001we'll update board docs accordingly next item on our agenda is responses to citizen comments uh dr nichols good evening this is a new feature to work sessions we receive or have been receiving comments at our regular board meetings board policy states the superintendent will respond to those at the next regular meeting by the next regular meeting um the work session is a stop in between those two meetings so we thought it'd be appropriate here to add it as an agenda item hopefully you've seen that we continue to be flexible as we add microphones and second screens and you know continue to work through this piece so what i'll do is read the questions provide the responses we will also later link this to board dots so when you look under responses to citizen comments you
002will have an electronic copy of it okay all right so the first questions are regarding the issue at new kent middle school on the book poet x um as two questions who's reviewing and approving books that go into our middle school library and b who's responsible for giving the 11 year book and what actions have been taking place to make sure it doesn't happen again so tonight there'll be a presentation that addresses this question in more detail but for purposes of this section of the agenda the books that are added to the library are selected by media specialists for purchase and approved by building administrators this book was part of a voluntary hispanic heritage month activity and is rated 13 plus which does fit for some of the students at the middle school this particular
003book has been moved from the middle school the school media specialists are in coordination with the school board office developing a process manual for how school media centers carry out the necessary procedures through the year but you'll hear that in a lot more detail tonight i wanted to respond to that the next series of questions i'm sorry board members if you have an additional follow-up i can pause and after each or come back at the end uh the next series is regarding crt which is critical race theory d-e-i diversity equity inclusion and cultural competency training and really these questions are centered around cultural competency training so the first question has worked been initiated on preparing instructional material for cultural competency training and let me back a little bit and give contact so the uh general
004assembly passed the law and i do have it i believe in the answers the exact one it was that requires teachers to have cultural competency training as part of licensure either initial licensure or renewal so this is coming from general assembly being interpreted by the virginia department of education so this is not a new county public schools specific pieces for all schools in the commonwealth of virginia um so has work been initiated on preparing instructional material um so the answer that is no work has not been initiated locally for this requirement this is coming from the state b how will a new teacher applying for a license to teach in new kent get culturally cultural competency training now required to get a teaching certificate so um so new kent county public schools superintendent including has
005not seen the details behind this requirement uh we do have various requirements that are through the virginia department of education dyslexia training child protective services there are a number of them we do them through modules that are publicly facing on the virginia department of education site so we expect those computer-based modules to be available once it has been developed by the virginia department of education that's our expectation if that changes uh we'll certainly let everyone know c have new camp public school teachers been informed that they will have to take the cultural competency training before the 22-23 school year so just the nuance on that one not all teachers will have to do it prior to 22-23 that's our read if you are initial license your submittal or your initial license renewal or your license
006renewals in 2223 you will need to do this requirement for example my license needs to be renewed by the end of 2122 i will not have to this requirement is not in place and my license is for 10 years actually all of our licenses are not for 10 years um we work with teachers closely during their licensure year to make sure that they have all the necessary requirements so whether it's coursework whatever the points are that they need we would do the same thing with this requirement as well so just a clarification are all teachers licensed for 10 years too yes the new licensure this if you're coming like i'm finishing a five-year license the initial license licenses have traditionally been five years teacher shortage license renewals those different pieces have been shifted to a
00710-year license so your next renewal will be for 10 years so next year is the last year of five years so everybody else will have been phased into ten year license so dr nicholson's saying that during that 10-year licensure what are the current requirements for continuing education within those 10 years and how does that continuing ad work in terms of their is it elective course work for their continuing education or are there certain courses that are specified within their specialty that they have to take for continuing great question and if the board would like we can come back with a presentation that details licensure in more detail but i'll answer your question uh to the best of my ability now miss anderson is here to back me up although she moved from the table so
008under your 10-year license you're required to have 360 points you can get those points in a lot of different ways for example we're working with teachers here right now who have shifted their instruction from in-person to virtual uh in terms of a educational project so you can get up to 90 points in an educational project if you take a three-credit course at a university that's 90 points so you can get those points in a lot of different ways we have professional development day coming up on november 1st each hour of professional development or continuing um what do they call it in the business world uh continuing education um we have those as well so every hour counts as one so it's really sort of a mix and match um related to those pieces if you're
009taking coursework and you're a math teacher it would be in that field of study but there's a whole menu of options that you can kind of work through and i'll just add to that as dr nichols said this is required by the state i have many colleagues in the virginia department of education is a executive branch agency i work for the state i'm not an employee i'm a contractor but i have many colleagues in my state agency that are now undergoing the cultural competency training so okay i believe i'm on d will this school system develop the cultural competency training in-house or by contract it's our expectation that's coming through the virginia department of education so um it would not be what we know right now it will not be in-house because it needs to
010be consistent across 132 school divisions so that's those pieces um are teachers aware that they'll be evaluated on how they implement cultural competency training uh that's e um once again once we understand the details of this potential requirement we'll we will share it with teachers um make sure i'm lined up here so i'll read it now is that it will be one of the standards uh right now there are seven standards that you're evaluated on that i'm evaluating on as a superintendent in this new model there'll be eight and cultural competency is one of those but we have not seen under the hood to see what the details of that will be um f are you prepared to deal with the loss of teachers when they are confronted by what the state is going to
011require so it's not a new kent county public schools requirement it's required for all virginia teachers we work extremely hard to recruit and retain um and we'll continue that mission this one is once again legislated and has now uh pushed the school division so we'll manage it and we'll work through it um gee have you expressed your concerns to the department of education and or the state superintendent of schools um yes i explain express concern anytime i have an audience with state superintendents one of my biggest concerns with this is there's a national shortage for teachers and we're going to add an additional requirement for licensure so i think we need to be more innovative about about that process for teachers to make the pathways easier and not more difficult i don't think this will
