August 9, 2021 School Board Meeting

001this good evening everybody i would like to call the new kent county school board regular meeting on monday august 9th 2021 and miss barbara i'm sorry do i hear a motion to go i'm sorry your emotions come out of closed session the move will come out of court sessions do i hear a second a second can a vote all right miss please can you please read the certification closed session whereas the new kent county school board has convened a first meeting on this date pursuant to an affirmative reported 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

002it 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 requirements by virginia law were discussed in closed meetings 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 and do i hear a motion to approve the certification of the closed session make a motion we approve the certification has read and a vote please all right all right thank you very much we are in this evening's meeting and i just before we get started officially with our pledge of allegiance i would just like to let everybody know that our board chair andrea

003stasco cannot be here with us this evening so i am stepping in as board chair for the city all right and now can you have a pleasure for which it stands one nation under god indivisible with liberty and justice thank you very much and the first item on our agenda for this evening is school board member and superintendent comments do i have any school board members with opening comments this ceiling miss farmer uh i would i'd just like to look uh reflect back on graduation because that was uh it was really a remarkable experience it was it was nice to have it here at the gym in the in the um in the building it was a little bit small but the opportunity to celebrate once a year with our seniors as they as they

004move on is really really very special and you really recognize how important everything that we do is and uh you see on the students faces as they walk across the stage it's just it's just priceless seeing that with each student and um thankful that we were able to do that in person this year excellent thank you thank you ms barbour and ms mcphee any comments from you well this is my actually my first official board meeting and uh i've been to two work sessions previously and i appreciate the support from the community to come out and participate and learn what's going on with the school board and to share your feedback mr mead you know i just want to say that as we are entering into this end of the summer process and preparing for

005for the fall i know that the challenges that have been faced by um dr nichols and clark and and having mr hochman here mr miller this morning the board is that we're in a much different place today than we were a year ago and i am very grateful for all the hard work that the superintendent and his staff and administration have put into getting us to this point so i look forward to as we open school to uh to move even further forward another thing i like to say is that i appreciate all of the people that have showed up this evening and i can say as a school board member being here now the my second year is that this is probably by far the most people that have showed up at a public

006public hearing of the school board agenda that has been in the last two years and my point to that is my personal opinion is this is the way it should be every single school because you are the constituents that hire that hire that elected us to be here to represent the community and and so it is because of you and your opinions and and your feedback that allow us to represent uh the school and so my encouragement to you is do not be strangers when it comes to voicing your opinions with uh within the school division that's why that's why you elected us and for your voice to be heard you have to show up and so i would encourage you just like this evening and future meetings to show up and avoid your opinion

007because we don't know what we don't know and when we do know it we're able to make better decisions to represent you your families and in the community so thank you so much for showing up and for um and for voicing your uh your concerns just by your attendance and being here thank you dr nichols uh superintendent comments sure um good evening uh echoing some of those comments that have already been said i'm excited to see uh the crowd here the last time we had a large crowd is when we looked at moving the calendar by a couple of weeks so we do appreciate the feedback it's always good to get that um interaction i want to make the offer publicly but also is um that you have access to me at any time as

008the superintendent whether whether in the community by phone meeting to talk through issues as we go through because i'm not just a superintendent i'm a resident and a father of a young man who should go across that graduation stage at the end of this school year and it's not lost on me as we go into our third school year dealing with the pandemic that's had challenges in all facets of life that i have a young man at home um right now who is most of his high school career has been extremely disruptive and it's my goal for all of our kids to come back full force five days a week and work through uh this this pandemic and work through these challenges knowing that we'd be doing this anywhere we were i'm i'm happy to

009be here in new cab working through it with this community so i just want to say thank you for your as i hand every phone call thank you for your flexibility and support because the rules continue to change the guidance continues to change we're here to make the next best decision and and i'm very proud of the work we'll continue to do so thank you thank you and i i just also want to thank everybody for attending this evening as i turn around i keep finding more people so it's wonderful to see parents grandparents members of the community committed to what we do here in new kent county public schools as far as my opening comments i just wanted to take a minute to thank dr nichols and his staff for the summer of war

010we successfully completed that program over four weeks in july i think it was a great opportunity for our students and our teachers to extend learning into the summer it was really a project-based learning approach where students were able to really foster creativity learning and innovation in the classroom so again thank you for that opportunity dr nichols i know that was many many months in the planning and i from all accounts it was it was very successful our elementary school continues to make progress our new elementary school clinton elementary school after we broke ground in february the construction progress continues many of you have seen pictures drive by it and we're definitely excited about the work that continues there um and on a personnel note i'd like to thank dr nichols for the work that he's

011done to really um uh organize and create a central office a team of leaders that that he worked very strongly over the past year two years to to put people in place in the right positions a lot of times people don't see that but he's worked uh very hard to get people into new positions not only in the central office but in each of our schools and i just want to take a second just to mention their names again some have been on board a little bit longer than others but it's important for you to understand who these people are jeremy hoffman is our assistant superintendent of operations um allison anderson is not here this evening but she is our new executive director of human resources she has a very important job um dr clark

012has been on board with us since november so you're a veteran now that she is our executive director of exception exceptional education and student services so we definitely appreciate having you on board jamie hutchinson who's not here this evening she's our supervisor of secondary curriculum and instruction stephanie sutton is an assistant principal at george watkins we have kyle moser is our planning principal at clinton elementary school mr frank wheeler who's here this evening is our new principal at new kent middle school so we're happy to have him in that position and dr amy spam at the new principal at new ken elementary so i really just wanted to make sure that we just um you know put those names out there again and again dr nichols has really done a good job in creating a

