001convened a closed meeting on this date pursuant to an affirmative recorded vote and in accordance with the provisions of the virginia freedom of information act and whereas section 2.2-3711 of the code of virginia requires a certification by the new kent county school board that such closed meeting was conducted in conformity with virginia law now therefore be it resolved that the new kent county school board hereby certifies that to the best of each member's knowledge one only public business matters lawfully exempted from open meeting requirement by virginia law were discussed in closed meeting to which this certification resolution applies and two 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 do i hear a motion to approve the
002certification of the closed session i move we approve the certification of the closed session do i hear a second a second all in favor motion carries we can all stand for pledge of allegiance please [Music] congratulations to the flag from the united states of america and to the republic for which it stands one nation under god indivisible with liberty and justice for all [Music] uh comments many school board members dr nichols any comments i just want to say thank you again to our community to our schools uh to our staff our teachers our bus drivers every morning i get a digest of the virginia state association's school stories and you know we're keeping buses on the roads we're working through some classroom quarantines and those pieces um we thought last year would be the toughest
003year ever and it's been topped by this year so every chance i get i just want to say thank you to everyone for support flexibility and continuing to work through each day as it presents new challenges thank you dr nichols [Music] recognitions first item is recognition of national hispanic american heritage month on september 15 through october 15th mr a little miller [Music] um a little bit about numbers of hispanic citizens here in virginia as well as in new camp um in virginia approximately 10 percent of the population is of hispanic origin and here in new kid we're actually climbing and we're at six percent so slightly behind the state at this point and um and so then as far as what we have going on in the schools uh for this we have a variety
004of programs we have a program at the middle school where they have some history lessons that have been supplied to teachers as well as some reading exercises through the library also our esl staff has prepared some hispanic heritage lessons that have been pushed out to the middle school and the high school and the elementary schools as well for teachers to be able to use and then she's modeling those lessons with teachers throughout the division as well thank you next is recognition of october as bullying prevention month dr clarke [Music] as bullying prevention month also a live webinar is being presented on october 26th sponsored by the vsva again just recognizing school-based bullying prevention methods and then lastly the president of the virginia school board association also published a public service announcement to talk about october
005being recognized as a bullying prevention month and so we have some planned activities from each school at the middle school they are going to be focused on some specific lessons that address bullying prevention from our teachers and from our school counselors there's also a project um called project connect which will occur on october the 19th and that's when students are able to write down bullying prevention strategies and they link them together on a chain and so that's a national project that the middle school will be presenting will be participating in and then also on october the 20th there is an orange out campaign where students and staff are asked to wear orange to show unity for kindness so those are the activities at the middle school at our high school they have some activities planned
006as well there are some school-wide videos that will be shown on different days that give a nod to bullying prevention and awareness as well there'll be some activities that support prevention during lunch and then lastly they are also in talks with the national guard to have a presentation for the freshmen on bullying prevention and then lastly at our elementary schools they are going to observe bullying prevention during the week of october the 18th through the 22nd and they are going to support it by having a daily activity to show their support for anti-bullying so they'll have different things that they'll be wearing in support of bullying prevention and we'll just continue to keep our students focused on being kind to each other thank you thank you very much next is recognition of national school bus
007safety awareness month and that is october 18th i'm sorry school bus safety awareness week october 18th through the 22nd and transportation employees appreciation day on october 20th mr hoffman yeah schools across the nation observed national school bus safety week the third week of october the 2021 october theme is be safe know the danger zone our school is going to encourage the students to participate in the 2021-22 national school bus safety week poster contest the contest theme is one bus plus one driver equals a big impact on education held during the third full week of october each year national school bus safety week is an active and evolving public education program and an excellent way for parents students teachers motorists school bus operators school administrators and other interested parties to join forces and address the importance
