001e all right good evening ladies and gentlemen members of the board the October 17 2023 panity City school board meeting is called to order Patrick would you all PR their eyes for the Pledge of Allegiance I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the Republic for which it stands one nation under God indivisible and Li Justice for All now for a moment of silence thank you and now for a quote do the best you can until you know better then when you do know better do better and that is by Maya angelu thank you thank you Miss f are there any additions or modifications to the agenda no ma'am thank you Miss py we have recognition our October senior of the month is a young lady pursuing a career
002field in animal science and zoology to that end this student has committed to volunteering much of her time to organizations such as the V Virginia Zoo and bluebird G Farm there she has learned how to present to others the importance of conservation and being good stewards of our environment her teachers and peers describe her as a leader an active listener Dependable motivated and responsible Beyond taking some of pan High's most rigorous courses she has served in a leadership role at her place of employment while attaining the honor of being an a honorable student since September 2020 and maintaining perfect attendance throughout high school please join me in congratulating our October senior of the month Carson aom aamp that concludes our recognitions for the evening thank you all right that brings us to the superintendent update
003this is going to be the shortest update I've ever made in my life but uh also very impactful so I'm uh thrilled to announce tonight that we are the proud recipients of a half million dollar Grant from DOA to uh help launch uh the next phase of our um uh literacy program um this will afford US coaches for the next five years and then we plan to continue to reapply we're going to apply for a similar Grant next year to roll this out in the secondary schools this will be focusing primarily in grades um K through five I'd like to also take this opportunity to publicly thank uh the division instructional team that guided this process and when whenever you're F uh applying for a Federal grant um the work is enormous there's just a
004lot of um steps and this team worked um feverishly to get this done I want to thank them public Kim montavo Kelly party and Amber Brown so let's give them a round of applause for all they than very thank you congratulations instruction update Miss Brown mine will take a little longer all right good evening chair Martin Vice chair Burbage Schoolboard members and our picosen community tonight we have a couple of instructional updates that I'd like to share with you all the first as you all received your packet every year from two years ago we began our strategic plan and the Strategic plan focused on the needs of our division and it gave us our superintendent vision and our whole Community Vision of where we want to go over the next 5 years so bringing in
005all of our stakeholders getting information we focused on our five areas and five areas covering teaching learning and instruction student social and emotional well-being parent and Community engagement and satisfaction division school and staff Effectiveness and engagement and finances facilities and operations what you have with you is our monitoring document as we lay out our strategic plan and we have our goals and you can find those on our p Cen City Public Schools web page right on the front and you click there and you can see all of our goals and our action steps you'll notice that we have it lined out where we have our Baseline data in one column and then our progress data every year what we will do is align that progress data to go forth I didn't put the entire 40-page
006document up here tonight because I wanted to spare our our community members however you do have that with you but just to go over a little bit of what you will see when you look our objective one for teaching learning and instruction just as an example is to assess enhance and expand meaningful programs with curriculum that consist of real world applications for all students some of the areas that we wanted to focus on according to our strategic plan were to develop a working definition of meaningful curriculum and real world applications which we have when we grabbed our administrators and our teachers together came up with our working definition there each of these links will be emailed to you so that you are also able to click in there and see these documents and all of
007the different data that's supports it we also have to continue to implement close alignment of curriculum and continue to emphasize rigorous instruction one of those key areas we've looked at is creating a literacy leadership team our leadership team began last year as we convened they are overseeing and they are an integral part of our curriculum for our K5 literacy program as you all are aware with vaa we are really looking for K through 8 one of those steps is to adopt that curriculum right now vooe has released K through 3 literacy curriculum we are expecting that they will have a full release of K through 8 probably around November 16th 15th that's the next time that the Virginia Board will meet and they're scheduled to approve that curriculum at that time once that curriculum is
008approved of course we will come together as a team look at the different curriculums and resources um bring in our teachers so that they can serve and look at it and follow that VOE uh textbook adoption process and then present it to our school board as well so we'll be looking to see that our community comes checks out our resources and our documents when we put it out there at the schools so that we can get that feedback too other things you will notice in there as you go through our student social and emotional well-being we're going to spend a little bit of time on that tonight just going through a few things our parent and Community engagement that's one thing we're really reaching out for one of those things is to send out surveys
009we've started with one survey of our parents but now we're going to look at how our other programs progressing we've started with our audits one of our audits that we have done our stiped audits we've done audits of our um gifted program we're looking to do audits of our other programs that we have inhouse when it relates to instruction which would include CTE programming it would include our special education program because our goal is to continue to enhance these programs and make sure that they're supporting our students where they are um and providing those resources needed and our stakeholders are key factor in doing that so we can get that feedback too one of the other areas tonight that I'd like to focus a little bit of time on and share with you is our
010social emotional learning as you recall last year we brought to you um the curriculum caring School communities and we did Ripple effects as well um in 2020 the general assembly met and they stated that we were going to have a social emotional learning component so the Virginia Department of Education was tasked with creating some guidelines for schools to use within those guidelines schools have different curriculum options and standards to pull from in order to help us guided in our way of instructing our students so social emotional learning as defined by the Virginia Department of Education is the process through which all young people and adults acquire and apply the knowledge skills and attitudes to develop healthy identities manage emotions and Achieve Personal and Collective goals feel and show empathy for others establish and maintain supportive
011relationships and make responsible and caring decisions so that's kind of what we base all of our programs on as I stated earlier House Bill 753 is the one that came out um in in 2020 General Assembly it required VOE to do three things one was to establish that uniform definition of social emotional learning which I just read to you it also asks that they have P have standards that would go through K through 12 in the Commonwealth standards had to be made available to each Local School Division no later than July 1st 2021 and then finally a report was made by November 1 21 on the resources needed to successfully support schools and implementing this curriculum um and implementing the program and then that is when the uh Coen City Public Schools came to you