013strong leadership team and we look forward to um to working with all of them and and finally to everybody here i've i'm a parent of children in new kent county public schools and we're definitely aware that parents guardians and students are very interested to know the details regarding the health and safety protocols protocols that will be in place when school starts on september 7th and given the fluidity of the current situation new king county public schools continues to monitor the dynamic nature of the pandemic as it plays out in our community and refines our in-classroom health protocols one thing we ask is that we certain and ask that our community will be characterized by spirit of cooperation by generosity and by grace as we navigate the waters ahead so thank you very much and we'll

014move forward with the agenda the next item on our agenda this evening um is consent agenda correct oh no i'm sorry recognitions dr nichols nominations to the 2021 vsba media honor roll absolutely thank you very much mr limper um so annually we nominate uh someone to the 2021 vsda media honor roll and i think he's gone back to back to back to back on this one and it's no exception today the bsba media honor roll was created to recognize fair and balanced reporting about our schools and virginia public education system noting the importance role reporters and medialists play in education school division leaders rely on responsible reporting by local media representatives so that our community members receive timely information about division initiatives and programs each year the vsba seeks nominations to their media honor roll

015list um and before i go with our nomination the reason we nominate this person is because he's always there to report all sides of everything he wants the good news he wants the updated news he wants the bad news and everything in between i will tell you we don't have partners like that everywhere i have certain stations that only call when something bad happens that's not a partner in this work the partner is reporting all sides of it and we're very pleased and excited to nominate mr andre jones of the new cat charles city chronicle who's here with us today uh mr jones has always reported events in new kent fairly and accurately and we're incredibly fortunate to have so once again mr jones thank you for the work you do and your nomination and

016we'll come back uh once bsb has done their work with us so thank you all right next item on the agenda is the consent agenda board members by now you have had the opportunity to review the items listed on the consent agenda including minutes from previous meetings bills and payroll monthly financials and the superintendent's recommendations regarding personal matters do i hear a motion to approve the consent agenda as presented i move we approve the consent agenda as presented do i hear a second second right and a vote please all right motion carries moving along the next item number six is citizen comment period all right we have 13 people signed up to speak this evening um before we go ahead and get started i would just like to read um our statement uh before we

017begin i would like to thank everyone for coming out tonight to speak 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 all right thank you again for coming and our first speaker this evening is mr jb vince mr benson good evening i'm jv benson 3902 homestead road to the next i'm chair first thing i want to do is to thank members of the board for stepping up to serve our county educating our children and preparing them for life is an awesome responsibility it's

018one for which you receive very little recognition appreciation unless there's some kind of a problem i'm sure many of our citizens don't even know who their supervisor is asking them sometimes she'll find out and very even a fewer number know who represents them in school and judging by our audience tonight you're not going to be laboring an obscurity very much longer look forward to hearing what they have to say sometimes it's triggering incidents that are triggering issues like crt transgender bathrooms masking mandates that get people's attention and that's a good thing there's a lot more to education than those issues i'm sure you'll be hearing more about those tonight my primary and overarching concern is not for those particular issues although they're very important my concern is for the basic core job of educators our

019graduates able to read and write perform math problems do they understand our country's history and culture do they realize how fortunate they are to live in this country of generosity and tolerance and i hope that our teachers will help them in the future understand that they're very fortunate to be here and realize there's more to teaching than just the reading and writing again thank you for the opportunity of speaking too thank you thank you very much all right next um is it w estes iii sorry okay please come yeah please come up thank you i'm sorry again with echo we want to thank you for your service we want to thank you for all your hard work and we also want to ask for your forgiveness for our apathy in the past we are now

020engaged and i'm here to tell you i kind of represent a little group of community that we've gotten together recently and it is um the impetus was this critical race theory and what was going on in mountain county that has has inspired a lot of people to to go from passivity to activism and this is basically what we're here for we understand all the issues of the mask and all that my concern i used to be a high school teacher i also taught my multicultural studies when it was multicultural studies not this propaganda not this marxist agenda that it is today and uh as an educator i'm here because i love kids i don't have children in the system but i still have a heart of a teacher and i really want to stress a

021couple of things to you that i know you know this but i want to remind you on behalf of our citizens that the school is to educate not to indoctrinate okay is to teach objective truth and facts not propaganda it's to teach history not rewrite history i taught history and i taught both sides when we discussed slavery they i showed them the pictures of how they were transported um the kids cried i didn't hide the good the bad and the ugly i thought but today with this critical race theory the premise is that our country is a racist horrible country and that there is no redeeming value i disagree with that history disagrees with that and so please make sure that our books are teaching correct history not rewriting it based on this 1619 project

022which is an academic disaster has no merit we're here to promote good citizenship not hatred for our country and we're here to produce law-abiding citizens that will contribute to society not political activists that hate our country and this is what's taking place all throughout the united states the focus of education and my focus as a teacher was the individual student and i did not see a student as a member of an oppressor or oppressed minority or oppressor white or an oppressed minority so i want you to when you're doing your duties keep those tenants in mind we're here to educate not indoctrinating thank you very much nice oh thank you did you sign up called well i didn't know she's passed okay and our call our call yeah gotcha randy okay yeah this is a

023sign up sheet to speak not just to okay peter london yeah thank you my name is uh peter londing i live at 88 65 greenwich in uk i do want to thank the board for its participation and it's volunteering to do this work which is as many people on the board now it's pretty regardless i know there's going to be a lot of issues coming before this board this year and in future years and i hope that the focus of the board and the focus for the schools is really on the education of the students the individual students and that they receive the very basic things that they need to have in a in a very well taught manner they need to know the reading the writing the math the science the historical facts opinions

