001i didn't think excuse me [Music] good evening everyone welcome to our uh work session for monday june 20th 2022. do i hear a motion to come out of closed session i make a motion that we come out of closed session thank you mr skill do i hear a second second thank you miss mcbeath and a vote all in favor say aye aye all right we are out of closed session mr mead could you please read the certification of closed session whereas the new kent county school board has convened a closed meeting on this day pursuant to an affirmative recorded vote in accordance with the provisions of the virginia freedom of information act and whereas section 2.2-3 the code of virginia requires a certification by the new kenton county school board that such closed meetings were
002was conducted in conformity with virginia law now therefore be resolved the new kent county school board here by certifies that to the best of each member's knowledge only public business meeting business matters lawfully exempted from open meeting requirements by virginia law were discussed in closed meeting to which the certification resolution applies and only such public business matters as were identified in the motion convening the closed meeting were heard discussed or considered by the new kent county school board okay thank you do i hear a motion to approve the certification of the closed session i make a motion that we approve the certification of closed session okay thank you miss stascill do i hear a second a second thank you mr mead and board members vote please all in favor say aye aye all opposed not
003opposed all right and the certification of the closed session is approved all right our first item on the agenda tonight under two is recognitions we have two recognitions this evening um our first recognition is the vhsl film festival winner peyton wheeler for the 2021-2022 best public service announcement all right thank you miss winford tonight is champions night uh we don't typically recognize individuals at the work session but we know a lot of these individuals will not be with us in august because they'll be off to school and different things so we wanted to capitalize on it tonight um so we have two uh members that are part of the state champion uh psa public service announcement i believe we have it queued up all right so we'll watch this and then i'll introduce that okay
004i think you can see why that video well they were the winners of the bhsl film festival uh so great honor um so i do want to recognize both of them this evening so you have one of them on the screen so we have peyton wheeler i'm sorry come up this one so and then we also have lawson matthews [Applause] so these two individuals are your state champion public service announcement winners uh and they do this work through tv media right here at the high school so not sure if it's a first but i haven't seen it in quite some time so i want to congratulate these state winners thank you [Applause] thank you very much thank you peyton thank you lawson for coming out this evening really appreciate it and really appreciate your message
005and your work on that important announcement okay our second recognition this evening is the recognition of our vhsl class three state softball champions [Applause] i had the privilege and honor of following this team to a lot of games this year and many of them are probably looking at me right now go oh i didn't know he did something else other than watch softball games um but it's just been an absolute joy uh to see this team in action i was at the state semifinal game and so we do have a region player of the year she's here with us there was a runner on first and she gets up there i'm like oh she's going to town i see the sign come in from coach and she bumps to advance the runner that is just
006the embodiment of this team it's about advancing the runner it's about getting a run in and it's about you know moving forward and you just saw that over and over again with this team um i also have debbie richards here who's from the new kent education foundation so they have something for you as well nucant education foundation does a lot of work for new kent county public schools they also want to congratulate you on this great state championship it is the first softball state championship in the history of new kent county public schools so it's huge [Applause] so alan files who's our current president says he'd like to be he would love to be here tonight um he used to coach softball back in the day as well um new ken education foundation provides a
007homecoming dinner new teacher baskets scholarships teacher instructional grants uh they helped with our block party for teachers last week there are a million things that this team does one mile run which i came in third place uh the 5k which i didn't even come in and they also sponsor the bowl-a-thon which is uh november 5th so softball players if you think you can beat me in bowling i challenge you to come out to that um we they do have a facebook page um and they've been around since 2004 they've almost given a million dollars to schools since 2004 and they're huge supporters of yours so today they brought very special cookies limited edition the only edition of new kent high school 2022 state champion cookies so hold on to these or eat them the choice
008is yours and they're from sea allen confections which is a new camp parrot located in west point on main street so i do want to recognize these young ladies at this time so if you'll come up here just like peyton and lawson did we'll start down there and we'll make our way here um so in no particular order we have aileen alexander haley baker we go over three it's beach week the coach is gonna pull me so no i know she's here morgan byrne [Applause] we're going to start our livestream and i won't tell a story about olive because we do have other things to do tonight but i saw morgan pitch to state semi-final and i went over to somebody and i said she pitched the game of the season maybe the game of
009her life and i was worried about the finals but you know what she did she really pitched the game of the season and the finals are struck out 10. um so we have cassidy branch [Applause] libby britt morgan you have to slide down riley gary [Applause] abby kingly and are you going to give me the sign on these names okay uh lindsay kunkel is here [Applause] the region player of the year who i mentioned uh did a sacrifice mckenna mueller now you can't tell because you'll be facing that's all right we have nora murray hannah perkins addison rowe [Applause] just tagger [Applause] anna tober kennedy ziegler so we had some outstanding managers with us too and i don't know if they're here or not but um they were wonderful and entertaining so yante locklear mm-hmm
010[Applause] we have kellen roberts and we also have some rock star coaches so we have laura bauer uh our jv coach who also assisted but i don't think is here is nikki jones [Applause] you also have your regents softball coach of the year maria bates [Applause] so once again congratulations to our new camp softball team call us for a moment for the paparazzi that's right take all the pictures all right thank you for an incredible year absolutely congratulations thanks guys way to go i just told the uh told just told miss swinford it's so so refreshing as a dad of three daughters who graduated from highs from uh new kent it's the first time i have seen the entire girls softball team without softball pants missed me to your point i didn't recognize several of
011them i asked miss swinford i said do they play with the softballs yeah way to go ladies you you're just flat awesome you don't have to you don't have to stay just so you know what's better than one state championship is back to back all right thank you thank you guys have a wonderful summer thank you parents as well thank you for coming out this evening and thank you peyton and lawson as well did they get did you all get a picture did they get a picture that they need peyton lawson take some cookies debbie sneak out of here leftover cookies thank you very much thank you thank you great job absolutely come on yeah that's awesome great job all right thank you very much back to our agenda give mr or give dr nichols