012all presented you with that curriculum and that is the reason for adopting and going back behind it so I want to go over the overarching themes when we look at the core competencies and the overarching themes of social emotional learning and well-being remember this is one of our strategic goals we look at the five different areas and those five areas are self-awareness self-management social awareness relationship skills and decisionmaking if you think of it as a cycle we start with our self-awareness helping students understand this themselves so that they can progress along the cycle to self-management managing our emotions to social awareness understanding the emotions of others how to respond and how to react going through relationship skills what are healthy relationships and that's peer-to-peer and then decision making of course making those great decisions based
013upon that cycle with your overarching themes some of these things that we look at if you notice at the end in parenthesis I have creative thinking uh creative thinking critical thinking communication collaboration and citizenship if you recall Virginia laid out our profile of a graduate the goal from K through 12 is to make sure we have a process that gets our students ready to be that profile of a graduate each of these Core Concepts or overarching concepts are linked up to one of those skills and of course that is also provided by um vdoe although there is no so test for these standards we don't really think of them as our our typical standards right in our different content areas they should be thought of as different skills that we embed within our program and
014I'll show you how we do that social emotional learning for us is nothing new this is something we have done for years and years in picosen prior to coid the pandemic and here's how it starts I'm sure you may recall your own students coming home and talking about you know group circles having Circle time Circle time on the carpet or having morning meetings where the class comes together this is a procedure that has been in place that we have with students to ask them how is your day what is something that has occurred for you are you struggling with something is there something going on it's the way for students to talk and really Center themselves before they start the day's lesson and to build those relationships with that trusted caring adult and to understand
015other students and develop empathy we then went from our circles and morning meetings during coid we started to have our morning meetings kind of divided up and when those seal standards came out and our counseling s sols we had our teachers work together to embed them one of the ways we do that is as you look here's a snapshot from our Primary School when we had it there so week four of school the unit was all about feelings and it's identifying your feelings it's tied up to a standard and students were given a strategy sheet which I'll show you in a moment again these are things we've done for years but the goal is not to teach social emotional learning in a silo but really to connect it to our learning so for example if
016we have textbooks or books within our classroom library that are discussing feelings like Sophia is very very angry or some of the other books that we have we tie them in and use them as a learning piece not only to strengthen our literacy program but also bring in those real skills other units that you see self-awareness how are you feeling the next week we talk about self-regulation and so on here's a sample strategy sheet if you notice there was a strategy sheet that was linked up there the strategy sheet gives a discussion question to ask how many different emotions can you name how many can you draw can you feel one more than one emotion at one time so it's these opening questions that start this circle talk to make sure everybody's ready and prepped
017to learn and then as a whole class we go through there anchor words and wall charts mirroring my feelings with a movement break there videos that are played in there making faces out of Plato again these are simple things that can be done in the classroom to bring everybody on the same page and really weave in those skills and that's when Sophie gets angry really really angry for our K5 Edition the curriculum that we have focused on is our caring School community and this is the one that was brought before the board prior what I've also linked up in here is the kindergarten snapshot so when we look at the kindergarten snapshot I know that might be difficult for you all to read so I'm going to go ahead and read some of these social
018skills that are out there some of the ones that are brought forth are moving responsibly managing emotions expressing emotions recognizing in emotions again these are the keys within the caring communities to teach our students how to understand their big feelings as you recall postco we saw different types of behaviors coming in where students were quarantined and at home and now they are socializing with their peers again so really understanding what they're feeling and how to appropriately and respectfully Express themselves and again a first grade snapshot and some of these are are reporting what a partner has said taking turns learning think PA share uh different skills at raising your hand to speak responding um in a respectful manner so just different skills that are embedded so that concludes my program for you tonight um but
019I stand ready for any questions or comments you all may have I have some questions and so we saw the k25 but looking at some of the Virginia standards that have on here like 9-10 a says I can recognize that all people including myself have certain advantages and disadvantages in society based on who they are and where they born I mean us teaching that that's kind of getting into some areas I can recognize that my conscious unconscious bias affect my interactions with others I mean a lot who's going to be guiding some of these that go with it I can recognize and described and distinguish inequality and Injustice at different levels of society sure so those are great those are great ones to bring about what I would tell you is in our history curriculum
020a lot of those skills are interwoven within it so as I told you this isn't something that we teach in as Silo but it's woven throughout so when our students are studying our US history for example or they're studying the early Americas these are typical segments that will come into play about how our civilizations were created so it's a natural progression of discussing those because we already do it within our curriculum but that is a high school level so keep in mind that what you're these are more Elementary but those standards that are in there we would not expect our younger kiddos to are they going are we going to start doing High School are y'all planning on bringing this into the high school too when does this go live to everybody and what kind
021of guidance are yall giv to teachers and what kind of expectations are you giving to parents that you're going to be putting this is schol with their kids sure so what I will tell you is it's been live since 2020 2021 so that's when the general assembly met in um 2020 as far as those themes those themes are already included within the curriculum from VOE so when you look at it now from the standard of um your seal curriculum or your seal kind of standards that are in there they align currently with what is taught in the history classes just by content so we don't have to go by the V VOE guidelines if it's up to us to vote on what we want to do I know we voted before but we could always
022look back if we have to yeah I I can answer that for you uh Mr childis the these guidelines are just that they're guidelines they don't they're not um a standard curriculum um our teachers have been using the standard course of study for years that that every few years they update it dooe does and these are skills that are woven into the curriculum and have been for many many years what we brought to you all year before last I believe was a resource package um we often do that now when we when a curriculum is out there we help our teachers with a package of resources that keeps them from having to reinvent the wheel constantly as they build um strategic lessons they then can go to this database with some really great activities and