008of school bus safety designed to promote school bus safety school districts throughout the country observe school bus safety week thank you great thank you next is recognition of national school lunch week that's october 11th through the 15th miss moorheim we need a problem we do need some more microphones support dr nichols this is celebrate national school lunch week and as you know recently we celebrated our school nutrition staff um this is really to celebrate lunch and we can't do that really without celebrating our staff once once again they have served over 50 000 meals since the start of the school year and we've only been in school for about 24 days that's remarkable um these ladies the the joy that they bring into our schools they're really the heart of our schools we will be
009going around to each of the kitchens during the week to celebrate them and they're also doing things within the school to celebrate lunch and the students that are enjoying our lunches so we would just encourage everyone to send in notes draw a picture do something kind say something time for these kitchens and stuff for all the wonderful meals that they provide thank you and last but certainly not least we would like to uh recognize um the media honor roll recognition um that would be dr nichols and myself board members as you recall the board passed a resolution at the august 9th meeting to nominate mr andre jones of the new kent charles city chronicle to the bsba media honor roll tonight we'd like to publicly recognize mr jones by presenting him with this certificate recognizing
010his fair and balanced reporting and partnership with new kent county public schools mr jones thank you thank you all right next up is our consent agenda um board members by now you've had the opportunity to review the items listed on the consent agenda including minutes from previous meetings bills and payroll and the superintendent's recommendations regarding personnel and student matters do i hear a motion to approve the consent agenda as presented i move we approve the consent agenda as presented and do i hear a second second any further discussion all those in favor aye aye motion carries uh next is our citizen comment procedures services and comment period let's see we have several people on the list um before we begin i'd like to thank everyone it's having some technical difficulties we have new audio and
011we're still learning how to there we go [Music] great thank you before we begin i'd like to thank everyone for coming out tonight to speak um please note that comments are limited to three minutes once the timer sounds please promptly finish your comment and return to your seat it is customary for the school board not to make comment during the citizen comment period please make sure your contact information is provided on the sign up sheet if you would like someone to follow up with you thank you again for coming first up is emily white hello my name is emily white you may have heard about my name recently as i posted a few pages from a book that was sent home with my sixth grader a couple weeks ago i wanted to talk tonight about
012the material that we offer to our children and the school library i've been seeing in the news as i'm sure most of you have also that pornographic books and books that children about children are being molested by their parents are being taught and or available in public schools across the country i truly never thought it would be here in new kent these children are getting their innocence taken away earlier and earlier by social media music movies tv the public schools should not be adding to this the public schools in my opinion should still be trying to hold our children up and encourage them to be upstanding citizens i'm so thankful that dr nichols and the school board have removed the book the poet x from the middle school library after much discussion i know there
013are other books there however that are still not acceptable and need to also be removed i am interested to hear about how we're going to uphold the high standard that this county has to offer our children rather than bring it down to the world standards i'm willing to be involved and help in any way that can now that this has been brought to my attention that it's a problem i know that this county will rise to the challenge to improve our children's reading material and hold the teachers accountable for introducing appropriate material to their classes our children look up to their teachers see them as role models and trust them my child's trust was shattered when this book was sent home to him by his role models i do not want this to happen to
014anybody else's child i know it's a very tight-knit community which is why we moved here and i know that this will or that we will use this as an opportunity to grow and improve i've had a mom in the county reach out to me after my original post and mention that she felt the need to read a book that her daughter had checked out the library just to be sure it was appropriate her daughter's in the seventh grade and checked out the book titled panic by sharon m draper the mom luckily read it before her daughter could she said that it's a story about a teenage girl who was kidnapped raped multiple times put on the dark web and exploited to pedophiles the mom said that the book is a good book however it isn't
015appropriate for a 12 year old seventh grader she told me that if her daughter had read this book first it would have put way too much fear in her little girl's head about good and bad things in life um that's like what she said she couldn't come so i told her i would mention this i believe that books should be encouraging imaginative relatable inviting and educational i don't believe especially for this age group that it should be filled with sexual content cursing rape pedophiles and deceit thank you next is elizabeth remorenko did i say that romarenko thank you [Music] dr nichols miss stexel miss swimford members of the board thank you for the time this evening my name is elizabeth smith rimarenko i live in new kent and my children attend our county schools i