012a minute to regroup we're giving him a lot of work this evening next on the agenda is superintendent's comments which is our superintendent's comments to public comment from the june regular meeting so dr nichols please go ahead when you're ready absolutely thank you mrs whitford and board members thank you for allowing us to do recognitions um many we have i think six or seven seniors who will be off college by the time august came around perfect timing perfect perfect time um and we just missed beach week so most of them are back so superintendent comments we did not have many many or any questions last time we did have some concern about opt-in versus opt-out for middle school books we are looking at that through um through the summer and and looking at what that
013will be so you'll see something in august um i do have a presentation tonight because we did have uh comments about um the governor's report on education so i am going to talk about that in a presentation this evening so that will speak to those pieces there we did have a parent who spoke about security and safety so you'll be seeing a presentation coming to you in july around not only a presentation but also some appropriation for funds connected to safety and security measures so those were the the main topics that were covered but specific questions uh that's where we are okay thank you dr thank you dr nichols appreciate that all right moving along uh we are now under new business number four on our agenda our first update is vsba policy updates which
014is a first reading under goal number three to develop safe clean functional infrastructure and operations to support student and staff success dr nichols once again let's turn the floor to you so board members uh what you have before you for the first read is the uh spring summer uh policy revisions that we receive through the virginia school board associations you have about 26 of them the summary sheet shows what the change is beside each of them most of them as state code changes we have to change the code at the bottom of the policy so for instance uh health and physical education that policy has been updated to reflect the amendment of the virginia code so most of these are connected to code changes the student involvement decision making was a grammatical edit on behalf
015of the vsba if it's not a code then legal references have been updated uh related to those this is a first read so you do have the entire almost month so if there is feedback on any and all of these policies we'll be happy to work through those most of them if not all are really connected to [Music] technical edits related to code house bills or state law okay board members any questions initially again this will come up for a vote at our second reading but if anybody has any questions or comments or anything to highlight right now please let us know okay all right moving along then next item on our agenda is the 2022 2023 student handbook slash code of conduct first reading this is essential goal number two to provide opportunities for
016all students to shape and foster a positive respectful school school culture civic responsibility and global awareness mr joe ellis good evening members of the board and dr nichols um so i'm gonna go through um three uh proposed revisions for your consideration this evening um the first of which um has to do with the thc vapor products that we talked about back in march um and i i recall speaking to you about um senate bill 591 that was going through the general assembly that did make it through it went to governor juncken's desk however he did send it back to the general assembly with some revisions and updates that he would like to see so currently that is not um part of the state code so um like i said the first thing there is to
017propose to make that the amendment that we talked through in march a permanent addition to the code of conduct um where we've added a level four under the the tobacco possession or using tobacco products electronic cigarettes or vaping equipment with the note below it's identical to what we talked about in march the second is the the language of portable electronic communication devices in the current code of conduct um that is the explicit language um there's not really any examples or definitions of of what a portable electronic communication device is so um that's come up with with regard to cell phones so two proposals um the first is to just revise the language in the policy just to give some specific examples and then also revise uh to give some not necessarily mandatory consequences but give
018teachers and administrators some options of what they can do with with those in the classroom so the the first page behind that um you can see on page 33 in the current handbook we just want to add a definition i won't read it out loud to you there doing some legal research this seems to be a common definition in state codes throughout the united states having to do with people driving with cell phones and electronic devices and cars i would have used the language from the virginia code except it only talks about mobile phones um it doesn't refer to anything else where you know like my son has a nintendo switch you can get on the internet on the nintendo switch in the middle of class and do all kinds of stuff with it so
019um wanted to be more encompassing of what those electronic devices are yeah or an apple watch or ear pods or whatever where does the watch fit and that's what i was just wondering device with mobile data mobile data access yeah okay i mean we can we may want to consider explicitly saying smartwatch or whatever headphones too because you don't have to have your phone out to be able to use the headphones for it i think the the two things we're going to run up against the most is going to be the the cell phone and the smart watch so i mean i think the more we explicitly state those two things i don't know if i've seen a pda in a while um but uh yeah maybe we have going around yeah so but i
020agree with the electronic game we do have kids here with uh switches and game boys and the different pieces there one of the i think we should include the headphones too yeah i just like that because they can communicate through that yes and and this is a first read and we have some work to do between this one and the next one so thank you for it and keep adding additional comments okay and then the the next page in the current policy it says that um a student or students having these devices or using them in class may constitute a disciplinary infraction um what that might be you know that would be up to the administrator at that point so um what i proposed here is to add some specific here's what we can do
021um in the case that students are using them when they should be focusing on instruction in the classroom so first offense um they may be required to power off the device and put it out of sight just put it away second offense a student may be required to surrender the device to the teacher for the class period and they can collect it at the end of the class period and then third offense surrender device to the teacher who then takes it to the main office and parent has to come pick it up those seem pretty standard in surrounding divisions um so i wanted to add that explicitly there just so people know what to expect if there's there's child or student is using that in the classroom any questions on and before we go into
022dress code joe our work this summer with administrators and late summer fall with parents and teachers is really going to be about making sure they understand the implement one making sure we implement it because that is a gap in practices but to make sure parents know that this will be implemented and it will be addressed and these are the consequences related to these specific things um and i would expect that we would see an uptick in disciplinary and if we don't then we probably are not enforcing changing right changing our behavior as far as teachers are concerned that the teachers aren't enforcing it yeah well we want to make sure we're supporting teachers and the enforcement of it too so this has been a conversation at teacher advisory the past several um and a parent