024and my expectation is that the school board and the teachers in the school believe the morality character and values teaching and political indoctrination to the parents very important morality character and values are the job of parents out of not teachers not in schools and i hope the school board when they're looking at all the issues that come before it over the next year and in future years look at that and say we're here to teach the students so they can have the skill set that they need to have to go out in life and do what they need to do take the next step whether it's going to college or whether it's going immediately to work or it's joining the military or going to some type of other type of vocational school they need the

025skill sets to take it to the next level and they don't need morality character and values being taught by the school and in fact finally i want to encourage everybody that's here i mean i'm incredibly encouraged the number of people who showed up today i will make the commitment not necessarily be here every week but i will be here frequently because i think it's important that you understand what the community wants and i i want to once again thank you i want to thank everybody i want to encourage everybody to come to all these meetings as much as they can thank you next on our list i apologize if i mispronounced jared is it hot or far heart yeah evening by the way and yeah thank you guys for all that you do um and

026all the proper formal salutations as well so members of the board superintendent thank you guys all for what you do i want you to know that the community is praying for you guys i think now more than ever uh this role this position uh holds a lot more authority than it's ever held before with the climate of our culture shifting so drastically so i want you to know that we're appreciative of you and we're praying for you uh by name i love that y'all's name is that your cell number on the website because sometimes i get lunch sometime y'all put your cell number on the website it's obviously not customary as i've heard and i'm new to this and i really don't make any apologies for that but i hope to be more involved in

027the future but it's not customary for you guys to answer questions i understand i don't know if we're allowed to get uncustomaried or not i got a couple of questions because i haven't been involved and number one is uh did the board make a decision on the model policies that were sent down by governor northam regarding critical race theory and regarding uh you know transgender bathroom policy the board may make a decision on that we're going to stay customary they're my bosses so if i defer to that we did we did not change any of our policy on those decisions after we um were advised by our council that our our current policy was definitely well within our our needs and we had no changes to make but dr so you did not adopt the

028governor's record so i'll jump in though uh so critical race theory and i know some of you are here to speak about this not a part of our curriculum it's not been going to be a part of our curriculum we follow the standards set forth by the state of virginia um and then the textbooks are approved throughout that so that's not a part of what we do and there are no there's no intent to be a part of that and the model transgender policy that was put forth by the virginia department of education has not been put forward to this board and there are no plans to do that [Applause] that's not to say we don't protect every kid and look out for every kid and do all those kind of things i don't want

029those things i'm just answering the question directly as you asked it um but so under those two things which i know um now i'm gonna go over my three minutes um did y'all pause my time no no no it's still i'll take my time so this is generated and since we have so many people here it's just i just got checked out it's generated a lot of conversation and i wish we could generate some more conversation on how do we get kids into traits and how do we get kids and so i mean keep this energy going and we'll answer those questions but you know how do we do some big i'm here for a long time and i'm trying to do some historic things for our community and partner but how do we do

030those things together so that's kind of my three minutes and challenge to this group as we go through that so when you ask a question i take the liberty to go in a little bit different direction but yeah absolutely so all right all right we'll put you back on i'm done all right now and so i'll shift this one to more of a statement because i'm sure you guys have legal counsel that's far more qualified than me but i will a little bit of research that i have done uh the governor's recent press conference uh holds no legal authority over you uh his his um he had uh the ability to make executive orders during a state of emergency that has expired if you look closely at the wording he made an executive directive i

031don't know what that means legally but it is not an executive order and he references sb senate bill 1303 that bill was written by conservative lawmakers and voted on by conservative lawmakers to ensure you're probably more familiar with it than i am so i'm not trying to insult your intelligence but i want to make sure you know it was written to ensure that all children get the opportunity to in personal learning had nothing to do with uh masks at all but he references that and is trying to use that as authority overview on your policy and what to do he doesn't have that authority uh to do that and that law has nothing to do with that so i'll just say that and then i'll leave you with this the prophet jeremiah and the bible

032the prophet jeremiah he's writing to the exiles of israel and i just want to give you this church i think the authority god's given you in your position is a big deal i just want to remind you of that so he's basically writing to the prophet daniel who was exiled in israel and this is what he says to those who had leadership position in a government that was trying to overreach he said remember this he said seek the welfare of the city where i've sent you into exxon and in its welfare you'll find your welfare so we recognize you guys are making decisions for the community if you'll do what's best for you and your family according to god it'll be best for our families before you go so i would just encourage you to

033lean on all right next is anna atkins thank you again you know like the other one said just for your service i really appreciate it and i'm standing here not as a minority not a hispanic woman of color because that does not define who i am i'm standing here as a daughter of the most high who created me just like you with a high purpose to live abundantly and without fear and i'm very concerned as a health provider have seen firsthand the physical and psychological damage that hispanic has created not only in adults but our children our children are living in fear are afraid to even remove their masks for me to address an issue in their mouths they are scared of physical contact and i have seen a tremendous amount of children on depression

034and anxiety medications when we know that children have a very low risk of very embarrassed second i am against the school engaging in the teaching of critical race theory it causes the vision of hate it is my job as a parent to address and teach my children about their relationship with god sexuality values and walls not the school thank you thank you very much right next is uh mr greg pullum how y'all doing uh i'll be real quick uh i'm a former educator myself i taught for five years of special education at thomasdale high school my mom has retired from chesterfield county schools as a security archive the first woman's security guard at chesterfield county schools i'm retired there my brother also taught for years special education we both taught football so i want to