016grew up here and was honored to represent new kent while attending the governor's school the last time i stood before the new kent school board i was a senior thanking the board for that amazing opportunity and so tonight i come before the board once again to say thank you thank you to every single person who has made the impossible happen since the start of the pandemic i've watched nearly every school board meeting over the last 18 months and i know it hasn't been easy for those working to educate our children on top of the day-to-day challenges we face due to covid there is a cloud of negativity and discord surrounding schools it's draining to watch tv read the news or hop on social media to see and hear all the divisive comments from media personalities
017politicians religious leaders and citizens i personally find it to be exhausting and i don't even work in the schools and yet i wonder how many of those who seek to divide us are paying attention to the amazing things actually happening in our school because i see a school board and superintendent who have regularly agonized over making the best possible decisions with the information available knowing that no solution will make everyone happy i see administrators central staff and school office staff coming up with plans a b and c only to have to pivot again to come up with plans efg and beyond i can't even guess how many times we've cycled through that alphabet speaking of pivoting i know that our paraprofessional substitutes and other staff are stepping in as needed to keep our students on
018pace our teachers are rock stars under normal circumstances but now i see our teachers going above and beyond to find new ways of teaching and connecting with our children while filling in gaps over the last year my teachers children don't buy our house to say hi set up time on friday to chat and started after-school cursive clubs on top of all their daily school and personal responsibilities i see our bus drivers taking our kids to school safely each and every day i will tell you i can see our bus driver's huge smile through her mask every single morning beaming at my kids i see the nutrition staff finding ways to keep the children of our community from going hungry i know that our custodians and other support staff are going above and beyond to clean
019and keep our buildings as safe as possible i know that our school nurses are swamped with contact chasing and still find time to return my calls about the covet flow chart and i know that our school psychologist school social workers and school counselors are also taking on more to help our children navigate this pandemic and i know there are so many more in our school system working every day to provide an outstanding educational experience for our children so at the end of the day we are new kent strong i trust that the leadership and team will continue to make the best decisions possible to teach to the highest educational standards to keep our children safe and to offer a welcoming environment for all so to everyone in our school system i say thank you know
020that you have the support of many parents in this community including the support of my family so thank you for the time thank you so much yes um barbara miller hi i'm barbara miller i'm going to give my time to my husband manchester thank you okay tom miller i assume that i'm assuming that's okay we're gonna address this we'll go ahead and i don't want to get in trouble the fbi off the bat we'll go ahead and put six minutes on the clock please thank you very much uh i'm tom miller fifth district live at one four four zero zero winding grove lane lenexa i'd like to address three issues tonight number one is the middle school book which ms white has already addressed to some extent diversity equity and inclusiveness for the rebranding of
021critical race theory and the new king county public school policy and community involvement the young mom that just spoke to you uh and posted in facebook on certain things that were in the poet x book that her son was given who was 11 years old and just turned 11 years old as a result of his participating in the national hispanic month and he did pick the book i'm sure he had little idea what he was picking and the book was given to him with a sticky on it with his name miss white once saw the principal the english teacher and the librarian to discuss it and the most upsetting thing to me about what i was told that took place here was a comment made to her about what about this book do you find
022defensive so how about if i read to you the page from that book that somebody in this system one of the three said what do you find defensive would that be okay i don't think we need to hear it i think we've seen i really don't want to read it so i'm going to ask miss hall to pass out a copy of extracts from that book not only the page that was in facebook but a number of other things i read the book and i'm delighted to hear that it's been removed from the new kent county middle school and i ask the superintendent and you to do the following i'd like to know who is reviewing library books that are approved for this middle school are their parents involved who is responsible for giving an
02311 year old this book who actually did this the character in the book is 15 years old he's a sophomore so who did that and how are they going to be held accountable and if we don't peel this back and look and see what other books as you just heard from one of the speakers i'm not convinced that we don't have other books of this nature in our school system not only in middle school but possibly in the high school second item i want to talk about is the department of education's mandate regarding cultural competency training training that will be required for all of our new kent county public school teachers prior to the 2022-2023 school year training that is now required due to senate bill 1196 passed by the 2021 general assembly requires new