012be a strenuous process based on the other modules we have to do but it's one more thing um and i think we can we can go at it in other avenues so yes okay so that rounds out those that was g um the last question we had how much if any new kent county taxpayer funds are spent annually for membership in the national school board association and sba new kent county public schools is a member of the virginia school board association that's vsba so we do not spend money annually on an additional membership for national school board association for members if you remember this is related to a article or press release that the national school board association sent um the virginia school board association sent a counter thing to their members and also to
013the nsba uh talking about the need for public participation you know civil engagement and and so forth so i also emailed that to the participant that shared that along with the vsva piece so that rounds out the citizen comments and the questions and the responses we will post and then at our next work next regular meeting we receive additional questions we'll continue that process or we'll edit it um as we need to and we'll continue to answer the questions at the work session yes if you feel this format works it does it is two weeks faster than waiting until the regular meeting and i think that certainly can fit i agree i think i appreciate your effort in doing that i think it's um it's really important that as we as these issues occur as
014as you address them as you do this evening i think it's a very beneficial um for for the board and for the for the citizens as well and and i'll go back to your first comment about the uh about the book and i appreciate um ross and his team of looking in that expeditiously and as i explained to a couple of people and into the public in general is that obviously every system is not perfect and when we find uh holes in the system that need to be plugged that is our responsibility as board members to to gather the necessary facts that are presented before us and do everything in our power to as best we know how is to plug those holes and and i think in this particular situation through through ross and
015his team through having collaborative conversations is that i think that we did a pretty good job of of looking at the issue addressing the issue coming up with some resolutions and i think that that is a that is a positive thing for for our community to see that that we look at it we address it and then we come up with a resolution and that we don't leave those things hanging and i and i'll go back to even though this was not on your agenda but i'll go back to the town hall meeting that happened yesterday with um the the mother talked about even the bus stop she was that concerned about it which i think was a legitimate concern and as a school board it is a legitimate concern and i think that this
016board and the community did a fabulous job of addressing that issue as i told the board i was so upset about that whole issue that two days later i went personally to that church and figured out what was going on because i wanted to know and but that's what it takes if if we hear a comment like that in my opinion all this stuff that we talk about daily is is very very important to the educational process but when it comes to the safety of a child my opinion i'll drop everything that i'm doing and i'll aggressively go after it and and i think that we did a great job of doing that and when it comes to the safety and welfare of a child especially in that situation we need to continue to be
017proactive as and i appreciate mr beef and mr lockwood of setting up that that town hall to address that issue not that it's perfect but at least guess what you know we exist now right i mean that that's my whole point and and because i'm telling you what i don't care if it's a church i don't care if it's a business we are not going to let any business or church take advantage of any child because they have some hidden agenda so but you know so i appreciate uh mr b for being uh proactive and making that happen and mr mr mead to your point um on the admission piece about library book selection we don't always get everything right um and what you'll see but we have a dedicated group of media specialists mr
018miller i mean we have some phenomenal people on this team and you'll see some upcoming steps for us to strengthen you know anything that comes our way is an opportunity to strengthen a process or a policy or you know do that and and i think that's what you'll see uh coming up here so thank you for that um i'd like to make a couple comments and thank you dr nichols uh for providing feedback to our parents and citizens um through the comments from our regular meeting on october 11th we are seeing greater interest than ever before in our schools across the country and we can't it's no different i had an opportunity to go back and look at some of the stats on the attendance and viewership from our meeting since may of this year
019and from this period interestingly enough 154 parents citizens attended in-person meetings here uh in front of the board 33 citizens and parents have addressed the board during their regular meetings during our regular meetings and there have been over 1500 youtube views of both the regular and work sessions with the regular meetings having higher viewership i personally think that's incredible um you know in speaking with some of my colleagues and you know meetings before you know you didn't get a lot of folks here and i think this truly demonstrates the tremendous and continued interest our parents and citizens have in issues affecting schools and education and on another note yesterday uh district 5 held a town hall meeting focusing on the specific specific needs of our neighbors in the plum point community the meeting was open
020to all and the following folks attended uh john lockwood who is my district 5 board of supervisor counterpart sheriff joe mclaughlin rodney hathaway and from the district dr nichols and um mr hence uh who's director of transportation and i would like to thank dr nichols and mr pence for being on hand to hear um the feedback and questions that are most that mostly focused on roads and the bus stop issue and again i appreciate uh mr mead going down to uh one point and knocked on the door the meeting was very well attended with an estimated 30 citizens in attendance and i think it's a great opportunity to engage with parents and constituents outside of the traditional meeting venues i know miss winford has also held town halls in her district with key county leaderships
021and i just learned that ms barber will be teaming up with her board of supervisor counterpart in early november and i just throw this out there might i suggest the board um consider this information and determine if there are any additional opportunities to seek public input input in these forms thank you so it's been a while but we used to do town halls as a group we would have you know especially for things that affect the entire community so any of these types of issues that we're talking about tonight um would be something that we would have done in the past is that something that we would like to try to do is put one on here so that all the members of the community could come to that school wherever would be the best
022place for data mrsa happy to do some of that coordination and logistics work because it would involve more than two members of the board it would be an announced public meeting technically we could structure it in a way i would propose the high school auditorium just a bigger venue football stadium if we needed it but just we have actually we actually have better video capability in the gym but we could we could do something and and structured around some pretty big topics that we have going on um in the school division from a reminder of elementary redistricting to uh updated quarantines and you know all we could we could certainly if the board wants to we can do something i mean to me it makes sense to have the individual district meetings when it's something
