft of the Strategic plan has been provided to the school division we sent that draft out to board members and the citizens um teachers and staff who participated in those two days of strategic planning uh we've received um some feedback on Corrections s Corrections suggestions um just kind of General thoughts uh
149related to that strategic plan we're going to make some edits once we've revised it um based off those comments we were then we are then planning on to push it out for broader public comment broader public review uh for uh input from the community um it is also draft as also been shared with supervisors um as they're embarking on their strategic planning process as well so more more to come with strategic plan um 8.2 uh attendance data so we did not review attendance data at the September meeting because we had only had about three weeks of school I'm looking at September data at our October meeting um is not the the data that I was hoping to see so in terms of looking at the number of students who are being who are at risk
150um and that who have missed three days or more to date is significantly higher at this point this year than it was at this point last year um part of looking at that because it's broken down by School part of that is moving eth grade to the high school so you have more students at the high school so that's going to impact um and kind of having conversations with administ ministrators at the two buildings um Thomas Hunter is on par with where they were this time last year the elementary school is significantly up I think we've had a rash of illnesses kind of I think there were some some covid outbreaks and some things that were impacting some of our younger students um that may have had part of the issue at the high school
151I looking at some of our data as well with the high school we've also had some significant discipline um scenario is at the high school and so chronic absenteeism it doesn't matter why you are absent it's just that you were absent and so we've um the high school has been addressing student Behavior Uh pretty significantly so that is a number of those students as to uh the increase there and just a side note the overall number of discipline infractions is about the same I looked at that data prior to coming to our meeting tonight the number of infractions across the division is about the same the consequences uh are are different uh this year from where they were last year so I think they're they're working on um addressing things at the high school so
152okay um 8.3 review of vsba policy updates so there's a handful of VBA policy updates I would just pay attention to the ones that look at approving those annually and just require annual review and annual action on those I don't see any anything that's particularly um eyebrow raising or concerning or enlightening and mostly it's kind of state code compliance types of types of issues so um take a look at those for first read and we can um look at those um later on at at a later board meeting and then information 8.4 information for the school board um just some highlights on um just trainings things along those lines so we've got some fo you training um also within that those informational items are the individual um activity accounts for the schools you also have
153field trip um just highlights typically the board doesn't approve field trips it's just kind of an informational item the board gets involved with their overnight field trips just because of the as we've talked a little bit about liability tonight but um it's just you know just for your information where our kids are going some of the enrichment activities some of the things that our teachers are um doing with their kids and then also finally the the expenditure and revenue um Amendment so it's just we had talked about it I believe previously but the supervisors have adjusted as we're working on collaboration with the maintenance departments um the supervisors in conversation with me have with pulled um $50,000 from our budget to then go back to the county budget as part of the beginning phases of
154the merger process um a side note I believe the the supervisors will be looking at the draft mou coming up at their meeting on Thursday um we submitted anou draft for their review we'll get their revisions we'll take a look at it if we need to make revisions to kind of really just nail down what what this transition phase will look like um so we're all all reading from the same sheet of music if you will so um and then I believe we go back to item item nine Dr Daniel I have just a quick question regarding the absenteeism at the high school sorry yes you reflected that there may be maybe the imposition of harsher consequences or more consistent application of consequences is there a role that the code of conduct has played in
155um detailing out and making things very concrete that has been that has helped to highlight um consistency of consequences or is there another reason um I think the code has helped outline basic classroom level expectations it's provided especially two new administrators well administrators in two new roles uh in the division kind of with um what expectations are at at those various levels and what our expectations in Matthews I've had just more conversations with principles about discipline practices and things along those lines some of it has just as we had Across the Nation we had a rash of students um saying inappropriate borderline kind of threatening things and so I sent out some messaging into the community when we had some of those situations so um that would account for some of those um consequences we've
156just had students who've made some poor decisions we also have some students some of those DEC decisions weren't necessarily in the school building but have ramifications to their attendance at school and so that is again things that are somewhat outside of our control but we're still held accountable for those for their attendance so it's kind of a a mix of different things I don't know that I could honestly say the code of conduct has had um has had this impact in terms of the attendance data I think it's been a supportive document and a helpful document for our administrators and our teachers climate survey has there were several indications of appreciation for that code of conduct and understanding for what we're expecting for our students excellent good thank you moving on to n item nine