035thank you all for your service and also being on the board i know what you're doing is not easy let me first tell you y'all are taking some shots and have to deal with some heavy stuff at the same time welcome to stewardship amen uh that's where he at i just want to leave you with something i studied a lot of martin luther king learned a lot from him he said this something again i'm here i'm representing the church i make no mistake about that i am all about the church i'm not the church's influence that's who i represent and uh because martin luther king jr said this the church must be reminded that it's not the master of the servant of the state but rather it is the conscience of the state it must

036be the guide and the critic of the state and never its tools further if the church does not recapture its prophetic field it will become an irrelevant social club without moral or spiritual authority so i'm here to tell you it's not a threat we're here to work beside you with you but the church will be the conscience of the state we are praying for you we are involved our church is growing in number and our kids go to these schools we pray for their teachers they love you they admire you we teach our kids to respect teachers and all authority so it does scare me what they're being taught amen um they're going to listen to everything you say if they don't come tell us um but at the same time if it's contrary to

037what they're taught the word of god uh they should deny it and go against it so um i understand the church is here to support you but we are going to be uh present amen and uh one last thing i i think a lot about jesus speaking to the little children and warning us about teaching children he says in matthew 18 6 whoever causes one of these little ones to stumble who believes in me he said it would be better for them to have a milestone over their head and thrown in a seated dream i do believe mass and purple race theories and stuff like that is hindering children from growing and truly learning and growing up i also believe when jesus said they never hinder little children from coming to me it is a

038scary scary thing as dr atkins said when um you know when kids come into your coffee shop or coming to your church they're wearing a mask and they're backing up but they won't come near you they won't talk it's a scary scary thing and i believe we're violating what jesus said by hindering the children that's what i believe i'll take it a step further which really scares me and again this isn't directly towards this board because evidently y'all directed the right policy to praise god and i'm proud of you guys but uh i begin to think you know as we begin to identify people in this country and label them etc and not to get too political but if you remember it was adolf hitler who decided to put a star on all the jewish

039people including the children he sewed them every piece of their clothing because he too said they were infected and different and we're not human beings he would march them in lines everywhere they went treating them as known humans so let's be mindful of that as we educate our children amen you have a friend in journey christian fellowship you have a friend in the church who will be a voice we will be a conscience of the state amen love you guys thank you very much mr mark daniel thank you ladies and gentlemen i'm mark daniel what an honor to be with you and again i echo some of the statements of uh dr atkins who spoke before me and i'll speak specifically about two things that are on my mind i know these of these have

040already been mentioned but don't help me to say this listen specifically with regards to the masks there may come a time when masks are going to be required we've seen it before but that time is not upon us yet and i think it will be worn out by our events and we heard a speech last week given by our governor where he rambled about and for me it left more questions than it did in answers and um quite frankly it's my opinion that the governor instead of making a decision and we know he can do it because he's done it before right he's trying to take an unpopular decision and pass it along to you because he doesn't want to take that by himself unfortunately that is i would tell you that though dr sivan

041donovan want to make sure i pronounced her name right because i messed it up four times coming up there's siobhan donovan who is a medical doctor she's an ogbyn she sponsored the bill and she says and that the language of sb 301303 is clear cdc guidance should be found as far as practicable practical so forcing small children to wear a masterpiece to protect adults who can be vaccinated is not practical my friend grant stephens wrote a letter to some of you he gave to you i hope you've seen it not glad to share with you he has three um small boys in the school system one of them is um speech um education if you will and he talked about the difficulty they were having when they came home with these masks he said his

042boys were having headaches they didn't want to eat the one fellow he said he thought it set him back a year so forcing mass will hold language development and small children back and make school miserable for students who have already been through a year of this masking in media virtual schools the solution is to make masking optional and vaccinate as many people as possible i think anybody can agree on that the governor's inconsistent message has destroyed the trust and quite frankly that's more confusion than it has been for directions you should know this sometimes at the board level we're faced with these decisions they come down to us when you have to do this you have no choice i can assure you if you didn't have a choice they wouldn't be asking you so i

043hope that you be strong and be bold and when the time comes you will know it and quite frankly it's a time for strong leadership you're the leaders and have every uh confidence that you'll do so next and my final uh subject is you mentioned race theory but we're seeing some things that come down to some of the handouts from the virginia department of education and even those it's interwoven with things that even though they don't come right out say critical race theory they talk about um equity instead of equalities a lot of buzzwords or whatever it is semantics being what they are my friend charles moss when i was a boy he was basically the baseball umpire he called me today we come from two different parties our political views are different i'll tell

044you i respect him i think the world of him two three years ago he came up with this this thing called the unity uh war and i participated in it because he said that we should do things that unite us he couldn't be more right as he has been his whole life as long as i've known anything that unites us is good and anything with regards to a critical race theory or two different classes that divides us is something we should not follow so i hope that you keep that in mind and i thank you for my chance to talk to you thank you this is sean cole sorry i got here late um i didn't think i was going to speak so i didn't really think about it but listening to people talk um

045made me think about a couple things it's pretty much the same thing all over we're all the same people probably 95 of us out here conservatives um i don't like to bring politics in it but crt is a liberal push 100 there are no conservatives pushing it it came from you know critical theory which was uh came up with in the 70s to break down systems that's the only reason the people that came up with it faced it uh on marxism to tear down systems that was it crt is the exact same thing they renamed it to tear down systems and are just going about a little bit different they're going to use race this time instead of economic class things like that um i got four kids to go to new kent and i've

046seen a lot of kids here talk to a lot of them uh they don't know a whole lot about history anywhere about anything so i don't know where where the school is failing the teachers are failing um so back in the 30s 40s 50s jim crow law segregation um one group of people consider another group of people inferior so now crt is just reversing that and telling another group of people you know what you might not know it but you're really messed up and deep down inside of you you're racist um and it's just to cause uh chaos and just tear down the system um i think we need to focus on teaching our kids some real history instead of this i think it's kind of garbage um i don't know if anybody would raise