024teachers before they are certified to have this training and any teacher that's renewing their license to also have the training so how will this work cultural composite competency training is going to be based on a department of education document called navigating equity virginia roadmap to equity 52 pages in length one of the contributors to this document is dr ibrahim x kennedy probably doesn't ring a bell to anybody in this room but he's the guy that pushed central uh critical race theory and he's references in this document the department of education has that we are going to have to use to instruct our teachers as a contributor to that document the department education document is all about diversity equity and inclusiveness uh we now refer that to dei if you haven't heard that term dr nichols
025has stated publicly that crt is not taught in the new kent county public schools well the rebranding of crt into dei and then essentially teaching subjects through the lens of crt tells us a bit of a different story let me give you some definitions diversity the practice of quality of including or involving people from a range of different social and ethnic backgrounds and of different genders sexual orientation etc equity this has replaced equality instead of ensuring that every american has an equal opportunity to succeed equity demands equal outcomes identity everything is about what you are not who you are whites are born racists this is the dei this is the department of education document so i have some questions has worked been initiated in preparing instructional material for cultural competency training in this county how
026will a new teacher apply for a license to teach at new kent county public school get this cultural competency training now required to get their teaching certificate if new kent county public school teachers have been informed that they will have to take the cultural competency training before the 2022-2023 school year will this school system develop a cultural competency training a program in-house or by contract are teachers aware that they will be evaluated on how they implement cultural competency training in their classroom instructions are you prepared to deal with the loss of teachers when they are confronted by what the state is going to require have you expressed your concerns to the department of education and or the state superintendent of schools and if so how i'm not going to get to the third top topic
027because i'm out of time i defer to the chair that's miss leslie trivet is going to defer her time so we'll add three minutes i'll try to stay under three minutes the other thing that i'd like to talk about is your public policy uh regarding participation of the public in the meetings it is customary for the school board as you said not to make comment i understand that however the will provide responses to comments and questions during the next regularly scheduled meeting and i wrote uh mrs stasciel uh about doing exactly it along with bringing up again for the second or third time speaking at the work sessions that is not going anywhere and i didn't get a response after several days i i followed up and i did get a response and the response
028i quote received confirmed thanks but no answer to the questions i raised now does this foster community involvement this board has refused to take a vote on the masking mandate despite considerable public input asking for that a vote be taken it has refused to allow comments at the work session you did not discuss senator dunavat or peterson's letter regarding senate bill 1303 which was the basis for the governor's direction to the department of health to edict mandate masks you can be a part of the solution or you could be the problem many of us out here are beginning to think you're the problem so tonight i ask that you try a little harder to understand the community that has elected you to serve thank you very much thank you mr jb benson jb benson 3902
029homestead road lenexa district five madam chair i think we've pretty well established that u5 board members have a heavy responsibility and i know that must weigh on you the people of this community who you see represented here at all your meetings have freely given their input their ideas their beliefs and so forth but we need to know how you feel after this meeting i'm going to work with my school board member to try to draft up a statement of support for equal treatment of all students whether it has to do with gender sexual preference ethnicity or skin color i think you need to be on record as stating how you feel about these things i think that will go a long way toward cementing your relationships with the community thank you very much thank you
030miss sandy agatha my name is sandy gottier i live in district five and i want to talk about uh national bullying prevention month i think bullying includes bullying parents and grandparents and taxpayers there's a group called the national school board association which on the 29th of september through the help of several people who work for the federal government wrote a letter to uh the attorney general asking for support and suppressing parents and five days later the attorney general of the united states sent out a memo to the fbi to the ex executive office of the us attorneys to the assistant attorney general of the criminal division and all u.s state attorneys telling them to take action against parents who were out of control who were emotional who might come to school board meetings and complain
