001ready all right we'll call to order the Poquoson City school board meeting September 19 2023 call to order is that true 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 with liberty and justice for all would you please be seated for the moment of silence thank you and I have an inspirational quote to start off our meeting challenges are what make life interesting and overcoming them is what makes life meaningful that is by Joshua J Marine thank you arth are there any additions or modifications to the agenda no ma'am thank you okay I think we have the honest Club here today that they'd like to come thank you chairwoman Martin members of the school board superintendent tillett Poquoson City
002public schools in the Kiwanis Club of pocosta and share much in common our missions are very similar yours is to prepare all students for a successful and meaningful life ours is to improve the lives of children and enhance their future and community we strive to meet our mission to support children in the community in a variety of meaningful ways such as supporting schools and welcoming new teachers growing the service leadership programs of Key Club Builders club and K kids and partnering to help support Citywide programs such as National Night Out these efforts are the result of the dedicated Volunteers in Kiwanis and the collaboration cooperation partnership and involvement by many in this school system city government and the community we cannot see it succeed by ourselves and we thank you and all of those who
003are listening who work with us and support us I'd like to turn it over to longtime kawani and Charlie French to make a presentation all right I wonder if we could get uh the principles or representative from each one of the four schools to come forward the principles are here we're going to be giving the principals some money this year quite a bit of money um you know it's and the money that we give to you if Kiwanis Club is turning over to you is to help meet your needs and taking care of your students it can be used for any students who can't afford field trips it can be used for motivational incentives but for your students or your staff anything that would help improve the lives of students can be school beautification Kiwanis
004puts no restrictions on the money where we have this money that we try to set aside each year or have left over to to give to you so we're giving each of you Angie uh we'll have to check here that we would like to give and as well let me tell you that we're able to to do this because we have a very very active organization the Kiwanis Club of pocoson um we'll we have a few fundraisers I'd be remiss if I didn't mention that the upcoming Seafood Festival is coming and we'll have both there selling barbecue we have the porosity festival and a number of different projects throughout a year we welcome visitors and guests of course to every meeting we meet in the mornings at 7 30 at Tabernacle so if you're interested
005in improving the lives of of students and your youth we welcome you to come and and have breakfast with us for fellowship with a room full of very positive men and ladies who who share similar interests all right um so as Angie said we're an organization of volunteers or a group of volunteers dedicated to improving the lives of our children enhancing their future and their community and so we strive to be a positive influence on the children that will grow in a community that believes and nurtures them so by able to do this we feel this is one way that we can do it so we're giving here uh Angie has a nice check mark checked this one is the mock check of uh four thousand dollars it's a thousand dollars for each School principal
006to spend on whatever whatever you need we don't we don't put any restrictions on it all right thank you very much we're certainly glad to be able to do that you want to take a picture sure all right thank you you're still the person that handles the money uh with me to impress with the big check so we also have the real thing given to it do you want passenger this is Angie is our president though also Mr Tillis is a volunteering at our Seafood Festival he's a member he's the tiwanis member thank you guys thank you for everything that you do thank you thank you [Applause] thank you all right presentations and reports Miss Brown thank you all right good evening chair Martin Vice chair Burbage member of our school board staff and Community
007tonight I am pleased to be able to share exciting news regarding our instructional program we'll go over tonight our accreditation status for the 23-24 school year that'll be based on our assessment data from 22-23 we'll talk about all in Virginia and the implications for public schools in Virginia our gifted education audit progress the identification programming curriculum progress monitoring and program evaluation and then our 2324 instructional focus and then we'll go over that a little bit more in our program first off I'm super excited to say that we are fully accredited yet again for the 23-24 school year and that is due to the hard work of our staff members our teachers and our students and our parents when you go home and you work with your children every night to help us it is a
008community effort and we are very excited especially to see some of the comparisons we'll go over tonight from our surrounding divisions So based upon the data the first thing we're going to look at is going to be Virginia compared to pocosin so looking at our English Math Science Social Studies and graduation rate you'll notice that Virginia in our first column is the average of 73 for English pocosin is an increase of 14 to 87 percent in math Virginia scored at 69 at 16 percent higher at 85. pocosin comes in Virginia science is 67 percent whereas pocosin scored 19 percentage points higher at 86 percent social studies 65 percent compared to picosin where we scored 16 percent higher at 81 percent and our graduation rate for Virginia it is 91.9 percent and Virginia's or pocosin is