047their hands up here i've kind of just got involved with this i've been sitting in the sidelines for way too long um who who's for this up here would anybody put their hands up because i know some of you are thank y'all have a good night i want to echo the sentiments of the rest of the other citizens who have come and want to thank you for what you do and for the time investment that you make the sacrifice from your own families and your time away i have set where you said i was uh i served williamsburg james city county prior to coming to lincoln county on board there i understand the decisions that need to be made and that sometimes good things come in a hard way i'm here today as a pastor

048of the river church and i am ecstatic to follow other pastors that have come and believers and i come first and foremost in the name of jesus christ but i also have grandchildren in the new kent county school system and i now for the past nine years have been a resident of duke county myself and i'm very proud of that i'm very proud of new kent county i'm very proud of what it represents and i too want to tell you that we pray for you we pray for each and every member of this board we pray for the teachers that teach the students the principles the administration and we will continue to do so irrespective of decisions that are made because we believe that god is still in authority and he is the one who

049will direct the steps as long as we continue in our faith to call upon his name i am however concerned about education in total that we understand the role of a teacher and the role of a parent a parent is to fashion those things which god has blessed them with that child to do character uh integrity love unity respect for all no matter what color or where they come from socioeconomically those are the things that i want to make certain that are left to the parents the teachers although in today's economy the teachers quite frankly are being called to be parents by the students who aren't parented well or who are maybe not even have parents and are living with a grandparent and and are in a bad way and i realize that responsibility that

050falls on a teacher shoulders but nonetheless that responsibility to teach must remain and must remain solid with the basic foundations of education education not indoctrination and as we see throughout our country and even here in the commonwealth virginia in the northern part and the northern counties their total desire is to indoctrinate change and replace and i can believe i can speak for the rest of the citizens of nipton county that that is not what we desire and however let me close with this and say that we sincerely appreciate you we will be here in numbers we will believe i believe this is has sparked and activated a whole new move of recognition of what's going on so thank you again thank you very much thank you and last on our list for citizen comment leslie

051i sure [Music] thank you hi i'm leslie tribbett i'm a mom of eight-year-old twin boys they turn nine tomorrow so they are rising third graders and i am not here representing a church but i will say um as important as being a mother to my boys is my first priority is to be a child of god and follow jesus christ so i want you to know that um two points to make but first i'm going to say it is so awesome to see everybody here because i really got lonely standing up here during coven and um it's just so good to see so many involved uh parents and citizens here and i majored in speech communication if you are but i cannot say it better than those of you who follow me so i wholeheartedly

052agree with everything each speaker here has had to say so i'm not going to try to do any better or repeat it i have two points the first is over the summer and really for several years i've had play dates with moms of my children's friends at the pool at the clinton park and we talk and they're all saying recently this is not working the teachers are telling me that the social distancing of three feet that they have to maintain from their students is not allowing them to use their classrooms effectively they're not allowed to interact with their students effectively especially the younger students the teachers need to see their mouths forming sounds they need to have that personal connection with the students in order to for it to work for them um so i

053will humbly beg you to do away with a three-foot distancing rule especially for our youngest students the second thing is um gosh the masking please just do it with it you have the power not the governor and it's really causing a problem for many of our students my medical history is not anybody's business but i will tell you i have the vaccine my husband has the vaccine um we made that decision for personal reasons not because i trust the cdc or any particular government agency um but what's most important is that our children are not masked they're not kept from their teachers and they're allowed to be free and happy and learn in a free environment thank you again to everybody for uh citizen comments this evening really really do appreciate it moving along in

054our agenda under new business opening of schools which is in alignment with essential goal number two communicate with the community regarding resources safety and school success dr nichols all right so thank you miss whitford we're gonna talk a little bit about opening of schools there is not a planned vote this evening on anything this is just where the information is today what i learned through this process last year as we did i think 7 000 return to learn presentations is every time we lined up we got different guidance and different shifts and this past week has been no different uh the governor did have a press conference on thursday at two o'clock if you think superintendents really got like a sneak peek and knew it was coming i assure you i learned it with you

055which doesn't make for good communication on my side and really working this through but this is where we are today we'll come back in a work session provide additional information so opening of schools i want to talk about the fact that we really kept school going through the summer and miss swinford uh recognized our summer more program we knew that there were gaps for students and gaps in learning and socialization and a lot of different things so we launched our summer of more program meaningful opportunities for real world engagement and had a very successful summer experience for students and this was in grades k through 12. um you could see some of the pictures whether it was teacher learning or student learning we were outside a ton we built things we made things happen we

056partnered with the fire department i hope that math problem on the bottom right is correct um you know we did all of this work just in an effort to really wrap around kids and work with students and work with our teachers with an eye on launching five days a week full in the fall so i just wanted to to highlight a couple of those along those same lines there's going to be even more summer of more so you put more and more words in the same line you can we were just awarded on friday a 50 000 planning grant from virginia department of education it was a competitive grant for us to extend additional learning opportunities to partner with the community and provide even more opportunities for kids we're very excited about that more information

057coming soon um so our 21 22 opening of school guiding principles we know that students benefit most from in-person learning uh we know that education safety should be top priorities we want to focus as much as possible on prevention consider community needs and last year taught us more than anything else to be flexible and innovative so as things adjus as things shift that we continue to shift with it with the priority of being in person so those are our guiding principles um just a reminder that several speakers mentioned vaccine vaccine guidance availability it is readily available um so and put a link there if you see this presentation online you can click on that link and find your nearest um vaccination resource center we have partnered with the chicken harmony health district and we county