031so my question is uh is a new kent county school system a member of the national school board association and if so what does that cost us that's taxpayer dollars and we would like to know uh what we're supporting so that's my request to the school board that we get a response as to what we're doing how much money is being spent taxpayer money spent in that manner thank you thank you miss brittany cole sean cole i just i brought up something for me just in case my sheer mask wasn't good enough an actual real mask that stopped nuclear biological i got the wrong uh canisters on it but i just want to show you in case anybody had a problem but um normally i kind of i got kind of asked to leave last
032time i was here but deputy back there very nicely because i refused to wear a mask i was going to come in here again not wear a mask because i'm not afraid of the fbi y'all anybody out here i do what i feel is right okay a lot of people don't a lot of people just do what they think they're told is the right thing to do um i don't come in here again not wear a mask then my wife who could not make it so don't do that they're going to ask you to leave again this is english has asked me please don't do that please talk um i wasn't going to when i'm going to come to this i've pretty much given up because last time i came here nobody backed me up
033i came in here by myself with no mask on and i'm waiting to see one time when all of y'all say we're not doing it no more what are you gonna do not have the meeting then it hits the papers press instagram facebook hey look at those parents they stood up so this morning my wife gets a call from the principal or the assistant nurse at the elementary school that she has been exposed to a positive child and now has to stay at home for 10 days so i called and talked to the principal i don't know her name i apologize and asked her what what how is my child exposed tell me who she was i don't need to know who she exposed i i understand that you're not going to tell me what
034child came down or parent or teacher or whatever she's like well i can't tell you that well i said i need to know a little bit of the rules on how you decide who goes home okay well she said we are following the rules i said well on the virginia state health department government government website it says children kindergarten through 12th grade who both both wear masks even if one of them comes up test positive there is no need to quarantine them you can check the website out so i need to know where the rules are coming from and she didn't know she told me to talk to you because i need to know y'all need to know what are the rules a five-year-old stays at home now for 10 days with probably my 77
035year old mother who is as we all know a very susceptible uh person with covey she has sisters they go out your kids that are quarantined go out on the weekends like normal around everybody it makes absolutely no sense this mask right here everybody didn't blink an eye when i walked in here with it i can breathe just as free as i could um thank you mr calm it's just ridiculous you all need to come up with a better plan it's gonna be a vicious cycle how many days does my kids stay at home this year over virus that's virtually harmless to them thank you mr calm i didn't even look at it um miss alexis lasseter all right so my name is alexis lassiter i live at 7981 point lookout road west point virginia
036um it is still part of new kent county we're in plum point gotta love it so basically i'm not really here to talk about books i'm not here to talk about masks um you know i can talk all day about masks and whatnot i work for pfizer um you know in the actual illnesses that are affecting our children after getting covered but my issue that i am dealing with is i am fighting the baptist church in my neighborhood because my son would like to use his bus stop his bus stop has been backpedaled and brought back to the concept of well it's as close to the church's property without being on the church's property and that's ironic because in our area there is nothing but the road or the church's property now why this is
037an issue is because my son and another little boy of new ken elementary school were sitting on the very edge of a sidewalk connected to the church's property it is part of the church's property but is essentially on the line because there is an existence of a public right-of-way and a woman in her pajamas and her bonnet came out side and walked past not one but two adults to scream at my eight-year-old and a six-year-old this issue with the plum point mata pony bus stop has been going on since i was in middle school the patrons of saint luke's baptist church believe wholeheartedly it is completely okay to scream at your child my son ran away that day that they were screaming at town and it was a big mass panic to find out if
038he had made it on the bus or not i personally know that the school has a lot of things on their back and what i'm asking for tonight is support from not only the school board but everyone in this room for our kids because community bus stops are a thing here in new kent county we have dirt roads we have holy roads we you name it we got it okay and so my son has to go it's point zero two tenths of a mile up the road to his bus stop to be able to get on the bus but at this bus stop it is utterly unsafe there is a fifth grader who proceeds to stand in the middle of the road instead of standing anywhere near the grass on either side of this bus
039stop which are both two private properties and both owners and recipients have made sure that these children excuse me and i quote these damn kids better not be on my property and what i'm requesting tonight is support to press upon vdot you know what i don't understand is why in the state of virginia through the virginia department of education there is three rules about the most dangerous place for children in relation to schools which happens to be the bus stop and so what i'm looking for is support and signing this petition to help me come down on vdot about putting a bus stop or a sidewalk or something in that neighborhood thank y'all thank you okay and that is all for our citizen comment period uh next up is new business um we have the