023pertaining to that district like the school bus stop or whatever the case may be but if it's issues that affect the entire county it seems to me that the entire community would benefit from having that more to come on that i don't know whether or not we would ask people to submit their questions in advance it seems like it would be more productive that way but maybe we'll circle back to that i think we could probably do both because you know other questions will arise during the discussions i think that it's helpful because we can provide a little more detailed uh response given a little bit of time board members i'd be happy to bring an update to you at november 8th public meeting and share possibilities and dates and okay if if it's a
024please please [Music] i say nothing 8th i believe that's our next meeting you know i do throw dates out sometimes on that day off but remember okay so next item on our agenda is the overview of the library book selections mr miller madam chair members of the board dr nichols thank you for the opportunity to share about our library program this evening as dr nichols mentioned we have a very very dedicated passionate media specialist staff that do an amazing job and so anytime we get a chance to talk about all the work they do um in any light is um is a pleasure so um tonight have a set of slides go over with you some information just regarding the way in which we go about the selection of books that go into our library
025and most of what you're going to see is straight out of our policymaking and so so this is our policy that lays out our library media centers and what is their purpose they have a very vital role within the school they are they they are the hub of literacy for a school they provide all sorts of research materials as well as just basically things for students to be able to explore the lab of reading and to promote the love of reading as well they work with teachers directly on how to incorporate research into their lessons and they work with students on how to conduct that research and teach research skills and then as i said they also work closely with the students from k all the way to 12 on how do you develop a
026lot of reading and how do you select books that you're going to enjoy they also um that's just the literacy part you'll see on here they do a lot with media equipment and the idea of a library versus a media the library of old and media center of today is pretty different now directly in regards to the selection of materials this is spheroid policy iia the library media specialists they are they select the material that will go into the into their space and they work with the principal on purchasing those materials so they pick it out and then they make recommendations to the principal to purchase is that the our media specialist they're trained in this process through their coursework they all have master's degrees in library sciences and they take this very seriously as
027far as them selecting what goes into these spaces for our kids so some of the things that they consider when they're picking out what should and should not come into the library a if possible they um they'll read what comes into the library when they're picking um a lot of books for a year that's not always always possible so they do rely then on national lists and national programs to make suggestions such as the american library association the american association of school librarians as well along with some others that i'll go over in a little bit some of the things that they consider though are basically the needs of the school and so they look at the population of the school what's the curriculum in the school and how can they come alongside the teachers
028with more fiction or non-fiction or non-fiction or fictional material that will support what they're teaching as well as they look a lot at what are the students into what do the students want to read because they are trying to develop that level of reading and so they they talk a lot with their students on what are you interested in what are some different things that you would like to you would like to see books on and so that gets into that request from users of the collection they talk to the administration faculty they do take suggestions from parents as well as from students and they do look at a wide range of ability level um interest at all levels that is very wide when we look at like kindergarten through fifth grade you're talking about
029five-year-olds all the way to ten-year-olds going to the same library at the middle school you're talking about 10 year olds to 14 year olds there's a drastic difference between 10 year old and the 14 year old and what they are ready for and then at the high school 14 all in 18. so um they do try and hit a wide range but peel as well as appropriateness so they look at purpose they look at the timeliness of the books that they're reading so making sure that we don't have a collection that's based out of the 1970s and making sure that it's up to date with current literature they they look at the subject matter as well as how what's the quality of the writing making sure it's readable by their um by their students and
030that it's going to be popular so it's going to move off the shelf and be desirable for the student's degree we do also look at how to support the educational program and age and developmental appropriateness so one of the some of the ways that on a practical level this is not about policies is just out of it we sat down last week and had a big discussion on how they do this and so they review the collection each year to determine sort of what genres or categories need additional development they also do an inventory each year and look at the books and see which books are damaged too much that they need to go and move those off the shelves and give you the replacements for or transition out of the collection so some of
031the things that they review when they're trying to determine um what's what to purchase big piece of that is on student interest and what are the students going to want to read but they also rely on some national book lists by like the american library association aasl follett which is the company that produces our card catalog system our digital card catalog system they have a whole um they have a system called tidal wave in which they recommend books as well as give you reviews of books and um both for content as well as age appropriateness that's why i have them down below as well and then they also look at what genres categories are not adequately represented in their current collections so they do take a look at you know what are what are students
032reading what are those areas that they need to beef up or what are some different types of authors that they need to include books are approved for age appropriateness again by looking at follow-up title wealth title wave they do also look at common sense media american library journal and um and then also good reads if they need to um but they look at these to look at how appropriate it is for the students that are in their building so this is how when we get come across the learning material that someone is concerned about there is a process and we're um so this is straight out of the policy manual as far as policy klb and how we look at that is it starts at the building level and we do have a form in
033there for families or anyone to fill out and submit to our schools if they're concerned about something and uh it takes a parent through the process of identifying why is it being used and to see what's the educational value and um so then once they submit that to the building the building reviews it and then if the parent or whoever is not still not satisfied it would come to the school board office the superintendent or doesn't need to review and then lastly if they're still not satisfied then it would come to the school board to make a final decision and when you cut we're going to get to a point where we get to upcoming steps and i'll outline some of the things we're doing with this process coming forward so this is that process
034more bulleted just to make a little bit easier to go through so form is requested from the principal submitted to the principal they make a determination in the school board or then scuba office then school a school board if necessary yep and i think that's a great point because i think one of the the things in moving forward as we tweak the process a little bit is when we're talking about this we need to make it really easy for the parents to be able to access that information because i guarantee you that probably 98 of the parents didn't even know that a form existed to be able to do that and then who do i call so that may be one of those forms that the first memo that goes home with the kindergarten class