023um already vetted and connected to the curriculum resources and that's all the is um we chose two different ones out of hundreds of options we put a team together over the division a secondary team um they chose a a curriculum called ripple effect and then the um Elementary one is caring schools caring Community caring School Community School community and parents were on that that community and yeah we had Parents representation it was a vetted process we went through and every School Division in the state went through this same process and most in the country if you you would had to been living under a irck uh after coid to not be seeing a constant reminder um that kids were missing some things from from the um their time quarantined and getting back acclimated to being
024social creatures again in society so um this is one of the things that the Department of Education um following the order from the general assembly um sent out as guidelines so it's simple guidelines our curriculum is um uh a resource package for our teachers and I would just like to also add that right now the roll out for this has been K through five so K through five is what um we have focused on with that caring School Community I mean I read 7A I mean I'm just looking at this now for the first time and I probably should have looked more but I can recognize and describe unfairness and Injustice in many forms including attitude speech behaviors policies practices and laws like what laws are we going to explain to the kids that are
025unfair and injust and it's just these guidelines yes a guidelines but there are some strict things that are written on here that I'm just happen to be looking through that you know do test that bearer of who job is to teach that and I just want to make sure that we all look the teacher's job to teach it it's also the parents job to teach it I mean you can go straight to teachers but it's parents job and it's parents ability to know what's being taught and what's going on to their kids and I just want to make sure that we are keeping a good eye on what's going out and what's going there so I have a question when the curriculum was created when the committee got together were there topics or or points
026in the curriculum that were pulled out because they were controversial or was the curriculum adopted as is by that committee again this is just a resource package um so teachers will pick out pieces from the curriculum like they have done for years and do in all of our curriculum areas if we were talking about math there's curriculum uh resources that Math teachers use to pull those resources to teach math and reinforce those those topics this is nothing different from that so yes there was a team that looked at packages to decide which package made the most sense for picosen and the packages that that were chosen by the teams the secondary team and the elementary team were ones that I think represent the community of picosen um there's nothing radical in any of those um
027um packages and and it's it's very um teacher friendly so teachers have these pool of resources to use so they don't have to reinvent all of this to meet the standards of we're teaching kids also how to be social creatures um uh in addition to math and science and social studies and again not a separate class the key to this presentation is uh to clarify that this is not a class or a program it's simply a a body of of resources for our teachers to use to help meet these standards within this the normal curriculum does that make sense yeah and I'm going to reserve my comments until I do have a chance to and it's available it's available to all of you to study you'll you'll this curriculum is um expansive there's a lot
028of opportunities for teachers in this resource package I would encourage you to look at it in detail um it's got a lot of information in it and I think curriculum for math it's cut dry but some of these curriculums can really have a teacher's bias or someone's bias that could be included very easily in this and that's the only reason why I want to make sure that we are watching it just to make sure that we are teaching not teaching anybody else's beliefs or anything else that could be G it and that could happen very easily if a teacher can pull off either way they want to go school should be teaching our goal is always to partner with parents and really support our community we are one team we are one community and if
029there's a way that we can work with parents I mean it's it's an extension so I I respect what you say absolutely but uh we also want to do what's in the best interest of all of our kiddos right thanks so much thank you Miss Brown operations update Dr Ratliff did I skip you Miss V no I didn't I'm I'm going out of order I mean in order but out of I can go back this is how it is on the agenda sir I know it's usually not that way I'm going wild on the agenda good evening Madam chair Martin Mr tillet and board memb MERS um we'll shift gears a little bit tonight and we're going to talk a little bit about volunteers um we're getting back to the point now after the pandemic
030that we are we're starting to see a lot more volunteers coming into schools which you know was was never an odd occurrence in picosen um and thankfully now when you do go into the schools pretty much all of the schools that you go in you you see people there pretty frequently um so essentially one one thing again what as I said we're seeing a real increase in volunteers all the way around um as their programs grow as we continue to build more in as more parents want to volunteer as more community members Vol want to volunteer the other thing that has been a hot issue as over the last few years is safety we have to make sure that we're on the on the right end of safety and it's a fine balance because we
031want to keep as many people coming into the schools as we can to help out and to help the teachers and work with the kids um several years ago we had developed a volunteer handbook and prior to the pandemic that is kind of the the the process that we went through in vetting volunteers so what we've done is we've gone back to the table and I I I guess our our volunteer handbook has evolved somewhat to fit more of what we experience now and what what we deal with now but we really have two levels of volunteers that we're looking at in working with um the first level would be those volunteers that would be working more directly under the supervision of a teacher or another adult in the classroom or uh for a lack
032of better words kind of the one-offs or or someone like that the other level would be those volunteer coaches uh tutors the wording that we're use as a school Champions group those that are in there frequently those two different groups of volunteers will go through two different types of vetting um the volunteers that uh that are in the category of the coach and the daily tutors and the ones that are a little bit more involved and may be more Hands-On and not under the direct supervision of teachers they have to go through the same vetting process as anyone that we would hire the background checks and everything else the other volunteers the the one-offs or the the ones that are working under the supervision of our teachers the the readers that you may see at
033the primary school if you've had kids that go through the school here at the primary school I think everybody knows what the readers are who the readers are um essentially what we'll do there each school will have a volunteer coordinator and a part of the responsibility is the person that is volunteering in the school will cross check them against a sex offender registry we'll ask for a reference we'll ask them to complete an online training on furpa and all of that again is managed by the school volunteer coordinator now that sounds like it's a fairly arduous process but we really have it broken down to where it's only about a 15 minute process so essentially those people that are kind of coming in Daily and helping us out um and are under the direct supervision