009coming in at 96.3 percent which is 4.4 percent higher so some fantastic numbers compared to Virginia for those of you who are a visual learner we've got it in bars so you can just see your visual graph all right so if we look at the surrounding divisions and we'll go into deeper information a little bit you can see Virginia is going to start us off there we looked at just some of our regional schools in our immediate area when you look at that you can notice that pocosin stands above we are very close with York and one or two areas but overall pocosin scores outperformed the other school divisions so how does that break down if you look at the very last column it's really hard to say okay well we got a little higher
010in Reading you got a little higher in math so one way to try to look at a holistic view is to pull up a composite score a composite score is going to take your Reading Writing math science and social studies will average them all together to get our composite and if you notice and this is in rank order pocosin is coming out at 83.6 percent second would be York County at 82.2 and so on and you see somewhere around the middle is where Virginia lies all of this information can be found at the vdue website if you want to go into the school quality profiles it's all published for all divisions all right so when we start talking about State composite scores we talked about our region how do we fare in the state again
011one way to determine that is using those composite scores that give you your average in our state there are 133 School divisions that are represented we fall in the fourth School Division in all of Virginia for our scores so something definitely to be proud of again it is a community effort and it's in a thanks to all of you and your students so let's look at individual accreditation data so when we look at our accreditation you know that we're based upon our English Math and Science they also have when looking at different accountability members we look at Chronic absenteeism we look at for high school graduation rate and our cccri which is that college career and Civic Readiness index for pocosin primary we have her academic achievement and gaps it mimics our elementary school because
012it's one program the primary feeds into the elementary school and it's a collaborative effort to gain the scores the only difference would be our chronic absenteeism as we discussed at our last board meeting that is an area focused for the entire State and also an area of focus for us in Poquoson we'll be working with our parents and reaching out trying to do some initiatives sending home some tips of getting our students back into school because you've got to be in school to get the material and content to master looking here over at the elementary school again you're going to see the same academic achievement data because it's paired with a primary school when we come down to Chronic absenteeism we hit level one at 14.9 percent but we know we still have some room
013for growth there and again this is the shared data that breaks it down into your gaps the achievement gaps that we look at are going to be English and math anywhere you see that there's not a blue bar typically it's because our number of students that are assessed holistically either as a school or division are not great enough statistically to get that determined Factor so we're at English combined rate of 91 percent math combined rate or pass rate at 91 percent and our science is at 84 percent moving on to Poquoson middle school as you notice we have all level one indicators which is fantastic academic achievement for English combined rate is at 88 percent and our math pass rate is 88 and in science we scored at 90 percent for chronic absenteeism again we're
014at 14.44 room for growth over there for our achievement gaps you can see as we start to narrow down one of the areas that is going to be an intense Focus for us is going to be our students with disabilities and then as you notice over there in math and English are economically disadvantaged students as well and finally Poquoson High School we have all level one indicators except for our college career and City Civic Readiness we are actually challenging the state for that data after a careful review of the data many of our AP students which goes into that factoring were not reflected on the state report so we have an opportunity up until September 29th to make any type of suggestions and Corrections and so we're in that process now and it should be
015green all right so once we look through the data the next thing we want to do is we want to dig a little bit deeper and say what does this mean for us what does this mean for our students so our next steps are going to be to identify those achievement gaps by subgroup like we talked about our students with disabilities and we talked about our students with economic disadvantages we're going to identify the learning gaps and content and learning gaps and skill remediate our skill deficiencies and we'll talk about our high intensity academic tutoring program that we'll be working with this year we are going to create aligned interdisciplinary lessons and problem and project-based learning units to embed within our curriculum and a big one is strengthening that school to home partnership what can
016we do at the school and send home with parents or help parents as they reinforce that learning at home additional next steps we've talked a lot in our meetings about the Vivas mechanism that's coming Vivas is Virginia's visualization and analytics solution it is a value-added measure that no longer Compares students to a cut score but it Compares students to their same group across the state so you may be at a 510 and that's a pass Advanced score however when compared to other students who score Just Like You on previous assessments and have that did you grow as much as you should have based on the algorithm so we don't Focus so much on did you meet a pass score but have you grown and how far can we stretch you and I feel like that's
017the next step especially looking at our data we're also going to focus on professional development we have CERN academies for our teachers right now through William and Mary it's a year-long process to go through teacher zero to three years some of them have signed up to get further developed and really grow in their craft we also have opportunities for our principals as well we have student ownership of learning along with Vivas now that we have our growth skills really working with students to identify their own goals and reaching their goals and having their own benchmarks but bringing them into the process increasing rigor within the curriculum currently we are looking through all of our pacing in our curriculum and we are adding rigor to it along with additional activities that are going to stretch our