040class size report mr miller yes madam chair members of the board um each year each fall we uh are required to provide a class size report to you as well as to the citizens so just going to go over those tonight as far as numbers for this fall and this includes also numbers for the spring for secondary schools the new kid elementary school um we have the number of sections here and then the total enrollment by grade level and then the average class sizes at each grade level um they're fairly typical for us other than the first grade which is at 23. a lot of that has to do with just the the numbers and where they're at and we needed six uh classes in kindergarten and so we had to move the class a
041teacher down to there which did leave us a little bit larger at the first grade the other grade levels are all pretty pretty standard and actually a little bit lower um at the upper grade levels than normal the at watkins um these numbers are fairly typical for us until you get to fourth grade that is large fourth grade that we have coming through um and the the however it is still within our typical limits for classes um at the elementary level yeah i don't i know believe that we do have pursued and we have space we have space for an additional class the at the middle school classes i did a slightly different report here i do have the average class sizes which are again the averages are pretty pretty in line with what we
042typically have um our largest class sizes are in the upper 20s and reach as high as 30 in four classes and pe 33 which is fairly typical and then our smallest class sizes which are in the um lower numbers a lot of the the fluctuation there has to do with either scheduling or um is the biggest piece is where where does it fit in the schedule and a lot of the higher classes as i summarize at the end are more advanced or accelerated classes where we'll have like two at a grade level and um to it's difficult if you jump to a third then the class size those classes jump way down and it will then make the other class sizes go up so quick question on the world languages are we recruiting for a
043teacher there the are we currently recruiting for a teacher we're we have all our slots full currently oh okay okay and mr miller we have an art class with two two students then yeah they that is a combined class with another class so it's it's an art class but there's it's during a period where there's another class in that room as well so it's not the only students in that class and you said that was for here to hear him is two hearing impaired students is that what you said i did not say that oh okay i said same thing dr nick gotcha good question the and then at the high school um again class sizes overall average class size is within our normal numbers um some of some of the classes are a little
044bit larger and here we also i will say we are we have four or four teachers down we have four openings at the high school and so once we are able to fill those hopefully that will improve some of those in the 30s similar last year there are several sections the middle school and high school that are larger or lower than normal um a lot of that has to do with basically having either accelerated advanced courses or just courses with where you have a section and a number of teachers that if we went a little bit higher then our class size would drop there but then would go up elsewhere one that didn't note here but that we've also said is our class size a little bit larger because of some openings that we've currently
045been unable to fill at this point what is do you know um mr miller what is the state average the state class average don't know as a state right now and we have soqs are required to be under which we are under everywhere but i don't know a state average at this point i can see if i can find that out for you just be interested to see where we fall in the continuum of other school divisions of our size with our um with our average class sizes yeah that's why i mean because some of them if you have if your average student's 29 it's much different being 29 versus 20 or 21. it looks like most of our elementary is around 21 right now any any other questions thank you next is the 2122
046advisory committee memberships dr nichols take one um so board members you do have before you a list of advisory committee memberships so each year we bring to you a list of advisory committees and members for reviewer approval this is a fluid list so the list that you have in front of you may not be the final list we may add and drop throughout and you'll see i'll have a plea here in a second so here are the following advisory committee recommendations uh provided to you for the 21-22 school year and these are opportunities to engage with stakeholders in various forms so we have the superintendent teacher advisory committee made up of members of each of our schools multiple members we actually have our first meeting next wednesday we have a superintendent's parent advisory committee uh
047so here's my first plea of the evening i am in need of some elementary parents that would like to participate in that advisory we offer a hybrid approach whether it's in person or virtual so if you want to hang out in this library another night a month we've got you but we can also zoom you in as well um so we do have that list in front of you but we're actively recruiting uh new members actually almost every parent i talk to i end with hey you want to be on beat parent advisor we do some pretty big important work there last year we took on communication which you can see as a continuation this year pto ptso presidents is another committee we have a wellness committee sick lead bank committee community safety gifted advisory