034of our people within about 15 minutes we can have them onboarded and have all the materials and make sure that we're keeping everyone safe as they need to be um by the end of the month we do plan on communicating this out to to the stakeholders to the parents to the community members so everyone does understand and know if you want to volunteer with the school here's what you what we need you to do and please do come and volunteer because at this point again we're at the point in time where we can welcome any and all that want to come and help i' be happy to answer any questions you may have yes how many uh volunteers do we typically I mean outside of the school Champions but like you know I went to
035the primary school and read for my son in his primary school class are we having good participation is it growing is it something thatour I I I I I think we can always encourage it because I I think the more people you can get in to help the better it's going to be but I can tell you daily when you go into the buildings you you incrementally see more people in especially from coming back from the pandemic I guess is what I'm looking at and I think that I would say what we would see now would rival what we were seeing around the prepandemic time and you know that's why we started looking at and talking about okay what exactly do we need to do with volunteers how do we need to vet them you
036know what process do we need to follow so I would say we're about at the level that we were prior to the pandemic I would say per school that that they they could tell you and that's one of the things when Miss party puts the information out she probably will put out a list of things that that that we need um things that people can do um you know any anything like that but all of that information will be coming out by the end of the month but I don't know that you're going to see a comprehensive division wide list I think it's going to be a lot more individualized by each school but um she'll she'll give examples when she when she does send the information out so people will know you know if
037this I've got an area of expertise here I I may be able to come and help out or even the readers in themsel are are very helpful to have than you thank you all right we'll have our finance update with Miss Spence good evening Madam chair and members of the school board for the finance report this evening I have a number of items to review with you the first item is going to be the impact Aid um since in October that's when we typically start beginning uh to collect the data as you know impact Aid is a US Department of Education Program that provides financial assistance to Local School divisions the Coen City Public School receives basic support payments for federally connected children which are those students whose parents or legal Guardians are active duty
038military or work on federal property the impact Aid funding program is distributed based on the percentage of a school division's federally connected population based on last year's survey the picosen city public schools had 501 federally connected students which was about 25% of the total student enrollment active duty military accounts for about 60% of the students we require to compile this information and Report annually around January to support funding for the following fiscal year therefore in order to determine the eligibility for these students enrolled in our school an annual impact Aid survey form must be completed now this year the survey form is going to be completed using parent Square which is a you know it's been great since it's been rolled out um the survey will be based on employment as of tomorrow October 18th
039the notification will be opened up I believe everyone uh the parents will receive a notification around 1:00 tomorrow impact a does require that a separate form be completed for each student which is going to be easy to click between the students and the parent Square now this form needs to be completed as soon as possible but no later no later than November 3D we really do appreciate the um the everyone takes the time because it is a substantial amount of monies that are received last year we received approximately $238,000 so it was pretty significant so we appreciate everyone's time all parents' time who take you know to complete these forms now the next item that I'd like to review is the Student Activity fund audit the um these funds were audited by a brown Edwards
040and Company and of course those are the funds that are held at the uh School level the Auditors reviewed the year-end financial statements and performed test work to confirm that the financial statements presented fairly in all material respects the cash receipts dispersements and ending balances and you have the report there along with the um report from the auditor that said uh there's no deficiencies or material weaknesses were identified and I'd like to take time now uh we have bookkeepers they did an awesome time for those that are here Jessica Thomas she's here there she's at the uh Primary School Beverly Naylor at the high school Ryan he's at the uh middle school and um uh Shelly yep they did a great job it's not only this little bit of time that um they're there doing
041the Auditors are there doing the um audit it is year round day in and day out is it is a big job to keep this thing going and keep the receipts going and everything and all the other all the other things they have to do and to keep these um cash receipts and dispersements and keep it going I appreciate all their hard work and also of course the principles and so forth too um it's a great job so we just take a moment to congratulate [Applause] okay so next fun time fiscal year 25 budget here we go here's the calendar we got it going um just about two weeks ago I think sent out the budget planning tool um we're supposed to I actually got one back already from one of the department ads um
042so November 6th we're going to have the budget submissions due from the principales and directors um um one item to note also backtracking our budget uh our bookkeepers do an awesome job keeping everyone online um with their materials and supplies I want to mention that as well um December 20th is the anticipated release of the governor's budget you now we're in a new vium now so he's going to be coming out with his new um budget um January 10th the 24th the general assembly will uh be convening of course they've got all new on have all their new people on board um January 16th 2024 uh superintendent will present the budget update to the uh Schoolboard work session February 20th the 24 uh M chillet will present the proposed budget at the school board work
043session and in March 19th that'll be the public hearing so that's what we have so far and April 22nd that's the scheduled joint meeting with the council now of course anytime as as it's been in the past anytime any new um work sessions need to be um announced they can uh definitely can do that but so far that's the budget process and the budget calendar okay for input for the fiscal year 2025 budget of course uh Mr tillet seeks input from faculty and staff and um there's a public hearing we also have let's talk and Mr tillet is always available as well as the uh principles um myself my finance team please give us a call shate it any questions yeah I have one yes so have has the input email the budget input email
044has that already gone out to all the teachers and administrators absolutely that's the stage we're in right now our teams are meeting in the schools um to uh really create their needs list and that's where the whole budget process starts and then we'll take it from there I did want to also note that on the budget planning tool everything's being tied to the Strategic plan as well so that we're having everything tied out yep thank you Miss SP thank you Miss F your public comment yes ma'am I have four first I have Theodore bani of 19 D and drive before we get started I just have to read the public comment statement the posos and School Board welcomes public comment during regular meetings school board members do not respond to public comment during a meeting