058to offer a number of vaccination clinics both for adults and students if that need arises we'll continue to do that partnership should just make it accessible and efficient for families uh this is just a visual of mitigation strategies to review so our goal is to do as many mitigation strategies as possible um focus on prevention so every time i have an opportunity to speak about school i want to go in the opposite direction of when i was in school where it was the focus on perfect attendance and you get a bike and you do all those we're not there anymore if you're sick stay home because one student showing up sick or one adult showing up sick could end up quarantining an entire class or half a school or whatever so we'd rather you stay

059home for a day and then come see us and and uh not to worry about the perfect attendance awards right now okay so it starts there at home and then it works all the way through through quarantine and isolation uh we work very hard on ventilation spending more times outdoors air filtration limiting our crowds and focus on hand hygiene and cough etiquette so that's really the work we've been doing um fast and sensitive testing and tracing we continue to partner with chickahominy health district if there is a positive case or exposure to do the contact tracing with them in partnership with them um using any resources that we do receive to put right back in schools in terms of ventilation in terms of um in terms of uh hand washing what is the stuff that

060we've sanitized how did that leave my head um with sanitizer and all those different things so any grants of things we we get we bring right back into the schools um so physical distancing so these are really the requirements that we're under as best practicable um implement physical distance distancing to the extent possible the word used to be maximum extent possible maximum is not not in there anymore it's to the extent that we can do it um i will tell you in some places in some classes we can be at six feet i will tell you that in other classes and other places we can't be at two feet um there's a reason we're building a new elementary school uh we have a lot of kids um so in some places three feet even if

061we wanted to and and was still we could not do um but the nice thing about senate bill 1303 and i'll touch on that in a second is distance should not keep kids away from being at school the priority is for kids to be in school and then we distance to the best around that so we do not exclude students from in-person learning to keep a minimum distance requirement that's very different than the standard we were under last year so when not possible to maintain at least three three if this three feet of physical distance uh the guidance is just to layer multiple other prevention strategies and feel free to jump in and ask questions at any time with the board for the board um additional mitigation layers some of these i've talked about and

062we're in the visual really continuing to encourage staff and students to stay at home when you're sick and that includes a daily at-home health screen you know your student best you know when they have allergies you know when you have this to really do those daily at-home health screenings we're going to continue our kovic cleaning protocols which are just enhanced protocols for cleaning in between classes after school cleaning buses in between bus runs you know all of those things hand washing before and after use of shared materials maximizing physical distance as much as possible i can tell you though if i have 25 kids in a football stadium kindergarteners and i put them 20 feet apart i promise you they're not going to stay 20 feet apart so you know we can do some of

063that as as possible but you know kids are kids and we're social so it's very difficult to keep that assigned seating this is a favorite um in the classroom and the bus and in the cafeteria so why assign seating if we do have a positive case or we do have an exposure we know that i sat next to mystic b and mr hochman and we kind of know those pieces so that's um the assigned side of that we do that in the classroom in the bus most of the time anyway not as much in the cafeteria so we heard some comments about mask i will tell you one thing that that we have received is that uh per federal order that nassau required on the buses our buses currently fall under public transportation it's a

064bus train airplane those kind of things um does that is that the same as public transportation that's an interesting one to me but right now our ruling is that's what we follow so we do know that for sure um currently contact tracing quarantines and then we're looking at visitors in the school last year we were not allowing visitors in school we're not taking that stance but we do want to minimize those interactions so working with principals and schools on that you know dr nichols i think those those points are very important to communicate to to the public and the parents because i think that you can never emphasize enough to parents based on what you just said is that the number one thing i believe through our conversations last year that was probably the most

065frustrating is that if parents know that their kid is not feeling well do not put your kid on a bus just don't do it i mean as much as i know that it is a it is a hassle it is an inconvenience but at the same time is that we found time and time again is that parents would send students to school and we would find out after they get here that they put them on the bus knowing that they didn't feel well and so our concern overall educationally is that part of that mitigation process is and i know this is a cliche word but i think the expectation from all of us is just use common sense i know that's a hard word today you know but it's it's a very hard word but

066if people just use common sense we're so much better off to to minimize the risk at schools for teachers and staff and all of that so absolutely that is just we can never say that enough and i will be pushing out a video to families through our facebook through our website so forth using some of these slides tomorrow and kind of doing that walk through so i'll make uh kind of emphasize that that's really the best thing you can do to help us and the best thing our staff can do to help us because as i said one student coming in sick could put a whole class into quarantine so those are some additional mitigation uh we've talked about this quite a bit um so we had new guidance on july 27th which was uh

067universal indoor masking for all teachers staff students and visitors to k-12 schools regardless of vaccination stash which is different from the guidance we received a few weeks prior and could be we could have new guidance before we line up again you know september 7th um so and for those of you online we put the the link in there so you can you can see the full text but so that was guidance that we received uh just under two weeks ago um and this was the focus of the governor's uh press conference or part of it press conference so two things one that state employees uh would be required to be vaccinated or submit to weekly testing so k-12 employees do not fall under state employees so we do not have that uh provision in place

068we did verify that between thursday and today um so senate bill 1303 school divisions must offer in-person instruction to all students that's what it says um and then school divisions must follow cdc guidance to the greatest extent practice practicable uh which is a word i've now said more in the past week than i think i've ever seen in my life um is that even in the webster's dictionary it may be in the 2022 version um but it's you know what is practicable is is what we work through so giving an example something that is not practical is not practicable for us to be at three feet in certain situations i've already said that we just simply do not have the space to do that we want to protect our kids and protect our community to