023advisory as well so just but i i think you're correct we will see a spike before we level out and this will be something that parents have to sign off on with the code of conduct yes which we do every every year we'll emphasize it it's really a middle high school piece although we do have some of it in elementary as well but in our open houses in our back to schools in our uh presentations this will be a point of emphasis we've also talked about partnering with the sheriff's department on a couple of these things related to cell phones and social media so we may be planning an event in the summer for families as well so we'll make it a point of emphasis in everything we do you know after our last meeting
024that we talked about this i think it was in the march time frame um you know we heard some feedback from some teachers who did an informal study on the disruption that they've experienced during class and you know really eye-opening and i think this is a very good step and i think you know putting some guardrails around this with some consequences you know we'll hopefully bring this to you know background noise sure absolutely especially when we're you know a one-to-one school division students already have you know access to you know a computing device right there in front of them right for you know for the purpose of education so i think this is sensible all right and then last but not least um the dress code so i started out here just with the code
025of virginia is specifically addressing the dress code and you know i highlighted their um two points and that um the dress code as written by school division should maintain gender neutrality by subjecting any student to the same set of rules and standards and then not have a disparate impact on students of a particular gender so point two there our current dress code does mention gender specific clothing such as skirts and dresses um and then with point three um as applied currently the dress code does have a disparate impact on our female students so the next slide i did include some data i read through every single dress code violation that we have in our student information system um over the last week or so there were 44 in total um 30 were from females 14
026from males so 68 of the dress code violations were for girls whereas we only have 48 of our our population in new kent in the school division is female specifically 26 out of those 30 dress code violations were for shorts that were more than four inches above the knee um or rips in jeans that were more than four inches above the knee there were less than a handful of those that specifically noted that the the rips or specifically the ribs were way up in the pocket or like waistband area um so you know i think we're we're in the realm of you know a little bit of subjectivity i don't know if um if our administrators are using an index card or something like that to measure those you know that that four inches above
027the knee um but most of them are noted in in our student information system as that four inches you can hardly buy girls shorts that are four inches oh i agree i have a daughter i'm in that i'm i'm in that boat with you um now i'll since i'm the data guy i i will throw out a little bit of data real quick i did a lot of medical research um so the average height of an adolescent female is five feet five feet flat um in the medical literature um an adolescent female's femur is 27 of her height so 60 inches times 27 percent gives you 16 inches of femur length so from hip to knee is 16 inches so if we say four inches above the knee and that's a 12 inch 12 inch
028shorts yeah um whereas if we go as you'll see on the next page mid thigh that's an eight inch um length so that that's a big gap that's four inches um and being like i said someone who has a daughter um it is difficult finding my even my daughter's only six finding her clothes her femur hasn't fully developed no it hasn't but finding clothes for her that that even come to mid thigh is is tough sometimes so um flipping the page there and joe just to jump in a little bit so joe showed you the number infractions that does uh uh encompass the number of times that a parent has been called for a dress change and um so so we encounter it a lot more it just doesn't necessarily get entered specifically middle school
029and then even at the high school for a degree it's it's um you know call your mom get change clothes or you know call or those pieces so we've received a fair amount of feedback from families then this is another topic of parent advisory about could there be some shifts to the dress code so that it is uh more balanced so that's what we're working towards um so i'm going to uh mr terry could you go back one slide for me thank you sir so i'm i won't i won't read through the top there for you but um as far as the minimum dress requirements i did put a little diagram in there um as crude as it is um i think it it illustrates the point so um clothing must cover the area from
030armpit armpit across the chest and back um down to mid thigh so everything from armpits down to mid thighs got to be covered all the way around so tops do have to have straps notice there's no two inches three inches we're not going to go around with fingers and and do anything like that but they do have to have straps across the shoulders and then rips or tears in clothing you know ripped jeans is a huge fashion thing right now um but the the language here is that they those rips or tears have to be below mid thigh just like shorts they have to be at the mid thigh um so shoes must be worn at all times and should be safe for the school environment um so they can be open or close toed
031but we can't have bedroom slippers or anything like that so if garments are made of see-through materials we still have to meet requirement number one underneath those see-through or mesh materials number four is pretty standard headgear including hats baseball caps and whatnot are not permitted in school unless you have a medical or religious exemption for them and then of course principals can make exceptions to that rule for things like spirit days and whatnot and then there we do have some special courses or you know activities you know if kids wear a sports uniform or something like that on game day to school um there'll be exceptions for that that's i think that's one of the points that a parent made to me if you go to volleyball or track that uniform does not meet our
032dress code absolutely not um it does not so you know it's just our parents have some very good points as we but in those particular case i would say for both volleyball and for track and the then the compromise just like basketball because boys typically would not wear their basketball uniform too right for school but they could wear their warm-ups yeah yeah and that's what we would do in the absolutely in those particular in those particular sports that warm-ups would be required versus the for the jersey yeah i personally struggle with the dress code rules i think that they're you know i just don't know what we're trying to achieve with all the rules around dress code so then on the last page here um there's certain restrictions of of course number one um depicting
033anything illegal violent lewd no weapons alcohol tobacco controlled substances or anything like that is prohibited pornography nudity or sexual acts vulgar discriminatory or obscene languages or images i guess that could go also up there with number one with lewd conduct but number four clothing that that can cause a serious disruption to the school environment or violate another student's rights with regard to race ethnicity gender sexual orientation gender identity religious affiliation or any other protected classification so you know students wearing anything that you know may disparage another student based on you know something that they believe in or how they identify five sunglasses can't be worn inside the building clothing and accessories that endanger students or staff we had an incident an incident of that at the high school this year kid had a big huge