018students so that is something that our instructional department is looking at every content level every grade and provided extending learning opportunities and I'll talk a little bit more about that in just a few minutes and I'm sure that you've heard Governor youngin's plan for our combating learning loss it's called all in Virginia all stands for attendance literacy and learning and some of the things that go along with that program are going to be much as you see here are high intensity academic tutoring program so the all in Virginia Plan is a three-pronged approach approach to accelerate the learning loss recovery that's going to address attendance literacy and learning so for attendance there will be a chronic absenteeism task force that will be launched by Governor Younkin it'll be made up of community members Educators parents
019all coming in together they'll also have a reducing chronic absenteeism Playbook that will come out we received our first Playbook with tutoring our second Playbook that comes out is going to be geared more towards the attendance bdoe is also going to be creating a resource guide for educators and local school divisions geared specifically at attendance and how we can get kids back into the school building so when we look at literacy just as vla has come about and we're really trying to increase and to improve the way we teach reading to our students grades K through 8 at this point we're looking at accelerating the expansion of vla it's already expanded to K-8 hiring and training reading Specialists and they're sending more funding along the way the governor's just released a proximately or will be
020releasing 418 million dollars however School divisions still don't know exactly what the breakdown is going to be to each School Division and what the calculation will be used we have heard that we're going to have different percentages that will go into it 70 percent for learning about a 20 for attendance or literacy and vice versa so those are some of the things we'll be looking to see our high intensity academic Playbook is something that we are working with now so any student which you may all be receiving when your student comes home is any student who did not pass their Sol in English or math last year or any student who may have passed their Sol but they scored somewhere around four to four forty 400 to 448 are considered to be low proficient according
021to our Governor's standards so your child may have come home with an SLL score of a 440 445 however they will be receiving mandatory tutoring underneath the governor's program what that looks as three to five hours a week that is something we are now starting to look and how it will look how it will be played out will be part of our schedule so more information to come but that's hot off the press last week and we're so excited as you will recall last year I brought to you nape scores nape is going to be the national assessment of educational progress what he does is it's when we say that two-thirds of our Learners in the nation are below grade level when it comes to reading this is the test that is given to students
022across the country that gives us that range it's considered the nation's report card pocosin has been chosen for this upcoming year for our fourth and our eighth grade students but it is a sampling it is a very detailed progress of how students are chosen you will be notified as parents the testing will occur in February however sometime around January or December you'll receive a letter home saying that your child has been selected we do not select the students we send in our rosters to the state and the representative that they're giving us from nape and they report back which students that have randomly been selected and those parents are notified so just something to keep on your radar if your child comes home with a letter saying that they get to participate in neat testing
023so again it will be at PES and PMs because it is our fourth and our eighth grade students and it is for any division who receives Title One money under Essa which we do all right the next program we're going to talk about is going to be a Hot Topic which will be tag and that's our talented and gifted program so we'll start off by looking a little bit at a timeline last February we came into review and started reviewing the gifted curriculum the tag identification process as we looked through the different curriculums and programs in our buildings in March we actually did a screening of all of our second grade students and they were given the kogat test prior to this test students were only identified by recommendation or if a parent said that
024they wanted their child to be tested the fear in this model is that many students as we noticed through the cogat testing were not identified before and we were able to say our numbers jumped using the same standard that we have used since we started but just students who never would have been identified so in March we did our kogad screening come down to April and May we began to do a tag program audit when we decided that we looked to see how students were being identified and screen and we were missing out on so many other students what else are we missing out on how else can we strengthen our program so we began our tag audit by reaching out and doing research we researched best practices of the current research and models for
025gifted education different divisions and I'll show you a sampling in just a moment the different divisions and how their program is offered when their students are identified and how that service looks in June we realized we had a tag vacancy and we had a staff member who was unable to be with us and so we ended up announcing that vacancy and heavy recruitment I have to say thank you so much to miss griscoe over at the elementary school who has learned night and day looking to recruit one of our tag instructors as we move into August our tag curriculum development began in the beginning we have gone through our third through fifth after reviewing the curriculum we noticed that we really needed to boost our acceleration we didn't have much com curriculum compacting so now