069the greatest extent possible knowing that it will be imperfect i will tell you right now we will have positive cases we will have quarantines we will have those we had them last year we're gonna bring all kids back five days a week it's gonna happen we're gonna work through that with families i would advise families to have sort of a plan b in case of a quarantine or a positive um a positive test we'll work through you on making sure we can close the gaps in this instruction for students but that's what senate 13 bill 1303 says and i do think we had some comments about governor northam's interpretation of senate bill 1303 uh versus uh one of the authors interpretations out of that with that as well so um it does expire just interested

070in enough next year august 2022 so it's not a law that's on the books for ever and ever it does have an expiration date i believe that is hopefully because when we line up in august 2022 we're not in our fourth school year connected to a pandemic so uh so here's the quarantine guidance that the cdc has so fully vaccinated people we talked about this a ton last year um and this was a shift probably three quarters of the way through last year so fully vaccinated people do not have to quarantine unless symptomatic okay uh non-vaccinated people it's ten days from exposure unless new school exception applause i'm going to get to what that new school exception is because that's new so that's the general guidance so we'll go to new school exception so close

071contacts in school so in indoor k-12 settings a student who's three to six feet uh of an infected student is not considered close contact as long as both students are wearing masks and the school has other preventive prevention strategies implies that's new this year last year the mass did not come into the equation at all when we were doing quarantines so that's a shift just make me aware of that shift um interestingly the this exception does not apply to teachers staff or other adults so two adults are within three feet and they're both wearing vests and they're not vaccinated they still have to warranty so uh unless vaccinated so that's a new ring no so yeah that's a new name um so i think pictures help sometimes so these are pictures that kind of help

072me kind of walk through all the different scenarios with it so this is under the cdc guidance the student quarantine um so if you have a positive case where at the top left plus can you move it there you go thank you um if that positive case is in close contact with somebody not vaccinated you do have the quarantine okay yes um if that same positive case is close contact with somebody that is vaccinated because vaccinations now run 12 to hour then that student does not have the warranty okay um so going down a level student case positive not vaccinated wearing a mask still have to quarantine um that same student with somebody that is vaccinated with the mass the student does not have the quarantine okay um and then we do it one more

073time students wearing a mask is positive if you're not vaccinated you do have to quarantine if you're vaccinated you don't so these are the decision rules that cdc has outlined according to this so just presenting those for you student school exception within three to six feet so that's that school exception if both students are mass it doesn't matter if you're vaccinated or not vasculated vaccinated or not vaccinated you do not have the quality so that's the shift for this year versus last year one of the things is we got so good at last year as they've shifted we've had to re-teach ourselves who quarantines who doesn't quarantine how it works and all of those different pieces so that's really where we are with the guidance and what we're working through um just as a basic

074overview full five-day return to in-person learning um pretty much the typical schedule that we had in previous years maybe off by about 15 minutes to give us time to clean buses in between runs um i'm incredibly excited that our back to school events return in person so we have back to school night we have open house we have sixth grade orientation we have all of those things uh coming back bus room bus bus rooms buses and classrooms and cafeteria spaces operate at normal capacity um so one of the biggest hurdles we had last year is we couldn't run buses at full capacity it was one per seat stagger um difficult to run 3 300 kids across 231 square miles we can only load a bus at half now we can return to full capacity full

075capacity in classrooms and utilizing our cafeteria spaces well so um and then at home daily springs are still required as we've said several times we're really relying on families uh to be partners which for the most part our families have been great partners with it um so just continuing that work looking forward when we come back for our work session in a couple weeks uh we'll take you through some more of the 14s and then instructional decisions that we'll make if a student has to quarantine a staff member has to quarantine if for some reason a class has to quarantine or even if a whole school were to have to quarantine we hope we are never at that place but i found the more prepared you are for every situation the less likely you'll need

076to utilize those um so we'll bring those back to you um at our work session and provide any other updates so that's really where we are at this time for members if you have any questions or additional things you would like to see between now and august 23rd board members any comments or questions right now when it comes to for lack of a better word the return to learn this fall in person yeah in person good point yeah in person five days a week um and i guess there's some parents to let them know that there are no restrictions on sports in in the fall we've already had sports that have already started so we don't have there's a strict road those restrictions for attendance and sporting events as well as that correct that is

077correct so vhsl last year had extensive guidance on how many kids and what we do not have additional guidance from vhsl as of 708 on august 9th not that we would listen to them anyway so but we fall sports are underway our golf team has had a couple matches our football team is probably practicing right now one of the hardest parts last year was getting used to football in march february and all the sports being out of season but um so no all of that is is in play and in motion uh we did a great deal of rescheduling last year if we did have a team that had a quarantine if that occurs again we will play anybody anywhere anytime to give our kids that experience so technically we can't take questions but grab

078me after and they've got i don't mind [Music] and just to reiterate um this is a board meeting it's not a town hall session we certainly all board members are available for for questions phone calls um you know our information is public dr dr nichols has said that um you know he's available for questions as well but please just in the um you know just to keep to the agenda we want to we want to keep moving forward but please do not hesitate to reach out to us individually for questions but this is not a town hall so uh we'll move forward board members any other questions or comments so um dr nichols um i'd like to hear a little bit about how um we've talked about masks how we address students with individual educational

079plans that have issues with speech intelligibility in particular okay in terms of masking okay yeah since that's a that's a that becomes more of a barrier to them to their learning you can bring that back all right next item on the agenda is the gifted plan update and this is uh in alignment with essential goal number one to provide for and monitor the development of academic organizational behavioral and social competencies to ensure individual students success mr ross miller yes it was the board of each each five years we are required by regulation to approve a new gifted plan most of that is taking our previous plan looking at edits and things that we've worked on over the last five years to to improve programming and then incorporate that into the new plan also the state