045all comments should address a matter related to Picos and public schools the school board will not hear public comment that involves an individual student related matter the disclosure of which would violate applicable confidentiality requirements the school board expects that each speaker will be courteous modeling for our students how one can respect respectfully disagree with others views speakers will address their comments to the entire school board and not to one individual board member nor to the superintendent a staff member or the audience speakers are encouraged not to engage in personal attacks speakers will present their comments from the podium to follow Schoolboard policy time allotted two speakers shall be 3 minutes thank you members of the board I would like to speak to you about disciplinary action in our school system very briefly there are offences
046and consequences then there's appeals process first I would inform you that there's at least in my situation no form of discretion or sentence for punishment a first time offender is treated as a multi- reservist this is wrong in many ways that I'll go down a rabit all you don't want go a first- Time offender for let's say an allege fight should have the totality of evidence represented and have both parties heard so defense foret actions could be heard this apparently isn't being done neither is any discretion being applied to any first-time offender so one who has followed all the rules and been a model student for years has to suffer the same consequences as as a recidivist just like in a jonian society where there's no discretion you have a range of consequences listed in
047the code of student uh code of student conduct as well as offenses with minimum and maximum levels of consequences if you're not going to adhere to those ranges of punishment why even P published the manual two good students were suspended accordance to pcbs code of student conduct in accordance with an alleged violation which could have been multiple levels of punishment and yet a firsttime offender was hit with a punishment that did not fit the offense amazingly they were soon after joking with each other for what they had done there were boys being boys laughing together the next day then there's the app appeals process what do you think a reasonable time to hear appeal should be keep it to yourself because mine was in excess of 13 days after my first appeal to the high
048school principle with no consideration for the totality of the suspension and would had entailed this 3-day suspension let's say was an essence of 5 days because it carried over unjustly into the weekend this then leads us to Virginia law title 22.1 27404 short-term suspension procedure and readmission out of the five PS in this Virginia educational law section three were violated by your Administration lastly let's discuss supervision or the fact of no supervision of this program where the incident occurred if there was the whole incident would have not occurred or played out the way it did so what say you about accountability I'm more likely than never here because it'll be covered up just because it was to be made an example of a good student for it occurs the intent was to hurt a good
049student I'm not going to speak of what I and my family done for the school district but you know my name and that's no coincidence you all have had a friend in this community that would have done anything for you but not even a sit down a conference or phone call with this occurred so thanks for the stab in the back next I have Brandon call of 13 Bay View Drive broken by War and repelled by the fates after many seasons slipped by the leader constructed a beautiful horse as big as a mountain cutting Pines to weave Its Ribs they feigned a vote of offering that they would return home and this rumor was spread around they chose by lot men to furtively enclose in the dark flank and they filled the vast Hollow belly
050with armed soldiers Virgil the Anan book two lines 13 through 30 Circa 27 BC something like that this is the story of the Trojan Horse and we all know it it is served served as a warning to us for 2,000 years and I come tonight with a warning about seel social emotional learning appears innocuous at first glance and to be honest when my wife brought it up to me I wasn't sure why she was so upset about it uh from theal website quote seal helps us listen to one another Bridge differences across cultures and take meaningful steps to improve our communities I see no cause for alarm in fact it's beautiful While most most of it is obviously not controversial what is contained in anal lesson varies substantially is it not at all the same
051as teaching our children to be nice to each other and cultivate morality seal was developed by an organization called castle using the social and emotional learning and Equity guidelines to build psychometric and mental health profiles on your K through 12 children these amateur psychological evaluations are then stored in a database data is collected without obtaining parental consent one of the concerns is that theal programs is that the collected data may be potentially misused on a captive and vulnerable audience for indoctrination social and emotional engineering or to influence compliance more worrisome the framework states in the castle resource titled equity and the social emotional learning a cultural analysis it argues that making explicit issues such as power privilege Prejudice discrimination and social justice in the field ofal on their website in the transformative model self-awareness encompasses
052a student's understanding of their identity their identity is to be understood in terms of intersectionality a concept coined by Kimberly kenshaw the woman who coined the term critical race Theory itself being an offo critical theory on the website it further States we're committed to addressing racial Injustice and helping you the teacher drive real change in your school communities these resources will help you implement social emotional learning in a way that builds on students cultural assets critically examines systems of power and develops better ways for teaching learning and being not surprisingly uh critically examining systems of power is vintage critical race Theory it is in fact the entire foundation of the theory and it gets worse the snal competency of self-management Mr call you have uh reached your three minute limit may I get an extra
053minute if I'm really nice and tell a funny joke I'll make a motion that he get the extra minute do I have to tell a funny joke I'll second it thank you uh that the self management be defined in terms of sir I'm sorry we have to vote on that oh so sorry I'll do a dance too we'll take we you call for the vote Mr Ingram hi Dr gdal hi Mr chis I Miss Jones i m Mr deos I Dr Burbage I chair Martin I motion passes vote is 7-0 thank you going quickly here uh self-management defined as anti-racism more prominently and publicly defined by i x Kennedy author of how to be an anti-racist who declares that the only remedy for past discrimination is present discrimination in Seal's webinar is a leverage for
054equity and social justice Castle's president and CEO Advocates thatal should be used to favor certain students over others primarily because of their race she goes on further to say that they should adopt anti-racist practices that they should do implicit bias trainings and made Educators aware of their white privilege so I started from a position where I thought this was good and harmless and beautiful and after reading the words of the people who developed it and looking at their motives and implementation methods it's obvious that this is nothing but a way to sneak the most vile and repugnantly racist socialist and Marxist theories to young children that's not my opinion that's what they say more worrisome uh the handouts you give us delegitimized parents by calling us home Partners uh and we are not allowed to
055get copies of what they're being taught we're told that it is a copyright violation to reprint it Mr call you've reached your one minute limit nuts all right guys [Applause] any next I have Sher dyra of 20 Ms Road hello to the board Mr tillet my name is Sher dyra and um I wanted to touch base on uh things comments that I had made at the city council meeting on September the 25th I'm sure you all aware um of the tag program I felt like there was some conflict of interest going on there was a a a spouse involved um but I do need to make a comment on what's going on here with seal um my husband and I just made a comment like oh that's parenting 101 um but um it's not the