034chain attached to his wallet and his his belt um it was it was rather large could have definitely been used as a weapon um apparel jewelry accessory tattoos um that signify any sort of gang involvement would also be prohibited and then of course you know this is a guideline so the administration in each school would have um the ability to determine what constitutes appropriate dress so long as it's within the bounds that that you guys establish as far as the school board goes um and then as far as disciplinary consequences um most of most of what i read through in the student information system either a student had a change of close that they immediately put on and were allowed to go to class or parents would call them they brought brought in clothes i
035don't i didn't read any any issues where somebody just flat out refused and they weren't going to to abide by the dress code however for the for the revision should that be the case the student would just remain in an in school suspension setting during the day that's not necessarily saying that it needs to get written up in the student information system as a suspension it's just if they're not abiding by the dress code they would have to participate in their studies from another location within the building with other students that were also in in school suspension as it's written yes yeah because i guess it would almost be considered like a referral right yeah i mean there is a dress code referral um in you know as part of the the state's um discipline
036reporting um and that's that's how it that's how it's been coded in the student information system um as far as i'm aware we didn't have any suspensions that resulted from that it was simply all like parent contact so that and that's why i say it wouldn't necessarily be a suspension to say um that you know if you're if you're going to refuse to follow abide by the dress code it's not going to be a suspension and you're not going to you know have that go on your record it would just be well if you're going to refuse to abide by the dress code you can't participate in class with with everyone else for the day but i'm going to i'm definitely going to make a note of that we are holding a focus group tomorrow
037tomorrow evening um we have parents we have administrators we have teachers so we're all going to go through this together and we'll get their their feedback on this as well how big of a group is that usually i mean are we talking 50 people 10 no no no it's a smaller group okay well this is a huge topic i know board members i get a lot of questions direct questions indirect questions about this it's been you know it's been a source of of a lot of you know frustration for quite a few years um and i'm i'm happy to see it addressed um you know i don't think we're gonna solve everything um overnight but you know hopefully we're making you know steps in the right direction you know and this is a first reading
038so uh welcome any you know questions tonight or comments but we will go to uniform yeah well i mean that's really the only way we can say you can't wear anything but you either go all uniform or you have to have some give and take board members we do have one more um piece on the code of conduct it's really an implementation piece and there's not a slot associated with it um but we'll make sure it's a bullet uh in the second read this year specifically we had um a couple different walkouts um protests in a sense not only us every almost every high school in the state of virginia so if you've been following hanover they've recently made some shifts so we have the right now in our code of conduct it's not being
039in your assigned location so not that kids don't have a right to feel a certain way about certain things but when you leave class without permission and a hundred of you gather up front it is a disruption it is a safety issue at one of them we did have a kid and i'm not telling anything you don't know their kids that just leave class so they can leave class so a kid left class um didn't realize why he was leaving class got to the the demonstration and realize he didn't agree well when he didn't agree he showcased that he didn't the degree became an issue it's also something else for us to supervise so we'd like to discourage that by saying there will be a disciplinary consequence if you walk out of class there are
040other ways that that we can support your efforts to have a voice but leaving class in first block second block lunch or whatever is not a safe way to do it so if there is something that is sanctioned by the school we can certainly do that but a pop-up event like that is just it's not safe and it's not a good practice so we will be taking a tougher stance on that um and also communicating that family zone as well so i didn't know if you guys had any feedback on that but that you won't see that as a code of conduct change it's just how we're enforcing that thank you for doing that thank you [Music] any other comments or questions on this first reading for the student handbook and code of conduct yeah
041i i think that is in this particular code of conduct and again i think we would all agree in theory there's nothing that is horrifically wrong with our with with the code of conduct it's just a matter of empowering the necessary people to and supporting them and enforcing the code of conduct in a way that immediately addresses the issue in a way that students teachers and administrators get the message and the support that says we support you for endorsing and for uh executing the code of conduct because then it makes it makes the administrators lives easy makes the soros you know life easy because you can't argue this is what it says right this is what you sign this is what you're agreed to and we're just enforcing what was told to us basically and
042so i i look forward to and i'll go back to what what andrew said is that i think the great litmus test is seeing how we do and how we do enforce this moving forward with the support of the board and all of the entities behind the administration i i just had one question on the um you know the walkouts so if we're not going to have a separate section in the code of conduct how how are parents going to know that it's going to be enforced and it's you know word of mouth well no i think that's so similar to the dress code and the cell phone pieces to make that a point about really here at the high school um in the ninth grade 10th grade you know all the different grade level
043town halls and things that they do it's just connect those two pieces together um now i mean we could i mean if you want us to pursue adding a specific piece as far as protests and walk-outs or whatever those pieces we could certainly explore that between first and second uh we think and talk to the administration that we can um make it a point of emphasis and communicate it and enforce it under an existing piece right now um but be happy to pursue well maybe it's a parentheses issue that it says this includes okay you know this includes walkouts this includes demonstrations political protest whatever and just put it in parentheses of what it includes so there so we kind of take away the vagueness of of someone coming back to say oh didn't say
044that includes but not limited to just there you go well maybe what we do we we kind of said about having a town hall or something like that and maybe we do it around those issues these kind of hot topics this is what we're saying and we i mean we kind of put it out there as a town hall we might get better attendance okay too but i think we can do both of those yeah i like the idea of the parenthesis i think it would you know diffuse any ambiguity it's in there it's in writing yeah great stuff good point joe you got that note where i got it okay yeah so we'll we'll make sure you see that in the in the second reading okay before we go forward okay great all right