026we've looked to compact our curriculum and to accelerate it we have currently finished our piecing in the starting process of our math tag for three and four and we are now finishing up for fifth grade to look at what that looks like now for tag math and third grade students will be doing third grade and half a fourth fourth grade they'll do half a fourth and all of their fifth grade curriculum and in fifth grade they will do all of their sixth grade and half of their seventh grade curriculum the goal is when they enter into sixth grade they will be ready for that pre-algebra course we are also looking at an extension for our high achieving Learners specifically to math as well all the more information will will be coming on that then we
027get to September we are here so we're in the final stages of our tag audit we have we are in the process of receiving our stakeholder feedback and that's the last portion we've sent a survey out to parents to find out what do you think about our Tech program you know where can we grow how is your student done what we notice from those results so far is that there is a clear definitive line of parents who are new to the program this year feeling like it is a great identification process whereas parents in the past feel like it may have been too narrow which is something we saw when we looked at the Koga test um and now we are in the stage of finalizing our giac committee in our survey we also requested
028from parents hey are you interested in serving on the giac committee giac committee is just a board that comes together in our gifted plan that we operate under and we'll talk about that in just a second it outlines that there are two giac meetings and that was what was created in 2019 and then it went into effect 2020-21 school year so kind of making some tweaks to that identifying however also looking at ways that we can include parents after meeting with parents looking through some survey data it appears that we need to have some more opportunities to get that feedback to hear from them and to give them an ability to have a voice so let's talk about the local gifted education plan as I said it goes from the school year 2021 until 24
02925 however it can be fixed and kind of tweaked early you send it to the state so long as you present it to the board and say hey this is what our plan looks like do you approve looking at our program goals in the gifted plan it specifically outlines the identification how students will be identified the delivery of service or your program model how are the students going to get the gifted Services curriculum instruction what is our curriculum light do we Excel agree do we curriculum compact professional development for tag teachers as well as our classroom teachers if they are serving tag students within their classroom Equitable representation of students are we making sure that we're able to get to everybody to see if there's a gifted student and parent and Community involvement so one
030sampling and more will be provided from the region but one sampling of universal screening measures and a program model so if we look at three different School divisions Chesapeake Public Schools Williamsburg James City County and York we look at the universal screening model students in Chesapeake and Williamsburg James City County are screened in grade two and I believe that is with the code gap which is similar to what we use York County screen students with a universal screener in grade one and I believe they may have additional screening in grade three as well if we look at the different program models and how services are given and Chesapeake it is cluster grouping grades three through eight which means there is a pocket of gifted students and those gifted students are in multiple classrooms and other
031students come in but it's a large number so that way they can provide services while other students kind of reap the benefit as well if we look over in Williamsburg James City County they too do cluster grouping and it's in grades K through 10. they use in-class differentiated instruction in the strength areas they also do enrichment pull out so grades one and two receive gifted Services one 45-minute session every week so if you're a first grader you would receive gifted services for 45 minutes a week in grades three and four they increase those services to two 45-minute sessions a week and that is all the gifted Services they receive grades five through ten they have accelerated math classes similar to what we do for increasing in curriculum compacting and then going into the middle school
032with the pre-algebra algebra and geometry courses and they have gifted level English language arts and Social Studies classes in York County we mentioned the grade one universal screening they too do a cluster grouping for grade one they cluster they test the students Midway through the year students who are identified are clustered together within the classroom and they're they do differentiated activities and then in grades two through five they have an enrichment pull out one day a week if you're a second grader one day a week you receive gifted Services the new model they're doing this year is they have one Elementary School and the other elementary schools one day a week will bust the second grade tag students over to that school and provide services that way I show you this to give you examples
033of different ways that gifted services are provided and there are many more models as well especially with larger divisions that have a larger population of gifted students so what are some of our goals for pocosin for gifted education one is to build out the tag curriculum three through five for reading and math we know that we for oh my goodness there we go curriculum for reading and math we know that that's an area that we could strengthen and provide more opportunity we also want to infuse stem projects and activities to increase critical thinking problem solving and an application of knowledge to identify community-centered needs and projects that can be investigated by students an example of this could simply be that we ask our students to identify a need within our community so it might be