035the first week of school that says this is the form this form is accessible online under the elementary school website if you have issues or concerns to try to make it easily accessible to all uh all parents and students so that they kind of get the big picture that they don't have to hunt for it somewhere yeah thank you so some upcoming steps uh it was a great meeting with sitting down with the media specialist and talking through this with them and they take this responsibility very very seriously and so they uh when we talked through the process for reconsideration um we are going to be working with media specialists and principals to clearly define that process um and ensure you know we have a variety of viewpoints one of the suggestions come up is
036like having a sort of a panel um that looks at it that is it that incorporates parents administrative teachers that review the piece and make a decision and then at this at the school ops level a very similar process of a panel that looks at the piece so that we get it very um all stakeholders get a say and whether or not that piece should be included and we do have some some parents and volunteers that are uh have come forward already and said that they would help with that initiative right yeah yes so um so we're sort of fleshing out what that's going to look like and who would be on such a panel and um and to make sure that all viewpoints are are represented on that um also one of the things
037that that we noticed that we talked about in that meeting was a lack of there's not a media center program guy basically for the division that in new kent this is what we believe about media centers and this is how we run the media center and um and so we wanted to develop that so we're going to be working on that throughout this year uh development of a guide this is what how we how the media center runs and i mean one of the things that came up with the middle school and talking about the high school the young adult category is a very difficult category to categorize where does it go a very difficult genre it does similar it does sit at sort of an edgy point and so um one of the things
038that like the middle school media specialist brought up she's like she she would like um i advocate for basically an opt-in process for parents to be able if a child because the young adult how it's rated is that's a 13 year old to an 18 year old and so they would advocate for basically having an opt-in a parent review for young adult titles that if your child would like to check one of those out that the parent will be notified first and given the opportunity to review the book before the child checks that out um just a quick question is is this pg-13 kind of comparable to what a movie pg-13 would be yes okay this is the closest thing we have to to like the pg pg-13 type rating um so young adult would
039be a third a pg-13ish book whereas like adult fiction would be the 18 and older and so that's one of the processes that we discussed in that meeting that the parent could request to be contacted anytime a book that is above that 13 level because at the middle middle school level especially we've got 10 year olds and all the way to 14 year olds and it's hard to to find books that both groups are going to really enjoy so and really develop that that reading so that is everything i had i'm happy to entertain any questions that you may have and answer those i think the sticker process is is an awesome process if we could somehow institute that then even if that book went home by accident however it happened and then it would
040alert every parent that okay well you know with that sticker process yeah and i think part of this too which is a great observation for us even in this situation is i hope one of the things that comes out of this as we tweak this and we're all guilty of it even as parents even when my girls are in school it's a matter of and i i don't know about you guys but the majority of parents they don't know what their kids read they never look at their books and they bring them home from the library and they check their books out from the library and so i'm hoping that this through this process will get them more engaged to let them know look at the books that your kids are bringing home and for
041whatever because it could have been a referral from one of their friends and just because it's appropriate for ross doesn't mean that it's appropriate for uh for mr hoch you know and i mean and i think those that's a good way for parents to be engaged another way for their parents to be engaged in in their everyday lives of what's going on another question for the books that are young adult would we have them in their own specific section yeah so that way we would be able to tell if the 10 year old was not in the correct section correct yes yeah we can we can have specific genres in certain areas of the library so that we can make sure that to your point mr miller it is a very difficult age group um
042young adult fiction is very challenging as the parent of a 14 year old daughter i can attest to that so we do encourage parents to to be involved be proactive and um and understand what your children are reading because as they transition out of chapter books it can be very challenging so thank you thank you for this presentation [Music] okay next item on our agenda is recommended fiscal year cip review miss morgan [Music] it is that time of year where we begin the capital improvement process uh mr pollock is joining us for his technical expertise uh and everything else mr frost um but mrs borheim we're going to talk to you about our capital improvement planning process this is your first look at what we're thinking so we definitely want your input on it we're
043also going to show you where there's some unique intersections because of some things that are going on federally and some work that we our finance team has done a great job on here as well so we'll show you what cip looks like what we're thinking um it is complicated a bit we do not have a number from the county yet so we're working through under needs but we also have a slot of hopes and dreams so beyond this year and some big things we want to do so this morning that was my intro thank you dr nichols madam chair board members this is really our cip plan for f123 and actually the county requested these to be submitted actually about a week ago but we always like to come to you first to just talk
044through what our request will look like and kind of um what requests will bring forward to them so we will bring this back to you at a later date for approval of our recommended cip plan we'd just like to give you kind of an overview of where we're headed and make sure that we're all on the same page some of these you have seen in the past and one is the digital conversion there's some history to that it's a cip transfer and to support our one-to-one initiative two hundred thousand dollars in the current year and our hope would be to reduce that and eventually just kind of have that debate out of our cip process school buses obviously is something that we need every year um this is actually for five buses and we will
045most likely be looking to purchase additional buses through additional reserves or even us or funding so these are five buses they have air gps that's sort of become the standard in the buses that we purchased so we have a paving line uh mr pollock has been working through paving throughout the district and this specifically would be for the um transportation area basically around the entire fence not within the fencing property but around the entire outside of the transportation department you may have noticed that we did the high school bus loop which was last year's cip well for this year but just makes a huge difference and we own a lot of pavement there's a line item for middle school mechanical design and this is really just to and mr pollock may talk about this a