045thank you mr ellis we'll look forward to the second reading in july you're welcome thank you very much our third item item c report on education update which is under essential goal number one to provide for and monitor the development of academic organizational behavioral and social competencies to ensure individual student success dr nichols all right good evening again board members um this report is actually coming from citizen comment so i wanted to just highlight this to a degree so um mister if you can give me the next slide please um so in may i believe may 22nd if i'm not mistaken um a report was published our commitment to virginians report it was released from the governor's office i've linked it there so if you are if you do pull this in board docs you
046can have it the report highlights a number of data points but primarily focuses on an honesty gap in virginia's data so i'll dive into what is an honesty gap um so honesty gap refers to the discrepancy between proficiency on national assessment of educational progress which for the rest of the presentation i'll refer to as nate and each state's assessment so for virginia it's really nate versus our sol test is the comparison that um they're making in this report um so just a little bit about nape so nate measures academic performance of the nation students so a kid in illinois and a kid in virginia in fourth grade all take the same assessment basically um but the difference between that as well is not all fourth graders take it um not all eighth graders take it
047not all seniors take it as a matter of fact uh the last time we participated in nape was 2019 and that was new camp middle school so what occurs is you get a letter in the false and you've been selected there's a random my selection process so they have a representative sample of schools and school divisions across the country um so we could go a number of years and never participate um or we could participate in back-to-back years depending on on what occurred so in 2019 our eighth graders participated in it so i think it's important just to note that with sol testing of virginia every eighth grader every fourth grader and so forth and the nape is a representative sample and they do have some great metrics behind it to show how they do
048their sampling another piece on the nape is school students and families do not receive results of the nape so it is um as a former principal it is a mysterious test that you have kids take and you never hear anything about it again you'll never hear how new camp middle school did there's no reporting back of the nate one of the downsides of it i would like for us to be able to see how we do specifically or how this class does specifically but um and the next bullet is a little lengthy but it's right from the nape's website and i'll link the the direct link as well um it's important to note that the term proficiency used in relation to state tests so if you're proficient in an sol test is not the same
049as being proficient on nate so you have to be careful when comparing those two things because they're a little different um because the criteria used to determine proficiency are different so that's the source link right there that takes you to the nape so just wanted you to have a little background about the nate because this report leans heavily on the nape versus the sol test so here are some key points from the report so from the governor's office there's a significant lowering of expectations a lack of transparency with data and weak accountability for results i think it's important to note and if you watch the press conference or go back and watch it and throughout the report these key points are not focused on individual school divisions okay it's focused on the virginia department of
050education the state board of education if you watched that meeting last week that was interesting and on legislators so the plan from the governor's office in the next four years are to do the following bullets so i'm sure you've seen a lot of those in action establish and maintain high expectations advanced parent and teacher empowerment and those pieces directly taken from that report um i want to zoom in on on the significant findings just for a second um so oops i'm serious maybe just you were good you you were right with me that ross miller may not have an opportunity when he comes back um so continuation of key points uh so the report continually measure mentions the lowering of expectations i think it's important to note that those expectations are set by the virginia
051department of education we call them standards new kent county public schools williamsburg james city schools don't set the standards that are taught so whether it's civic standards or english standards we get those standards those expectations from the virginia department of education um also it was mentioned uh in the report and i think in the comments here about the cut scores that are set um that the cut score in algebra was this and it should be higher we don't set those cut scores the school division doesn't set them matter of fact our kids log in on their chromebook they take their assessment and that's the end of it so mr ellis gets a fancy report um you know we don't determine what the cut score is um it's really the testing company and really the virginia
052department of education so the lack of transparency and data when you dive into that report it really dive it really focuses on on the new growth measures that have been in place for the past few years in accreditation um so if a student makes growth they essentially receive the same credit as a kid who passes okay that's the current setup that's there i think rewarding growth is a great thing you could argue whether it's the same as a pass or not um but those accreditation measures and calculations once again are completed by the virginia department of education and you'll see a theme with these key points and and i think the states depend governor really hit on these as well the weak accountability for results all of that is managed by legislation and the state
053board of education um so we've been through this report we've been through the data points as these change we're going to change with them so if the standards are changed we will teach the new standards as we're doing with new content now if the cut scores are changed that'll happen without us we're going to continue to focus on what's in our control so a lot of that is not in our control i do advise people to be somewhat careful with some of the data points the one data point in there that i take issue with um is the lowering of ap numbers and results new kent county public schools with a lot of school divisions in the state of virginia have moved away from advanced placement and moved to more dual enrollment we find ourselves
054one the cost for advanced placement is higher than dual enrollment so from a fiscal standpoint it makes more sense to be dual enrollment we have a number of kids who are passing advanced placement tests and not getting college credit when they go off to college when you take a dual enrollment course your chances of having that accepted are higher the costs are less expensive so we've really shifted from advanced placement to dual enrollment where we can the level of teacher um for a do to be a dual enrollment teacher you need to have 18 credits beyond a bachelor's in that field of study so it's a fairly rigorous process as well so here's our focus analyze our spring sl data which we're working on and we'll be bringing a report to the board about that