034that there is a traffic jam somewhere it could be that there needs to be you know people aren't able to cross safely going somewhere maybe there's not a bike route something that is important to them once they identify that need then they have the ability to do investigation and research which also funnels into our gifted curriculum after they have done their research then they go and create a plan the plan of how they could improve this need or this problem and then the ability to either present it to the stakeholders involved if it's a city issue or to having a talent show night where we bring our students together for parents and community members and they're able to present their projects again these kind of things work on some of those soft skills that are
035needed such as public speaking such as the organization that goes along with it planning projects out and actually reaching out to do that scheduling and we said identify extracurricular activities and opportunities but this truly takes a community effort and I say that to mean there are many things that are out there that our students could participate in such as Lego leagues a robotics Club it could be math counts which is a math centered organization however with smaller staff we need parents on board to assist and to work with us so we can provide these types of opportunities so more information will be coming out to you all as far as that is concerned and then increase opportunities for Parental involvement through our talent shows parent nights and giac and surveys we're going to survey you
036more overall our instructional Focus for the 23 24 school year is reinvigorating and strengthening our K5 curriculum as a whole it's super exciting to see how well our students did just imagine if we add a little bit of rigor how far they could go designing accelerated Pathways and enrichment opportunities providing quality professional development identifying extracurricular experiences and opportunities to extend and enhance student learning and then now the big one is Shifting our Focus from our two individualized student growth rather than just a cut score I leave you with this thank you so much Mr Roberts over there we were actually featured on a national level for the center for PBIS we have our PBIS Matrix that is used up there at the high school and it was featured in their September Edition for extending school-wide
037systems and supports to support extracurricular activities so we're on the map everyone and that is all I have for you tonight any questions I can answer all right let's take it thanks so much thank you Miss Brown Spence financial report good evening chair Martin Vice chair Burbage members of school board I have a very brief Financial update tonight the first deal is with FY 24 budget the state update as you know Governor youngin signed the state budget last week on September 14th it includes funding for the two percent raises for the state supported Physicians effective January 1st in addition as Miss Brown stated funding will be provided for the all in Virginia plan to accelerated the learning loss recovery by addressing the three areas that she mentioned attendance literacy and learning the assat funding allocations
038is unknown at this time we won't know that until we receive our state count tool looking ahead to the fy25 budget next month to division leadership will kick off the budget on October 9th and at the next school board meeting you'll receive the budget calendar and also the process will be presented at that school board meeting for you to consider and that's really all I have for this evening okay thank you thank you Miss Spence operations update with Dr Ratliff good evening Madam chair Martin Mr tillett and board members I do only have a brief update for you tonight really just kind of finalizing some of the projects that we've been on and a little bit of where we're going the the but the roof the roof project and the HVAC project at the primary
039school really kind of wrapped up in Earnest this past week both projects completed on time both projects completed on budget so we're very happy with that we're very happy with the the product that we've gotten from from the vendors that we've used I did want to address the aeds I think Mr Ingram you asked a question last month and I answered you incorrectly these aeds actually will be connected to Wi-Fi which will allow the EMS to be able to monitor usage in the condition of those as of right now all of the aeds are in the schools we did have to order we didn't realize that they didn't come with I guess the boxes to hang them in so we did have to order the boxes for the ones that are going to go in
040the gyms however all of them are physically in the school I would say with then we hope within the next month the the additional ones will be placed off for the gyms and the schools the handicapped accessible playground equipment the installation is coming soon I've been saying that for a while but it really is honestly probably good because we didn't really want to get into any of the horrible play while the roof was being installed at the primary school I have talked with the manufacturer within this past week the installer that they used has had some family issues and they are currently looking to find a different installer it's not going to cost anymore it's just a matter of finding the certified person that installs their equipment the other thing discussion that I've had with
041him is we heard a little bit last month about playground equipment at the at the elementary school and I don't know how much people do or don't know about playground equipment but there's a substantial cost that comes with the playground equipment so what we are doing is we're going to go ahead and do the the work now to see if it is feasible to be able to add something like that into the budget so we we're going to go ahead and get some accurate numbers to see if that's a direction that we're going to be able to go or not I'm finishing up Transportation so far we're running really smooth within I think by the end of the second week of school The Eighth Day our drop-off times of the afternoons were just around what