048cte advisory career and technical education school health advisory committee and our special education advisory committee in addition to this list of members the special education advisory committee also included a membership application and bylaws as well as a matter of fact i do want to recognize our seac short for special education advisory committee uh president mr christina luntzer is present tonight so we want to thank her uh being a president on one of these committees is sort of a thankless position but it makes a tremendous impact uh as well so we definitely want to thank her for being here tonight so board members i'd be happy to take any questions on this but it will come before you for approval later under action items the only comment i had is under the school health advisory committee
049i think the school nurse needs to be updated at the high school okay just good catch make that update there any so initially when i got here it was on a quarterly basis i felt that was too far apart like if we're really going to work together it needs to be more of a monthly basis so it's almost a monthly basis to say almost because we don't meet in december and we don't meet in june so it's basically a monthly commitment of about an hour hour and a half but we do have parents that can't make every meeting and so forth but we have minutes and and all of those pieces as well so teacher advisor runs the same way i actually do them on the same day teacher advisor at 3 15 and then
050parent advisory five you mentioned communication what are some of the other areas of discussion i think a big area discussion for the parent advisory we're still working on the agenda for next week but it's going to be around um covet dashboard quarantines communication i've had an opportunity to go to several of the ptso pto meetings and one of the questions that i got a couple times i think at the high school one i was at as well is do you have to call me every time there's a positive case at a school which is a practice that we we do so make sure we have our communication where it needs to be in related to covet um at the high school level we'll be pushing on these career um education expansion opportunities we've talked about
051computer science we've talked about uh military science and some different areas that we'll do there so we'll do some of the instructional piece i do have a feeling that most of the agenda will be spent on our start this year but we have had a couple topics brought up tonight that could be included in there as well so taking a look at some of our policies and practices and regulations so and then there's always an open section at both of these meetings for anything that the parents or teachers want to bring to the agenda and sorry if i was yelling still with the microphone all right next are our action items now do i hear a motion to think we have ministers policy services oh i'm sorry um the sba policy services contract renewal sorry
052about that dr nichols all right i believe that's me again um so board members uh bsba the virginia school board association uh we rely on their policy services as a small school division we don't have our own policy person um it's our starting point for policies the vsba policy services annual contract is up for renewal um for the 2122 school year as member of as members of bsba policy services we receive recommended policy updates so that's the general assembly meets and laws have changed and revisions to policies um it's at least quarterly which if you've been on the board for a while you've seen those come through quarterly uh based on changes made in local and state government so we always look at those and look at their new camp lens as well but it
053gives us a really good starting point um it's an annual fee of which is significantly cheaper than employing a policy person or even a part-time policy person so that is um an action item for you i'd be more than happy to answer any questions you may have so dr nichols larger school districts have a policy person on staff many school divisions have a policy personal staff whether it's a full-time policy not many school divisions larger school divisions um sometimes it's a policy slash lobbyist uh because those two seem to go together even so um most of those school divisions still have the vsta policy contract um because they do a lot of that heavy lifting for school divisions thank you and also it might be helpful too if it's some in a future maybe a
054work session we talk about the benefits of our being part of the vsba and any other organizations absolutely that we're a part of and what these benefits give us like these policy revisions and and there have been times board members you may recall where we go in a little bit of a different direction than the policy recommendation because it doesn't match um you know what we're working through or our regulations are more stringent and we want to keep those that's the most pressing example was that our time before last policy update vsba recommended removing the regulations and we decided to keep them in there because we thought it gave us more information but as always policies come before you for two reads to be approved right all right now on to the action items uh
055do i hear a motion to approve the 2021-2022 advisory committees as presented i moved we approved the 2021-22 advisory committees with the correction for the um high school school nurse uh enjoy here a second a second any further discussion all those in favor opposed motion carries uh next do i hear a motion to approve the vsva policy services contract as presented move we approve this vsba policy service contract has presented and do i hear a second any further discussion all those in favor all right any post motion carries all right our next meeting will be we have a work session september 25th is our work session six o'clock not september october i almost made the whole meeting um october 25th um at six o'clock right here in the