055and make adjustments based on those results this is really a baseline for us this is the first year since 2019 that we were in session for 180 days five days a week in as much of a typical school year as we can have so we see this as our baseline we know we'll see growth but you don't overcome a closure mid-year and a disruptive school year in one year we we wouldn't profess to do that but we have strong plans to continue to gain ground so next year will be year one of a new comprehensive literacy plan which we'll be bringing a report to you guys uh i'm very excited about so coming in august you'll be able to kind of see that comprehensive literacy plan in place this is year two of our summer
056of more program we're very excited about the increase in summer of more additional intervention opportunities and last year we rolled out a number of after-school programs at each level so you'll see that continue some students just need more time and now we have multiple vehicles for kids to have more time and then i mentioned the expansion of dual enrollment opportunities in both college and career fields it is my hope and and somewhat of a dream to have almost every kid who walks across the stage to have some sort of opportunity like that in a college or career field before they leave new camp so i wanted to highlight the education report um share some links with you and really talk about our focus and we can't be more than happy to answer any questions or
057talk about any specific things in that report it was just i think more comprehensive to do that in a report than just in a statement for citizen comments dr nichols i have two questions the first question is is general sure how often do standards change from the department of education you know so you think when you call something a standard that it stays the same but uh they change on average i think every seven years is is the rotation and with that we have textbook adoption rotation and those pieces so they phase them in so you're not adopting all new standards in every subject across 13 grade levels um so you know english is typically one year and then math and then science social studies those pieces um so you're almost always adopting a different
058standard over the course of of that continuum and sometimes i'm sorry i missed one for that to sometimes those are significant shifts major shifts and standards and sometimes it's it's really technical so something that a parent wouldn't even see you know i mean easily you know easily yeah quite potentially and the second question i'm glad that you spent a lot of time talking on that last bullet for the focus in new kent because this is what i hear when i talk to parents um you know in the community um and so on and so forth do we keep um metrics do we keep data on how many students carry dual enrollment credits with them when they graduate and i know it's hard to get that information once they walk off that stage and and a
059lot of things happen you know in that first year when they leave but do do we try to to get that information from our seniors how many credits they're taking with them to their their college their community college or their four-year college or ap credit absolutely absolutely and i can bring that data point uh to a future board meeting and i'll send it to you ahead of that um but we have a really impressive trend line over the past three years with college level credit and as we expand to dual enrollment psychology uh the biology the government the all those things next year um and the expansion of bridging communities that number is going to get even greater um so we we do have that stat and and i'll bring it for rcc we're uh
060probably their favorite partner because we have the largest number of dual enrollment credits both on the college and career side um so they're they're big uh partners and big proponents and we've actually been awarded a number of grants to expand that dual enrollment piece but yes we'll make sure we get that number thank you i have two questions um the comprehensive literacy plan look forward to hearing more about that but just is that targeted across all you know elementary middle high or really more focused on the elementary middle the the primary focus of the literacy plan is going to be elementary um because if we can get you where you need to be by third grade the research says that you will stay there or you will stay on track um we actually have a
061it's either tomorrow or wednesday is the kickoff of that literacy summit we're doing one for teachers before summer starts and then one when they come back under contract and they can choose but it's something that we're taking every pre-k five teacher um through a year-long uh process with this literacy summit so literacy is alive and well in middle school and high school but this focus is primarily on elementary getting a good foundation yes that's good and then um some are more have we seen any increase in the number of folks or kids attending these programs yes compared to last year so we we're very excited that uh we've been able to expand it so that we don't have kids on a wait list so last year we had kids wait listed we made some changes
062and thank you to the instructional department for doing that um to the way we offered it last year last year was year one and we offered two different camp type scenarios for families this year we're doing one larger one and kids will have multiple experiences within that so we kind of streamlined it to make it more accessible and to make it more interesting for more families so i we do run up against staffing issues related to it especially coming out of a really tough academic year um recruiting teachers to be a part of that can be tough but right now at the elementary middle specifically we're going to be a little larger than we were last year which is trending in the right direction thank you you're welcome board members any other questions for dr
063nichols or comments on the education update okay all right thank you very much for for bringing that report tonight dr nichols all right our next item we're in old business first item is our construction update under essential goal number three for efficient efficiently managing the growth of the student population mr tim pollock and i'll be joining mr pollock as his co-presenter good afternoon board how are you very good good to see you good to see y'all sean when you get us there you go perfect that's tim's slide yeah that's tim's squad uh we'll start let's start on the outside they're up there grading today the uh the playground area so we're getting a site the bus canopy if anybody's been by is completely in the uh canopy for the student drop-off is in uh the
064outside skin is about at about 50 percent they're still looking they're still having issues getting the medal for that on the outside everybody knows what i'm talking about around the facial and all that also the roof caps the same way still having issues getting the metal for that to get it finished they have given me a substantial completion our first substantial completion will be on 7 12 22 and that will be full wings for c and f uh wings that's not that's what they got cnf they've got uh wings for 712 and what they're saying in 712 on 712 is for substantial completion it will not have the blinds window film signage handrails and roof papers at that time so outside of that cnf will be done yes on the 12th of july okay we
065did get uh and this is a good thing uh our uh casework came in on friday so and they were installing it today so that was really nice to see come in that's great uh as far as the rest of the areas we have an issue with the gym floor where we're basically starting from scratch we're going to reorder their uh redoing right now to get uh through some middles and we're looking at probably 10 weeks from the time some middles are accepted what happened and that also includes the stage i'm sorry and i have that in an additional slide but the the flooring company that heartland was working with went completely out of business so just one of those setbacks we have a plan to work through it um it will not prevent us