056re resource that I'm really worried about um it's how it's going to be implemented in the classroom um I do have an example my daughter just graduated in June um off to college and um she experienced something the day after the governor's election and if you guys would like to hear that story I'd be happy to tell you after I'm trying let me try to fit this all in um it's disappointing to see that a school board member's wife or any parent would risk having our School Division lose their accreditation just because they're not getting their way there was some some a threat threat made not threatening but threatening to um opt out the tag kits from the so um I do hope that the school board members that were involved might make a statement
057either accepting responsibility maybe an explanation it it would just be nice to hear from you tonight um as a result of this situation I do request that every work session be televised and recorded for parents to watch if they're convenience any discussions regarding Personnel could take place after the cameras turned off I understand we still have specialist teaching tag our district is so small we don't have the volume of Educators like others in the surrounding School divisions for tag to get their own program as well as our reading and mass Specialists it's simply not fair I have heard from so many teachers and parents who agree with my comments but they wish to stay in the shadows our teachers do not feel heard why is there a disconnect between the school and our Educators it
058is POS is it possible for our board members to visit our schools maybe me with the leads of each grade have lunch with special education department our sped department is broken and it's been broken is there some type of anonymous survey that you can send out for these teachers please make an effort to reach out to these teachers and ask them for ideas and suggestions because they matter I love my hometown as you can tell um I love my traditions I love how competitive we all are in everything we do here but right now we all should be focusing on the countless number of children who are nowhere near their reading grade level and make sure we do everything in our power to help them close the reading gap before it's too late one huge
059step is for those kids to get the specialist back on their side of the court I'm not against P by the way I just you got to you got to look out for special education um parents at home please look into our Governor's all-in tutoring because your child may qualify and be required by law to receive additional tutoring through Services M you've reached your three minute [Applause] limit next I have Tim dyra of 20 Ms Road good evening um school board members Mr ton my name's Tim dyra I want to provide some background on why my wife and I are so passionate about making sure that kids that need help are getting the help up until June of last year two of our three kids in the picosen school system either had an IEP or
060a 504 our child with an IEP has cognitive dyslexia that means they're dyslexic but it also means that their cognitive aspect of processing from short-term to long-term memory is not working as well as it should that means that reading was a huge challenge for my child for the child with the I AP we're proud to say that U that I AP has now been changed to a 504 after many years of work we would never have been able to make that transition from the I AP to a 504 through without a collaborative effort between all the great Specialists that have helped in the primary elementary middle schools as well as we also paid for an outside professional three times a week for one hour a session for that entire time we did this because our
061goal as parents was to close the reading Gap as fast as we could so that our child could be a normal child and not get pulled out of class multiple times a day I understand not all parents in picosen have the means to pay an outside professional for help I can honestly say that the confidence level of our child has exploded since getting off of his IEP all parents want their kids to do well in school because they know a solid educ UC ational Foundation is key to their future successes all kids want to do well in school just like all adults want to do good at their job the benefits that accompany a child doing well in school are immeasurable children who do better in elementary middle and high school are more likely to
062pursue higher level degrees higher level Degrees open more doors and opportunities for people to be more positive contributors to society Society the oath each of you took when you accepted your Schoolboard positions clearly says all students my suggestion to all of you is to make sure that everything you work on and are working on is inclusive of all students thank [Applause] you next I have Benjamin arenson of seven Harbor Drive May pcps School Board and parents in the audience are watching online as well as my wife Shannon uh who might be watching from home while uh taking care of our children uh so that I could be here thanks love appreciate that U my name is Benjamin Aron I currently reside at Seven harvor View Drive my beloved wife and eight children eight young children
063children uh we currently have five of our children enrolled in picosa Middle Elementary and primary schools uh humbly I'm active duty military and have been uh stationed in Portsmouth since the summer of last year uh for for our children's well-being without traffic uh I was grateful to drive approximately 45 minutes to and from work across a 664 Bridge which is pretty unpredictable um my wife and I chose picosa specifically for the smaller uh school system for what we thought would have been more traditional in values uh our thinking was that our children would gain a traditional education without any new experimental programs unfortunately we could not have been more wrong uh this year right now picosen primary and Elementary are teaching our precious children an experimental social emotional learning pilot program named caring School community
064they have been and continued to do this without properly informing parents the school board has already voted and approved its implementation with plans for a complete rollout next year which is designed to be infused into every bit of the traditional curriculum and without the consent of parents and without an option to opt out in the primary Elementary and likely Middle School this unfortunate Discovery has forced my wife and I to keep our two two daughters home from picosa elementary school as pcps will not will not pop our children out of their optional experimental Seal program and will instead Force teach uh their experimental to our children against our will I implore you as parents to look into the pros and cons and the background of such child educational experimentation yourselves I humbly ask you all
065on the PC PS School Board to do the right thing be forthcoming and make an opt out option for your social emotional learning experiment for the sake of our unsuspecting family thank you all uh for your valuable time and attention to this matter God bless each and every one of you last I have Trisha of 114 White House Drive hi good evening I've come up a little prepared not to speak tonight I haven't written anything um but being here tonight and hearing some things I do believe that there has been feeling in our community some things are going on that should be made public um things behind what is going on in our schools with our special education I'll give you just a little background U my son is no longer in picosen City Schools
066I have pulled him to do a home school Co-op program which he is thriving in um and doing very well but I have definitely treaded the waters to P Co and City Schools quite often trying to get him the best education possible and even to that it was very difficult to get his needs needs met and it looks like it is still going on so I'm here tonight on behalf of all the special education families that might be thinking and and really just it's emotional to see your kids struggle so much and I think it's really tough for these families and it seems like that their needs are still not being met by taking a special education teacher and putting her in a tag program I think that's not the right thing to do we