046little bit more but to basically look at a redesign of the middle school mechanical room and the fire pumps and hot water heater and things of that nature so one of the goals in the cip is just the modernization of existing equipment so i mean you'll see that as a big theme um as our schools age and then you'll see some other projects as we go through another item we have on here which may seem a little strange but it's not actually when you really look into it it's a high school roof replacement and this is similar to a project that we did in ukraine elementary school and something that mr paul we may not need to do right away but it's certainly something that will assist us moving forward with not having as much
047repairs as we currently have well then so what i wanted to bring this what you don't world to do is let it become where the insulation is saturated because then that's a fuel material what we did like over at the elementary school we were able to coat that over the existing roof this year we'll do this section this year we'll do that section uh so we're still within our warranty we are still within the winter with the warranty requirement they require by warranty which is that they come in any time it leaks and attaches so you understand when you do things like that that's what you're doing so that's [Music] deteriorating the magnets then it's time to tear off you have to tear the roof off the insulation out and the barrel you're not affecting
048before you can go back but doesn't the warranty come into play when it when it starts to seep through it all okay they will come and fix that leak they were not taking repair the insulation with the damage that's below they will just come in and put a patch over that big it's a water tight one spot basically your brain is open this week right here in certain areas so we have problem areas yeah we're already doing a lot of maintenance up there these are the uh said this is outside the contractor and we've just been doing it before the board members you may remember that we took on the gw roof and we did it in phases this would be a similar approach here you would actually see this coming yeah what's that okay
049so you would see this coming through as a capital project similar to buses until we're able to get the whole project we'd start with the areas that are most neat and then we work our way through and then in three years have the whole roof back under uh 20-year warranty but the idea was doing unless you let it completely go again like i'm saying that you would have to re-press it okay we'll move forward and i'll take the next two kind of sort of together so we actually just recently received a grant it's kind of detailed below the coronavir state and local fiscal recovery fund specifically for hvac replacement and improvement projects and the grant is for six hundred seventeen thousand seven ninety seven but there's a hundred percent local match requirement and you'll see
050that the projects that we are going to be submitting for in our application are our middle school hvac replacement project which if you remember over the over many years we've been slowly replacing the units at the middle school so basically we're looking at let's take care of that entire project with this grant middle school is definitely the place most need we put the most money there in the past three years this would allow us over the next couple years to have a dedicated funding source to get that exactly where we need it some other items that we would do with that grant are the controls and install at gw and new kent high school and then also one new kent high school rooftop makeup air unit with the 50 000 request just above that that's
051really to just maintain the three unit replacements that we've been doing up until the point where we can get to where we do that project there will likely be a supply chain stressor with this we're not the only one that received this grant so we're looking at phasing it across a few years in order for the supply chain factors within it so that's why we have multiple things that we're working on depending on what we can get in the quickest and then work through that uh a lot of this work has to happen in the summer we can't take the school offline um to do that we simply don't have the room so we'll be doing it across the last couple the next couple summers just like we have been just in larger the grant
052have an scale date it does the grant has an expiration date of 20. 2024 is the last time that you have really to encumber the funds and then you can reimburse ford up through 2026. so right now we're looking at a three-year process potentially not even starting this summer but the summer after and we're still just kind of flushing out those details just based on the workload for mr pollock and his group and all the other projects being requested will we be able to maximize that grant money absolutely that's our intent yeah r10 is the one to one and we have a couple different ways we can do that one is through cip which you see 205 932 that's a third so we can attack it through those means when we do our cip requests
053we basically request five years out so we would have that as a request for the next three years if that doesn't work for some reason we have a year-end transfer process and we can we can attack it that way as well so we have a couple different avenues to make sure we maximize that to to move forward 1.2 million hvac and new can is huge we want to make sure we maximize that so we're uh committed to that and the the award is only about four or five weeks old we're still getting the details uh behind it so as we continue with hvac we're looking at gw having a replacement of the units on the annex building that's four units um sixty eight thousand dollars and then just general roof maintenance like we've had in
054the past and also painting of our facilities so those are all of our current um things that we're at least you know considering as we kind of wait and work through with the county on what these funds might look like and we may need to make some adjustments but we feel really good about those particular items and also one thing just want to know with with folks that are new to the cip process you basically get a lot of them for these they're funded and then you basically can carry them forward so for instance in the current year if there are projects that we weren't able to complete because of shipping delays or things like that those funds do get reappropriated in the year after and we do have that typically year over year with
055that being said we also have other considerations for cip projects and most of you are aware that we do have urine carryover funds go into the cip reserve which has been really great for schools to be able to tackle some pretty big projects so we like to always have a list of things that we're looking into and costing out so the the better we save during the school year either through attrition or savings almost every job in el jinxing right now that tim does we have savings on so we're able to have substantial year-end savings at the end of the year last year was a incredibly different year so we didn't staff the way that um we would typically staff so you know we could have additional year-end savings uh it allows us to to
056move forward on some additional projects too so it's a nice reward for us to to be fiscally responsible which would be anyway but to utilize those savings to go forward with more capital projects you guys have done it with the stadium lights which homecoming happened under the stadium lights on saturday or the homecoming dance the basin pond which we've been able to do recently that was a huge item that we were able to pull and a lot of other projects like that we've done the high school vestibule we've done library renovations you know multiple projects so this additional considerations for cip projects so if we talk about a project and you didn't see it on that last list you may see it on this one but there are other pieces so the high school now
057has the secure vestibule when you walk in you know with the window we'd like to figure out a way to do that at the middle school which is difficult because it's a split level school when you walk in conceptually like on a piece of my paper we have like an idea that we would like to go forward with that could provide additional office space but we need architecture engineering to kind of look at some of that stuff that's another by the three through year-end set capital set-aside or through future projects we could do something like that um athletics we have some big hopes and dreams for athletic facilities um and we'd like to tackle some of that through capital set aside year-end or through the capital project when it comes to storage when it comes