080every five years does a technical review of our plan and it gives back recommendations and so we take those into account last spring we received that feedback from the state and the gifted department met and made adjustments to the plan presented that to our gifted advisory committee which is a committee of parents and some board members on that committee and um and everybody was approval of that and said this is just the the next plan for the next five years and that we'd like to work on most of the suggestions from the state were around basically getting more clarification not really any changes to programming or anything so a lot of it is just changing the language so that is a little more clear this is um i believe this is just first reading tonight

081answer any questions this is the first readings board members this will come for both them at our work session in two weeks so if you have any questions in between now and then feel free to reach out otherwise we'll answer them at the work session okay all right next item under new business is cip transfer requests this is alignment with essential goal number three to obtain and align resources mr jonathan hoffman yes uh madam my chairman board members dr nichols this evening i'm going to bring to you a budget transfer request the first will be for the basin pond at the high school the request is updating the scope of work on the basin pond to include reinstallation of the fence and one new gate the total for that would be fifteen thousand eight hundred

082thirty three dollars and fifty cents the second is for hvac repair at the high school the request is for variable speed drive for the pump motors for the hva system in the high school there are three needing replacement as they have failed and they have one that is about to fail the total cost there is 16 500 thank you and hopefully that wraps up our base bond work though we've been working on that basin pump for quite some time so the hvac equipment in this building is and the great news unlike the middle school which their units are much older than 14. we can get replacement parts here which we can at the middle school which is why we're replacing full units okay any other questions board members who will be voting on this under

083action items okay all right moving along agenda item number eight old business sr3 plan update this is an alignment with essential goal number three to obtain and align resources yes ma'am madam chair board members dr nichols this is uh round three this is a american rescue plan sr3 funding and we have received about 1.8 million dollars we've gotten a lot of feedback and tonight you have posted our plan for you to review and for the community to review and provide feedback it's a very broad bucket plan different categories of spending that we like to present and then basically take the time to have committee work in each of those different categories so you'll read about prevention and mitigation strategies this is furniture for extended learning spaces we have six year round subs in our schools

084two at each elementary school one at the middle school and one at the high school we have two full-time learning coaches that we are extending through 2024. miss winfred you spoke about the summer of more meaningful opportunities of real world engagement and this is something that we're very passionate about continuing into the school year and so we've provided about 719 000 for those efforts and that will be a group conversation with different people at the different school levels um we've called it like a say yes to success campaign something that teachers can request and then we can find different things in the classrooms other uses of the funds are allison anderson is with us now and she has a lot of really great ideas around career switcher programs um dual enrollment endorsements and apprenticeship programs

085for our staff um also potentially a support position to help assist with the monitoring of the grant funds we're going to bring this back to you every six months and review it and see where we are obviously they're changing the things that we're using the funding for is changing every day so this could this could change this could say the same i think we just pick feedback and we try to do meaningful work with these funds we have to just as a reminder we have until september 2024 to spend these funds so the team has done a great job of putting them into broad categories of buckets uh because anytime we make a substantial change we have to go back and rewrite and have go through an approval process so we want to get our

086people smarter we want to provide more opportunities for kids and we want to make sure we prevent and mitigate um so anything in those three four categories that we have is is an allowable expense through this so we position ourselves well as projects come up to be able to utilize that if we need 10 more hvac variable speed driver whatever those were uh you know we would be positioned to do that under ventilation with that so it's a flexible plan that we continue to get feedback and as new initiatives occur we'll be able to fund those opportunities too i think we're just trying to be really mindful of the work that we're doing that it's yes it's related to the pandemic but it's also something that's going to move me kent forward and just really

087try to be creative with the use of those funds you know not just by xyz because it's something you need right in this moment something that's going to last and move us within these funds as we move forward since we don't have to use them until 2024 or completion of them this is a separate item and not necessarily included in our budget discussions correct yes and no so we did include if you remember in the effort there were some funds in that yes sir that was srt funding um we're able to dip into different buckets at different times the there are not rules with so3 so in other words we do not have to complete so one and two before we start utilizing s3 there were rules about using sr1 and prior tester 2 and

088things of that nature but so we will most likely start dividing with these um and once we kind of solidify those plans we'll bring that back to you in a request but we're very careful not to dip into operating funds keeping that as a true operating funds because once these funds go away we're not going to get them again and then we'd be left with layoffs or an inability to balance budgets and so really trying to invest in people programs buildings things that will last quite some time the only positions we have right now are the instructional coaches and we hired those in the current year and so we're trying to cover this for about three years but those are really elementary teaching positions which you typically would have vacancies during the school years and

089so that would not be something necessarily that we would not be able to shift it for our budget okay any other questions board members this is not an action item as you said this is a recurring all right next item nine action items first item is to consider the approval of nominations to the 2021 dsva media honor roll do i hear a motion to approve the 2021 vsba media honor roll nomination as presented i move we approve the nomination of the 2021 vspa media honor roll as presented do i hear a second all right next uh motion carries next item to consider the approval of cip transfer transfer requests do i hear a motion to approve the cip transfer request as presented make a motion we approve the cip transfer request as presented do i

090hear a second second all right vote please all right motion carries next item on the agenda is upcoming meetings our next meeting is august 23rd uh right back in this location it is a work session um and we'll dive into uh opening school we'll give an update on some of our facilities and the work we've done this summer and come back to the gifted plan among other items so i guess we're really developing our home here in this building right and just the bigger boxes we sort of yeah we definitely could have been in the courtroom tonight so yeah but it does give us an opportunity to spread out a little bit we can do some setup differently so it's a little more conducive okay