067are not staffed to do that type of thing uh we need more staff to accommodate these children um I think the word woven into a lot of things tonight I think a lot of things are getting woven into some decisions that are being made so I think it's very important for these work sessions to be held public I think all of our families have a right to know what is going on we all know that this is what we're raising our kids in today is like anything we have ever had to to witness growing up ourselves and we need some transparency and with these work sessions being held private um I don't think it's right I think we can go ahead and let us all figure out what's going on and be collaborative as parents
068to come together um with going forward with the new plans and everything that we have and most importantly our teachers need to understand and have a voice in this because obviously that is a problem for picosen City Schools having teachers I know quite a few friends that have taught and left it's sad our our community is based on our school systems and we really just need um to have those work sessions televised thank [Applause] you there are any more speakers this evening thank you very much uh consent agenda consent agenda is approval of financial reports authorization to change appropriation and to accept and expend funds in accordance with attached request approval of personnel action approval of revised minutes for August work session approval of minutes for September regular meeting and October 3rd work session approval
069to authorize the superintendent to sign a contract for custodial services with service master Commercial Services for the 2024 2025 school year there a motion to approve I'll make a motion that we approve the consented agenda as read second second will we call for the vote Please Mr Ingram I Dr gell I Mr chis I Miss Jones I Mr Bose I Vice chair Burbage I chair Martin I motion passes vote is 70 thank you and Mr depose other matters for consideration uh I'd like to move that uh we uh approve the proclamation for the bus safety week second you m will you call for the vote Mr Ingram hi Dr Goodell hi Mr chis I Miss Jones I Mr deos I Vice chair Burbage I chair Martin I motion passes vote is 70 thank you and
070we'll go to Communications and our other Matters by the school board Andor superintendent uh Thatcher um to start off I will be reading the primary school report this month we are exploring a PPS we have been exploring apples and pumpkins because these are such timely topics for the season we are doing this exploration across several content areas with students reading and writing about apples and pumpkins sorting and measuring apples and pumpkins and comparing and contrasting apples and pumpkins our first grade friends have been Exploring Careers and learning about our community helpers students learned how how they do their jobs what tools they use and how they help us some students even wrote letters to our own officer P to thank him for keeping us safe in our school this month is National bullying prevention month
071in this week PPS and PES are focused on saying no to bullying and spreading kindness in our schools so far this week we have worn hats to put a lid on bullying and crazy socks to sack it to bullying tomorrow is national Unity day and all will be wearing orange in support of United stand against bullying exciting events are happening this week with a visit from a mobile dairy farm and installation of a wheelchair accessible equipment on our playground also today we also had PHS students from the Chick-fil-A Leadership Academy bring a free book to every first grade student PPS will soon be hosting a fall book fair and we will be asking all to save a date for our family night on November 2nd families will be invited to come and visit our book
072fair with their students but we will also be hosting a literacy openhouse teachers will be doing read alouds in classrooms and sharing fam sharing family some ways to make these more interactive when you read your child to your child at home there will also be library and our PTO on hand as well our PTO will be starting the readathon this week we are encouraging students to read all the books PTO parents will help with more information about this event on the family night thank you to all who have come to our into our school to volunteer as reading buddies and mystery readers as well as the Helping Hands which is kicking in gear to help our staff with prep of classroom interactive materials and learning tools now for the elementary school the Coen Elementary School
073is settling into the routines of our new school year we have been enjoying the cooler temperatures by spending more time in the Outdoor Classroom we are grateful for Susan northcut Master Gardener volunteer and retired pcps teacher who has been teaching our students about the monarch butterflies visiting our Learning Garden Miss northcut has set up viewing areas inside the building in classrooms and outside for students to see the different stages of caterpillar egg caterpillar crysalis and Butterfly Miss northcut has tagged butterflies and helped classes release monarchs for their migration to Mexico we are also thankful for the time Miss Kelly pie and the whro shared with picosen elementary school as they video recorded students learning in our garden and Outdoor Classroom we are looking forward to seeing the results our students and staff are participating in
074an anti-bullying spirit week we encourage everyone to be kind and respectful to each other this week is highlighting positive behavior but it's not just this week that we are that we look for respectful students we acknowledge our positive off office referrals every day and so far our school year we have received over 200 positive office referrals we are also using our beginning of the year assessment information to form groups for additional reading and math instruction to meet students needs we are doing our very best to ensure our days are focused on instruction student attendance is critical to our to their success and ensur students opportunities to participate in the instruction plan for them now for the middle school report our school counselors have been busy setting up our students up for Success Through the classroom
075lessons all sixth grade students have participated in classroom counseling lessons entitled making the most of middle school students viewed a tips and tricks video made by 7th and eighth grade PMS students shared personal recommendations for managing lockers homework staying organized peer relationships and extracurricular involvement officer gills PMS school resource officer has been busy conducting classroom dare lessons for all three grade levels picosa Middle School will celebrate Red Ribbon Week October 23rd through the 27th through drug prevention education and by participating in school spirit days that are designed to promote a drug-free lifestyle this year's theme will be be kind to your mind pledged to be drug-free Pen's Middle School Fall Dance will be held from 6 to 8 pm. on Friday October 27th and PMs would also like to congratulate our October Golden Bull students
076of the month for the sixth grade grade level Robert Moore seventh grade Abby Rock rook and eighth grade Brooke gisgo now for the high school report picosen high school has had an exciting month PHS sophomores and some Juniors completed their PSATs and some of our Juniors and seniors completed their ASAP tests earlier this month golf completed and placed fourth in the state competition a special congratulations to Bren hermansky who was our top performer at States the rest of our SP fall sports are wrapping up their regular season and finding great success we look forward to many playoff games in our future our band competed in their first competition at Warhill and placed second overall and first best individuals in the AAA division we are proud of them and look forward to hearing them kick off