066from opening um but it does just cause us a setback do you polish the concrete or we're gonna finish out we're gonna we're gonna figure out a way to finish the floor so it's safe for the kids to use yeah we're gonna figure some kind of way that'll be whether we come in with some type of wood and box around we'll do something to make it where we can move on mr terry we back up on one slide so tim can keep going okay yep you know okay so what we have right now like i said on the outside everybody we're gonna we're right now as far as d section and f uh they're moving along a lot better than we were it's dried out in those areas uh we're we've had a dehumidifier running
067in d for how right now about three weeks and it's costing them about four thousand dollars a week to take and do this uh and fuel because we're running a generator to do it so we're not cranking our ec units at this time so we're trying to get those areas dried out and so we can conditioned well enough so we can come in and finish doing the sheetrock and everything else in those areas the bathroom areas uh on that wing they've got them roughed in now the elevator uh they were working on the elevated day one of the parts for the the elevator came in wrong we found that out this morning so i figure out what the delay on that's going to be i met with the first construction side we're kind of at
068that point right now and everything else so everybody the electrical and mechanical still probably in d section are probably i would say about 55 to 60 percent that's one of the areas again where a section is probably now at about 70 percent so that's good ceilings are starting to go in in the main hallway start down through eight areas they see ceilings are going in the special needs areas are they've got the carpets in they've got the flooring all through there there's the ceilings in doorways we're almost to a point where we're clean closing everything up once we get this out of area where we can pour the concrete for the sidewalks and up to each doorways that will allow us to finish those out as far as any more substantial completions as of right
069now we're given class classroom wing d and e as in 729 has a substantial completion guidance we're given 722 media area and special ed and stem is kitchen kitchen area and cafeteria is going to be main quarter is 8 12 and exterior is 8 10. so so tim our substantial completion on the project right now stands at 8 12 right yes sir august 12th for substantial completion and furniture so furniture furniture we actually met on today so we have two different companies um so we walked it today with them they will start as we finish wings so as tim said with cnf uh you'll have some furniture arriving july 11th actually furniture is going to arrive we're staging it in the gym primarily and at in the cafeteria if we need overflow looking at the
070furniture there are only a couple pieces that they're worried about none of them are essential for opening most of them are in the collaborative learning areas in between the classrooms something called a poof which is a you know bigger chair piece but we can operate without that piece we also keep in mind not opening at full capacity so we can have 750 kids in the school we'll be just under 500 to start so we don't absolutely have to have every space or every piece of um so we have contingencies built in to shift where kids are based on availability we will open with a punch list and folks working in the evenings and working on the weekends and those pieces but we will open so i guess just one of the questions that um you
071know people have asked is you know not every classroom will be utilized once once the building opens for school just for the folks that are at home i had a chance to view the the uh your presentation earlier but on the last slide there's a link yep we're going to show you the drone footage yeah so people mr terry can you go to the next couple slots tim really connected on most of these um the kitchen area so not the cafeteria complete the kitchen is nearly complete uh those of you that walked the building with me recently have kind of seen that already touched on classroom furniture coming in uh certificate of occupancy is scheduled for august 12th um if you want to know when teachers arrive that's around august 22nd so we're not playing
072with a lot of time and that is pending if everything goes well i think what we've shown on this project if something doesn't go well we find another way so substantial completion august 12th staff has a fun moment in past couple weeks staff has gone out and now they have their rooms they had a lottery ping pong ball process um so uh folks got their rooms and uh really excited about moving forward here are a few things that that will not be borrowing a minor miracle in place on day one so the official playground equipment will not be there at the start of school we will have playground equipment balls trikes those different things blacktops sidewalks um but if you're looking for a slide and and other swings and different things like that the wait
073time on that it's just it won't happen um so the gym floor and stage floor that's all with the same company i just want to thank tim um because we they did offer a solution but that solution was a substandard floor at a price that was more expensive than what we were buying and we're not doing that we've been so good on this project about holding firm uh we're not always their favorite people even though they're good partners to work with tim and his team have really been doing a fantastic job managing this project it is my goal to come in at least a half million under and we're beating that at this moment in time things will change we have change orders coming in all the time things that are outside of our control
074not all the time tim manages most of us but we do have some things that come in from time to time and some of them are pretty big ticket items but that's the goal on the project is to come in there and right now we're beating that goal and we're doing that as we put back in the bus canopy the playground i mean we've seen a lot of stuff back into this project that it was vehed out at one time the bus canopy was almost a 170 180 000 thing that we took out and we were able to put back in and we're still beating the budget at this point and we're doing that when uh costs are continuing to rise so but this is uh we do have the latest drone footage so we'll
075take a little flyby [Music] wow it's exciting [Music] so the project's coming together i wish we had an additional month but we don't so we're going to make it happen um we're i'm basically looking at like it's a renovation we're gonna get everything we can possibly get done and then we'll figure out how we're gonna manage the rest of it to get it finished that's great that's good thank you thank you thank you mr pollock okay next item is policy jn student fees fines and charges for the 2021-22 and this is a second reading under essential goal three to obtain and align resources ms haney warheim please go ahead board members dr nichols this is the second read we have just a few updates um one that we did update the behind the the wheel
076fee there's a calc tool that we use every year to determine the max that we can charge for that and we are going to actually increase the rate of pay for those instructors and actually gas is also very expensive right now but we feel so that we need to lower this fee this is in line with what henrico and west point is charging so we feel very comfortable with that amount [Music] the only other change that we have added we did add a 50 pool fee and that was something that mr speak noted that he has charged in the past we want to make sure that was covered we also adjusted the photography fee down to 35 dollars and increased ceramics and arch to 35 and 25 collectively and board members the pool fee contrary