058to facilities when it comes to you know grass versus turf lots of different places for most folks coming to new camp you're coming into this stadium we wanted to make that feel that this high school does um so lots of different considerations under athletics and i'm sure you guys may have some as well we're looking at space at new kent middle school you know that's a big priority we have a couple opportunities to add some additional space with them by reconfiguring some of the spaces there's a locker room that has some additional space mr pollock and i talked about a way to potentially add more common area space specifically the cafeteria while we have more clouds in space that cafeteria is still relatively small um so we are looking at engaging in some of those
059arenas as well um we have some non-bus needs in terms of vans trucks potentially um and then this last one is really kind of haney's branded it so i'll let her talk about reimagining well we just obviously we've talked about renovating lincoln elementary school for a while and i think it's just important that we look at the issues that we're having parking traffic flow things like that um you know we brought to the table before relocating tim's shop and things of that nature um we have tennis boards there that are very old and not being used currently so really i guess um you know what i feel like we need to do is really look at reimagining that entire space and what that could be for the county not just for newton elementary school and
060really just be smart about the redesign of what that could be so that's something that i think we're pretty passionate about looking into and really trying to get the most bang for our and in conversation previous conversations with with county officials there's the historic school sits there as well that's currently not being utilized we're actually utilizing it for storage there is a possibility rcc is looking at putting a welding space over at bridging so there is a real possibility to reimagine that whole corridor as we're calling it a book ended with bridging and then new ken elementary so it's a huge project but could be a joint effort that one of the things that we're going to run into in the next two to three years is that you know with the expansion of the
061oaks and diocesans reserve of the subdivisions down the road here is and on top of probably another 30 to 40 town homes that they're going to be building here too i mean the afternoon and morning traffic just is only going to get that much more challenging because getting in here in the mornings i mean talk about reimagining something holy cow well that's kind of what we'd like to do on the new ken elementary is pull some of that traffic away but yeah even saying that you know another outlet out of here we've got to figure out another way to get them out on the other side of almost like where the new post office is you know like a big loop behind everything to get them out and tim's maintenance tech staff does a great
062job charlie's here too you guys have to do that i mean they look at me i think they would all agree every day trying to get back in yeah i think they would all agree as far as directed absolutely so um other year-end considerations so as we work through with the year-end process from last year um ms morgan mentioned uh possibly adding an additional school bus to get ahead of that schedule um we have some one-time expenses uh you know we've done a significant amount of work on our grounds this year you know that's money we spent that was not budgeted that we can carry over and pay for that school set aside you know future school construction projects as we save in the current year we'd like to put aside for future big school
063projects whether it's new ken elementary school or new middle school but to really um you know put money in in that pot of money that's how we got to the school we have now are we projecting timelines for that for something like the elementary school that's going to be a major capital project yes so we need to have a target for that we have any do we actually have a target for that that's as soon as possible yes so what we're looking at just this is just a rough timeline this miss barber um and we definitely need to hash this out with more people but we're looking at new ken elementary clinton will be done um next year looking at five years on new kent elementary and then potentially another five for new kent middle
064school if we're able to do some of the expansions and open up some space we may be able to buy more time we do know the high school comes off the debt uh in i think 27 that's a huge borrowing piece there so really kind of timing all of those aspects um out so we're looking at a rough estimate five on the ken elementary and then ten but a lot of factors play into that but reimagining two the 249 corridor is definitely a long as we do it can just really open up that space and make it you know quite beautiful and functional right nichols as well are we still going to be able to get that um now that rosie slash colonial downs is up and functioning 100 now we're still going to potentially
065have set aside money that the county is going to help us with and look at some of these things as well the county is still currently setting aside the money piece what we've talked about is is can we once again develop a a school specific set aside like we had so right now it's going into a bigger buck my understanding a bigger bucket for capital projects um what haney and i are talking about and what will continue to um you know look at it as a school specific one that's right and we were just talking to mr hathaway about the possibility of setting up a school specific set-aside that we could continue you know because we were trying to put funds into that set aside on our end and so appreciative of the work the
066board of supervisors did and raising that money as well so just to have that extra place where we can kind of set aside things that we know for these projects that we want to do down the road so we can help to contribute to that i mean really came in handy with clinton as far as the borrowing and the and that project tim and kyle will talk to you about it a little more really um coming along well and we're determined to make that a very positive experience for everyone involved to be able to do all that and not raise taxes in the mean it's a huge testament to saving and we'd like to repeat that process and then uh one time salary needs or custodial modifications so as um anyone speak to that one
067yeah really just a continuation of some of the work we're doing with covet and maintaining different things with that we are being as creative as possible with all the grant funds that we have like i said before we are always trying to make sure that we're trying to move new camp forward not just purchase something necessarily because it helps in the moment with code but really trying to also reimagine you know what what those federal funds can do for new kent not just now but down the road so anytime we have an opportunity to fund something through one of those grants that's a one-time type payment we would definitely do that but it may be that there's a better opportunity to use those federal funds for and then this is like for example having additional
068support with ssc right now that might be something that we just asked for a year in transfer to cover that part of our year end savings was really just being very good about our utilizing our grants for expenses that we continue to receive and as we receive and continue to do that work we gave you a lot as far as you know maintenance and upgrades and then some big projects anything that's on your list that you don't see kind of represented and you don't have to this comes back before you again before we approve and so it doesn't have to end now but just for the purposes of my team and continue to work on that any thoughts or anything a little more understanding of the custodial modifications what's [Music] to keep up the buildings