157the school board informational reports 9.1 we will have a school board and Board of Supervisors we did have a school board and Board of Supervisors joint work session on Tuesday October 8th in this uh in this building in this Auditorium uh item 92 we have an upcoming that I've referred to now a couple of times the Schoolboard work session which will be an all day 8 to3 work session in Chesapeake Bank on next Tuesday the 22nd item 9.3 we have the town hall that I've been referring to which will be held on Thursday October 24th at 6 PM in this building in this Auditorium item 9.4 we'll have a Joint School legislative Tour on Thursday November 14th at 9:00 a.m. at Thomas Hunter Middle School item 9.5 we have Schoolboard conference conferences and webinars again
158as we do every meeting members check and make sure that you're up to date and in line with your trainings item 9.6 um we have an opportunity here for board and committee reports by school board members and superintendent and we just want to as we click on this to finish out the year we have I will be attending this week's Board of Supervisors meeting meeting Mr doson will be November 21st and Mr Morgan will be attending on December 19th and we will set uh the first half of next year at the organizational meeting in January item 10 we have our second opportunity for Citizens comment on items discussed during the meeting do we have anybody who would like to approach the podium Richard Hicks North Virginia societal ills are not the responsibility of the school
159board the quality and quantity of daycare facilities in this County in this state is not the responsibility of the school board the many and M multiple failures by parents to prepare their children for school is not the responsibility of the school board single moms divorced moms working parents single dads lowincome parents irresponsible parents parents on drugs are not the responsibility of the school board the school board's core mission is Reading Writing and arithmetic for K through 12 and I really wish that you would concentrate 100% of your time on your core Mission and leave these other messes to some other organization maybe uh we have a a building across the street here where we have a they take care of social problems but your core mission is education K through 12 Reading Writing and arithmetic
160thank you thank you Mr Hicks is there anyone else who'd like to approach the podium Sharon fry Port hawood Virginia of course um I just want to say that I know yall are trying I know you are it's a tough job it's a tough job and I appreciate every one of you sitting up there and it's a lot to handle so thank you thank you Miss briy is there anyone else who'd like to approach the podium Michelle Williams 3171 East River Road North Virginia um tonight was the first I had heard of The Proposal from the YMCA and I'll be the first one to admit I am not one that is involved in a lot of the as I've heard it said woke agenda um or whether or not the why proposes that pushes that
161or tries to indoctrinate our children with that but I will speak as a grandparent I have two grandchildren one who is a product of the model program for preschool next door who has thrived in that program because he has two parents who have to work my daughter-in-law is a nursing professor and my son is a teacher here at Thomas Hunter Middle School without some sort of daycare facility here in Matthews County one or the both of them would be displaced from being able to work in the workforce now as you can I'm sure be aware my son's position is pretty critical to Thomas Hunter as far as his role as an educator my daughter-in-law is responsible for training the nurses that take care of us day to day when we get sick her job is
162pretty important too and in today's society while I was able to briefly stay home with my children and in a time in a day and age when we could afford for me to stay home my husband was working as a single single income family we made it work and we made some sacrifices and I do believe that a child's first educator is the god-given responsibility of the parents unfortunately in today's society while we are an educational facility certain things are out of our realm of control however the things out there that if we don't address them here they are going to affect those scores they are going to affect tomorrow's children they are going to affect the things that we have to deal with from day to day as far as this daycare proposal my
163daughter-in-law and my son were faced this year with their inhome daycare provider rich retiring they had to scramble one of the grandmothers was going to have to retire quit their job or one of them was going to have to quit their job in order to provide daycare for my granddaughter who is only two now it is their responsibility to teach her all about faith and the things and the values that we hold dear in our family however somebody's got to attend to her while they're at work and and while we're not trying to address and cure all the social ills those social ills are here with us whether we like it or not and as far as our facilities being used for this that or the other or closing down facilities I understand declining enrollment
164my class is small I get it I understand however if one child is here we have to educate one child and we have to do with what we have the best to our of our ability Miss Willam your time's up than thank you for what you do I do appreciate you thank you is there anyone else who'd like to approach the podium tonight there being none we'll move on to item 11 with Schoolboard members reports are there any members who'd like to say anything tonight there being none we'll move on to item 12 we move into closed meeting May I have a motion may I have a motion I make a motion to move into closed meeting um reference the Virginia Freedom of Information Act section 2.2 3711 print a PR one discussion or consideration
165of personnel matters support staff appointment fall extracurricular coaching appointment winter coaching appointments and winter uh volunteer coaches and section 2.2 3711 PR a print 2 discussion or consideration of admission or disciplinary matters concerning students I have a motion do we have a second second any discussion all those in favor say I I we are now in close meeting