077to the the myth at the high school there is no pool on the on the roof uh that is for our our swim team we will be going back to the whisk this year where we're at fort eustis last year so it's related to that piece it's always been in um it just wasn't in your your first room the only other item that we have redlined out was a lost agenda fee that was being charged by new ken elementary school i believe there's some history there with the pto funding agenda books and that is not a fee that we plan to charge in the future so we just want to make sure that that was redlined out those are the final changes and recommendations mr speak did not wish to change his athletic passes those
078rates have not been set but he feels comfortable with that fee at this time and that's a good that's a good deal hopefully you'll get a lot of participation this year sure do yeah i think after all the uh success we had we'll be selling a lot of those i just think that the charging pack should be like 500 dollars yes because there's too many kids driving okay yeah i think the sros and the sheriff's department would say george i'm a thousand dollars to park here right yeah it's just you know it's just it's so hard because how do you do that you know is that parents want all of their kids to drive now and at some point you know i i can see it happening right we're gonna get to a point because
079traffic has backed up how far on 249 every single morning for students coming into schools and i guarantee you this this will be a stat that will come out because the sros because i know they provide them as that i bet there's at least 10 accidents you know per year because of somebody running to the back of somebody else because we just have that many students driving now we do have a lot you also have to consider though if they're on our buses um the amount of buses and and drivers and fuel that we need to to move them but it's just either way it's a catchphrase same with parent drivers yeah it's hard to win that i mean it's just and it makes it tough you know so i mean obviously 50 is more
080than reasonable that's our final recommendation thank you thank you and and these are the things that keep parents up fees that's true that's right and i think it will be welcome that the chromebook um fee is removed this year the schools have seemed to be excited about that it's less management and fees for the middle school particularly um we really won't be charging any fees i think open house we looked at our staff even going over and maybe receding for the pe uniforms but that's really it you have one fee i think for cte one course um so it's just a lot less on on barbara and the staff there to you know even teachers collecting those funds i think just overall it's going to be really great for them okay thank you all right
081thank you very much and this will come for a vote this evening okay final item under old business is the federal programs applications this is the second reading essential goal number three to obtain and align resources dr nichols so good evening again board members uh mr miller did the first presentation for you on our federal programs applications with our title 1 plan our title 2 focused on professional development title 3 with esl and then our title 4 plan we've made no changes from the first read to now the money that we receive is designated federally so you know there's no change in that we use a good majority of it for salaries for personnel and then other expenses related to professional development tuition reimbursement so forth so be more than happy to answer any questions
082but pretty straightforward from the first read okay board members any questions on the federal program's applications okay hearing none again that will come before us this evening for a vote which takes us into our action items portion of the meeting the first item is to consider the approval of personnel matters board members do i hear a motion to approve the superintendent's recommendations on personnel matters as presented to make a motion that we approve the superintendent's recommendations for personnel matters thank you miss daskill do i hear a second second thank you miss mcbeath and board members any discussion on this action item okay hearing none we'll move towards vote all in favor say aye aye all opposed all right none opposed the motion carries next item is to consider the approval of the appointment of policy
083jn student fees fines and charges for 2022 2023 do i hear a motion to approve the policy j and student fees fines and charges for 2022 2023 as presented take the motion we consider and improve the uh the policy changes as presented okay thank you mr mead do i hear a second a second thank you miss daskill board members any discussion all right hearing none we'll move towards vote all in favor say aye aye all opposed all right and unopposed the motion carries the last action i did is to consider the approval of the federal programs application board members do i hear a motion to approve the federal program's application as presented i'd like to make a motion to approve the federal program's application as presented okay thank you miss mcbeath do i hear a
084second second thank you mr mead board members any discussion all right hearing none we'll move towards a vote all in favor board members say aye aye all opposed all right none are opposed the motion carries and board members before we adjourn this evening um i will hope you let me make a few comments before we end tonight i would like to take a moment to thank our teachers our staff administration students and parents for their partnership during the 2021-2022 school year there is more work to be done this summer and in the upcoming school year but i am proud of the effort motivation and determination i witnessed throughout the year as mr mead pointed out at our last meeting approximately 1.8 million dollars in scholarship money was awarded to about 50 members of the class
085of 2022 a lot of these scholarship funds were awarded from the new kent community that includes foundations churches nonprofits and other organizations what an amazing local community we have here in new kent that works hard to support our students and reward their talents and abilities last week i attended the new kent high school athletic banquet that recognized our student athletes and coaches who participated in 20 sports this past year the event lasted for more than three hours and it was worth every minute to listen to the accomplishments of our teams or that our teams achieved as after almost two years of cancellations postponements quarantines shortened seasons and limited opportunities during the covid19 pandemic my thanks goes to john spiec our athletic director as well as all of our coaches players and parents that never gave
086up despite the tremendous challenges finally the comment that all citizen voices do not matter is completely false and a direct result of intentional email manipulation as a school board member i have the obligation to differentiate between those who are looking to make political points versus those with first-hand knowledge experience and examples theodore roosevelt in his famous speech the man in the arena said it is not the critic who counts not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles or where the doer of deeds could have done better the credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood who strives valiantly who airs and comes up short again and again because there is no effort worth without error or shortcoming but who
087knows the great enthusiasms the great devotions who spends himself in a worthy cause who at the best knows in the end the triumph of high achievement and who at the worst if he fails at least he fails while daring greatly so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who knew neither victory nor defeat teachers and administrators thank you for being in the arena and for constantly trying to do better and perfect our partnership educating our children i salute you and i'm proud to work for and with you finally board num board members our next meeting will be our july work session on monday july 18 2022 with that our meeting is adjourned at 7 20 p.m thank you very much [Applause] thank you for saying what you said and meaning
088what you say and doing what you do