069to the standard we're asking for them okay and that would be for this year as a breakdown okay because ultimately that's sort of the maintenance thing which is [Music] yes next item on our agenda is sale of sns surplus item this one yes madam chair board members dr nichols miss smith would like to sell one of her large sand mixers she did originally have a long list of large equipment that she wanted to sell basically honestly to make room in the kitchen for storage for items that she's able to get but she actually ended up holding on to a lot of those mixers in case she had to make large batches of rolls or something of the sort so she is actually just asking for the sew of one of these mixers which school is
070this coming out it's coming out of high school switching to old business we have mr we're going to have the calendar discussion today sorry yes please um absolutely so members we've had a lot of conversation uh working with staff groups on calendar this has been um i'm incredibly proud of our staff for what they've been able to put together to keep us in session five days a week with our quarantines with the lack of substitutes it has been all hands on deck so in covering classes covering lunches you name it doing those pieces so we're looking at some opportunities in the calendar to provide additional time for staff um so we're looking at the first semester and then this continues to be a fluid situation we added some additional professional development days in the previous
071calendar process and now looking at it again i'd like to recommend um that the 22nd and 23rd of november um be uh days that the schools are closed for 10 and 11 months employees that provides a weak thanksgiving break it'll benefit us from a cleaning protocol standpoint will benefit us from a quarantine standpoint um and it will provide a little bit of break for our employees who are burning the candle at both ends to keep us up and and moving and i'm incredibly proud of them i'd also like to recommend that i continue to work with my staff principals and teachers so i had teacher advisory last week and that's where this really came from i would like to continue working with that group to look at the second semester and see if there are
072a couple opportunities there the two days that we are typically in in november are some of our most poorly attended days uh with families i mean for a structural standpoint they're not the most significant hard-hitting uh days as well so that would be the recommendation that we do alter the calendar which does require board approval to make um to have schools closed on the 22nd and 23rd of november and if approved we would make the modification to the calendar we would send a message to families and we would update staff as well so that be happy to answer any questions you have on that but that's a quick summary of where we are just to clarify that um dr nichols is that closing school for those two days does not does not affect our instructional
073calendar it does not mean that we have to add any days to the end of the school year it doesn't take away from anything that we are currently doing because we have additional days slash hours built in our current schedule that will compensate for these two days absolutely thank you mr b that was a great question so by state code we're required to do 180 school days or 990 hours the current schedule that we have has us above the 990 hours which we really always are by doing this now we're still well above that mark i am hoping for a glorious warm winter with no weather delays or anything like that but it also reserves time there for me to make those beloved snow calls um and look at the second semester so from a
074time standpoint mr mead we're in great shape in regards to time we always go above the minimum and it still provides that buffer there for any weather calls or weather delays that are in place next item on our agenda is clinton elementary school mr pollock and mr [Music] at each work session board members and for the public if you're tuning in for the first time we always do an update on clinton elementary school just to keep the public and the board informed of where we are in the process uh this is one of the most exciting projects that we have and i tell you what every time you drive by you see something new and exciting so that was my delay to give you guys okay what we can talk about to start with we're
075as of right now we're 24-day time and schedule to get on the schedule budget is still where we were running on budget to yeah the as far as water and sewer lines if you've been down 249 everything has been cleared we're starting hopefully this week actually putting piping in any water remaining years to the uh as far as the site goes we'll show you more on that we've done fire proofing in the cafeteria area the mechanical rooms the roof is on it goes to it in those areas the roof is on in the uh cafeteria so we're getting second forehead forward feel this set for the second driven by you saw the beautiful flag that was on the side people loved so we got a complaint that we took it was because we had to
076do fireproofing on the side so just want to say we got back to plates oh yeah you all have known america the the second asked about it no it did come up quite because it's beautiful when you ride by the second piece tim the 24 days are directly related to i mean right now to having still given the delay on the steel we have we still have some skill that would like we also have some brick that has not it's in the big scope we're still moving we're still moving the puzzle around so what we're doing we will get about december january being back on full scale so it's really supply chain driven and not work site relate driven or slowed down on the site itself i mean it's i mean they're moving right along
077i like what gets right in that's the most important part we're getting the winner so the more we can get right in the better off we'll be duct works going up uh electrical mechanical rooms are coming together the switch gear was a delay at one time and that should be here this week it was a little bit of a bump in the road with that so it should be here this week and then we can actually get power into thanks ken so the image that's up on the screen right now from last week earlier in the week uh every month heartland does drone footage which is fantastic and i love getting a visual of the property i can attest to what mr pollock said it's a very busy site when i was out there last
078week there were three trucks delivering steel there were welders on the decking so they are definitely moving when the weather provides the opportunity for sure so similar to last presentation just want to get an update on some of the spaces i won't transition them like last week last time but you can still see uh the progress that's being made at the site or not sure so so this is the back of the site you can see what mr pollock was talking about these steels being installed on the south side of the building the second floor that you see right in front of you in the top left that's where our fifth graders will be housed so the decking has has been poured steel frames are there and you can really begin to see how tall
079our building will be you can also see in the middle of the building that's where our media center will be located on the first floor and then on the second floor will be our steam lab and extended learning area this is where the majority of the work is taking place at the moment next is uh what most students and what fat most families see when they pass our building from 249 it's the back of the building obviously you can see the fire proofing that has taken place on the right side of the picture then on the left side again has another image of the second floor fifth grade area and our second and third grade that would be lift houses on the first floor getting into the building now this is our main street again
080on the right that's what that area will look like when we're all finished then on the left that's where we're currently at again you can begin to see where the stairs will take students upstairs to the stem lab and also that fifth grade next image is the first hallway uh being put in which is great so on the left side this is where our second and third graders will be housed uh it was a great day on site because the construction workers uh fashion decisions matched our color palette extended learning area for our second and third graders uh you can also kind of see the width of the hallway and begin to envision students walking through their every day next two are my favorite classrooms are beginning to be defined so this is an example