077the Seafood Festival this weekend at the main stage one lunch continues to be a great success for our PHS students new additions to the one lunch offerings continue as more more and more options are available including a new knitting club inktober and onea competition practices we look forward to continuing to connect and engage students in different ways PHS has had a wonderful homecoming week last week we celebrated with some of our favorite diss like Hall decorating class shirts the parade Spirit Week a packed dance in a winning football game go blls a special congratulations to Baylor rink and Kate Garnett our homecoming king and queen and seniors for winning the spirits we also added some new fun Traditions like senior signing the senior Spotlight wall and the senior tie dying during one lunch it was
078a great time for all and we appreciate all the effort put into an exciting week as always check out the island times on parents Square for upcoming events at PHS thank you you Mr Ingram yeah I'd like to congratulate miss all Camp that's how you okay good congratulations for uh the being the senior of the month um want to also congratulate all the staff that were involved in the DOA Grant and um speaking of uh Dr ratliff's uh talk about volunteers PTO is always seeking out volunteers so uh there's always an opportunity there for uh anyone um want to thank all the speakers for coming out and speaking tonight on the various uh issues and um I'd like to if we can to see that clock come back so that speakers can you know know
079how much time they have and and um whether they need to speed up their you know their their uh Speech or what have you that's it thank you just ago's thoughts I just want to congratulate the edmin team that put theod grant together and uh thank the speakers for their time and sharing their thoughts and concerns i' like to say congrats to Carson for student Senor a month I would also like to thank all the volunteers who help out with our community and schools and I'd like to thank the community for your comments and emails even though you don't hear replies from me per protocol the school board doesn't reply to comments and only the chair and superintendent replies to email sent to the board I hear and appreciate your input and feedback and like
080Miss Brown said parents need to be involved in their child's education if you are concerned send emails come and talk in the meetings you need to be the advocate for your kids and be part of their education so thank you this showes yes I just want to congratulate Carson very on a job very well done um Thatcher and your fellow golf team members of excellent showing at the state our band athletic teams um just on a positive note you could not watch the videos of the pep rally and attend the homecoming parade and not feel some coast and pride so we do have a special community and to to Echo Mr ch's comments if we work together um you know we're all here for the same goal so thank you to all who provided your
081public comment um as last time it was very respectful and we appreciate your time this is what we need um and appreciate um everyone taking the time out of your evening to come and express concerns we do hear them um finally thank you to all the volunteers I appreciate the volunteer check program um I think that is very important and um necessary because I've been in the schools lately too and it's great to see so many parents and they're back in the schools which is what we want um but I think um keeping a in order order and keeping track of all of our volunteers is important as well so appreciate the time in that um program one I'm sorry that's okay just want to Echo the uh um the thank yous and uh the
082appreciation uh that everybody else has noted um also want to thank all the people that came and and talked um in a lot of cases public speaking is a very hard thing to do and it's a very tough thing to do and uh we all get very passionate uh when it involves our family um and things very close to us so um thank you for coming and thank you for coming and talking um it's I know it's hard um and uh um I know sometimes it can feel like uh you're not heard but you are heard by everybody up here so thank you uh just kind of reiterating some of the things that were mentioned uh first I'd like to really thank all the public that came and spoke today uh it helps us understand
083what the concerns of the community are in addition to emails and things like that um I'd like to encourage more public to come to these meetings to come to the work sessions they are open to the public um I'd also like to thank uh Carson for being senior of the month um I hope you are successful it sounds like you're on the way with perfect attendance and all A's to uh sounds like veterinary medicine is in your future um so congratulations uh huge uh you know the DOA $500,000 Grant that's huge um that will help our reading programs in the future um and then also the volunteers um I'd like to really encourage the public when this formal program comes out to definitely consider volunteering in our school because I enjoy it as a parent
084um and I think that our community has a lot of great things that they can do in our schools so thank Youk you I would like to Echo the sentiments of the board uh congratulations to miss aamp and it's pretty impressive to have perfect attendance through your high school career that's pretty awesome um and thank you to the public for coming and for your comments and emails uh we do try to get back to you um we appreciate the time that you take to let us know and uh you know we all are here for the good of the children and and that is where we try to keep our focus and you guys help us with that so we we're thankful for that uh Mr Tet I just have a also Echo all the
085um comments from the board um and congratulations Carson great uh um I want to reiterate the volunteer request this package that um our team has put together and Kelly py thanks uh for your hard work on that um it is comprehensive and so we can get more people in our schools safely um one of the speakers tonight alluded to um the governor's Allin plan we're feverishly working on on a very short time frame to meet the requirements of that plan it is um overwhelming we're going to need somewhere close to almost a 100 tutors to actually make this work we don't have a 100 people um available to tutor in our employe um so we're going to need you if you can afford any time um for our children to help tutor we need you
086uh desperately so um I I I I I'm mind-boggled to think about um our work and then to think about larger School divisions that that number is 50 times that in need of tutors as well our kids have done really well so the the kids that will need that kind of intense tutoring for picosen uh is a smaller number proportionally than other school divisions around us so to keep in mind this is a this is a comprehensive uh program that's going to launch in 33 School divisions all looking for for help um to do this at the same time we're in a national educator shortage um a lot of the challenges you've heard about tonight come from the fact that we are missing staff uh we've done everything we know to do to keep recruiting
087and we'll continue that effort but uh we need help we need teachers we need substitutes we need bus drivers and we need you to tutor um to help so appreciate that and then the other uh another pluged for um as uh Tracy mentioned tonight the uh impact Aid document that's going out through parent Square please if you're in any way military connected that doesn't mean you have to be in in the military you might do work on a military site as a contractor or in some way connected with the military there's lots of levels in that please fill out that impact a document that $500,000 would not be possible we wouldn't qualify if it was not for for our level of milit military connectivity so please um fill that out uh we know that there
088are some folks who don't fill it out each year and that uh is is a challenge for us to to access this level of funding from the federal government so thank you all I appreciate um all of your hard work and efforts thank you Miss F any other material for Board review no ma'am all right then we will adjourn our uh meeting for October 17th thank you all