081of a third grade classroom i love the natural light coming in for a teacher that is a needs an amazing teaching opportunity that sometimes you don't get with a small window in your classroom so on the left again that is a third grade classroom and then on the right side you can begin to see some of our furniture decisions that we're making so in grades three four and five there'll be more uh options for seating uh as we all know not all students like to sit in a chair all day i was one of those students so there will be desks available in this class for students to sit um students to collaborate with a friend on the whiteboard table you can also see some of the different stories in the classrooms this is very
082important to our teachers that they could store manipulatives store some of the resources that kids use throughout the day our next image is the kindergarten classroom love the size of these rooms this is on the north side of the building so our kindergarten will be facing south quaker and the old town farm i think there's some amazing opportunities there for learning you can also see that the french are in these rooms will be a little bit different to meet the needs of those students so you can see that students will be housed in pods um there'll also be some mobile bookcases that they can move around the class where the kids can really engage in the literature and engage in discussions about that so outside of the construction i want to give you an update
083on our progress uh as i mentioned in our last work session we wanted to get the redistricting reminder out got a lot of great feedback whenever i met watkins a lot of parents and students will stop me and say hey i'll come to your building next year um it was really cool earlier today we had a new student move in i was at the front desk at watkins when they were enrolling they were coming from a neighboring school division the first thing they said is oh we're going to that new school next year so they already knew especially because the work that was done on our website aside from that a lot of great feedback on our social media pages uh we have a twitter page that gives updates on the construction uh we also
084have a facebook page that has been very popular so you can see some of the data we're getting back uh from our posts uh it's been a great resource for our community i think it's fantastic that we can really document this historic moment uh it's also been a great uh piece of recruitment i will say that since these went active i've uh got many emails uh also some linkedin messages uh from teachers in neighboring companies so we'll make sure we continue with these posts uh also as you uh have seen in those previous slides we've been spending a lot of time trying to get ahead of the supply chain issues so talking about furniture talking about av mr helper we want to make sure that when the school does open next year we're ready for
085our students so that's been a long process but we're trying to get this word to deal with this moment in the very last piece with this out allison anderson we got together and we're starting to talk about um staff in the schools not just quinn elementary school but the three elementary schools before so we have some exciting things coming up in november even though it's a short month one and two are going to be key in terms of staffing to me it's about three great elementary schools you know yes i'm the principal of clinton but we want to get all three right so we're going to sit down this month really look at our enrollment figures since they've settled and begin to determine how many teachers it's going to take some time and also we
086want input from our teachers so we will be sending out a survey this month to see what they're thinking you know would they like to remain at their current school or would they consider transferring or requesting a transfer to a different school in the school district but again it comes back to three grade schools and that's what kind of driving our process number two is hands down the most popular i mentioned it last session but this time we're moving forward next monday at this time our survey will be out this will be a three-step process the first thing we're going to do is we're going to ask input from our community you want the community involved we want them giving ideas for what our mascot should be there will also be some school colors on
087that to pick from to see where everyone is thinking might be a good uh school caller for a final venture after that first kind of initiative we're gonna get all that data bring it back together and start that focus committee so we're gonna have a staff focus committee look at this admissions we're in the parent focus committee and then the third one is my favorite we're gonna get some kids together we're gonna get some future coin elementary students together to look at the names and we're going to create a survey one last one about the community my goal for this is next time i'm here october of november 22nd i want to share the mascot colors all the colors are within the color palette that we're already utilizing in the school so it's not like
088somebody will pick something wild that doesn't match it all fits in there's 11 options yeah um the next school board meeting will be rescheduled the once the board takes action we'll get with the board and if we need to ship that date we'll yes and we'll have no we'll never know the news if you go out to the site announce it out there facebook live there you go and then our final this is ongoing is just any moment we have to look at instruction look at our vision that's key and that could be looking into our resources looking how we can use these spaces how can we reimagine elementary instruction this is this move so that's the parent drop wait that's the current drop off on the left yes and the bus drop off where
089the uh yeah so we were discussing new kent elementary some of the issues with traffic flow we had that in mind as we put this plan together as far as the the long loops for buses and the long loops and the two different directions that that cars would blow up four vehicles the other thing we have been working on with the allowance portion of this ground uh everything um do you have any update on the overhang did we get uh estimate for i mean clinton elementary is already part of the project that is a input thing what we did what i have done down at this campaign elementary was we were getting it out of trailers that's our just put in place to put a piece there that takes in the coverage right there we
090have not got anything from for the parent drop-off because that's the longest haul right but we're also being conscious that if we're talking about a five-year plan we don't want to be tearing up but so we do have a short-term solution and then looking at it thank you for the update thank you both thank you thank you make progress so we are going to move on to our action items do i hear a motion to approve the superintendent's recommendations regarding personnel matters as presented i move we to approve the personnel um uh superintendent's recommendations on personnel um yes and do i hear a second any discussion all those in favor aye any post motion carries um next action item do i hear a motion to approve the superintendent's recommendations regarding student matters as presented do
091i hear second second any discussion no discussion all those in favor aye any opposed motion carries uh do i hear a motion to approve the sale of school nutrition services surplus item as presented i move that we approve the sale of the s s surplus item as presented do i hear a second exactly any further discussion all those in favor any post motion carries um last action item is our amended calendar to consider approval of calendar revision to designate november 22nd and 23rd as days off for 10 and 11 months staff i move we approve the calendar revision designating november 22nd and 23rd for day off for staff and students and do i hear a second any further discussion all those in favor all right any opposed and the motion carries and our next meeting
092i just want to clarify that before we adjourn monday november the 8th okay our meeting is adjourned thank you huh yes