042they normally will be for the year we're still adjusting student seats and routes a little bit just really depending upon where they live and numbers on buses but at this time just looking at the Times where each of the schools are kind of hitting the marks that we Norm before we normally are and what we typically expect and that's all I have for you tonight unless you have any questions for me thank you thank you Dr Ratliff Miss Firth is there any public comment yes first I have uh Branson Matheson of 100 Medina Drive of Yorktown before we get started Mr Mathis and I have to read this please um the coast of the school board welcomes public comment during regular meetings school board members do not respond to public comment during a meeting all
043comments should address a matter related to Poquoson 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 respectively disagree 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 audience speakers are encouraged not to engage in personal attacks speakers will present their comments from the podium to follow School Board policy time allotted two speakers shall be three minutes thank you so my name is Branson Madison and I've been a volunteer proposing high school for six years I'm here to thank you for your support for the coral program and
044its decision to keep our Aqua equal opportunity and non-discrimination policy consistent as a volunteer I work with choral director to run the stage crew which supports evolution in the coral Department of events I guide students on many after school and weekend days on show design engineering building the sets audio and lighting and training how to safely transport and run the show we then complete our show around or compete our show around the state and we have won many awards for all that we've achieved this work has been an honor and a privilege and it's one of the proudest things I am a part of I helped create this group because when I went to the coast and outside of the drama Department I didn't have a space to fit in I wasn't popular athlete I
045wasn't in the band I wasn't one of the cool kids I had friend groups but very little that was organized around something amazing for the school something I could be proud of so I was lucky to have some great teachers and friends that's helped me navigate high school and because of their support I wanted to give back and create something amazing for our students and so crew was born crew has become a Haven for everyone that wants to have something they can be a part of when they may not fit in other places it's a popular program growing every year to Now 23 students for this year's show I encourage the students to own their own show they work hard to add their own ideas and imaginations to our each show that we build we've
046won many awards because of their dedication including best stage crew best production and our most cherished award the most courteous I also address you today as an alumni previous pha's parent and volunteer to support your decision to maintain our equal opportunity and non-discrimination policy many of the students and crew are in categories identified by this policy many of keeping our policies in line with the legal requirements and also help our students have consistent expectations in school and provide them the help they need and the support they need it's been a big benefit I want to help you keep our school welcoming and provide environments for everyone to have a place and a space to shine I know that the students are your top priority and so thank you for making the right choice I want
047to again thank you for the opportunity to volunteer and support our choral program and I want to thank Mrs Wade Mrs Maxwell and Mrs Reed for being amazing directors I wanted to write Mr Roberts and Mr tillett for supporting us over the many years that we've been doing this and thank you all for your continued support of the Poquoson Arts thank you [Applause] no no I have uh Ronald C of 256 Hunt's Neck Road hi I'm Ron Lee I'm here to talk about keeping the bathroom policy the way that it is and one of the reasons is for um business right to privacy and some of the issues that maybe some other people aren't considering while they're possibly a little bit upset about some things that happened starting off some common definitions sex is a
048sign of birth either male or female primarily based on the external Anatomy but may include the internal anatomy chromosomes and hormonal production gender refers to socially constructed Norms based on generals behaviors activities and attributes well social norms and construction responsible for some typical gender Expressions others are biologically influenced which is how most people view gender the sex of a person's influences their Inward and outward gender expressions our understanding of sex in general becomes problematic when sex and gender doesn't neatly align consider intersex which happens once in every 1500 births intersex refers to a person born with a combination of male and female parts often babies are not diagnosed as intersex at Birth since only their external parts are visible to further complicate things so a child might also have a combination of x y and
049xx chromosomes in all their cells or in different cells mixed with male and female hormones which chromosomes and mix of hormones determine a person's gender how do you determine the sex as male or female if they have a combination of body parts many conditions create issues with gender identity however according to Pew Research Center 1.6 percent of the population is considered transgender I didn't think I would be speaking first so I said some other things but I'll basically summarize it as this if you're upset about a specific person at a specific bathroom you don't have a right to their medical history you don't have a right to assume that one in 1500 people born would not exist in pocosum um you don't know what's in their pants or if they even have the right hormones
050in order to do the things that you are worried about that might hurt women however we do know statistically that trans women forced into a men's bathroom are often assaulted violently some are even murdered more often than someone is sexually assaulted until my tongue runs out I have some statistics so far in 2023 2832 sex offenders violated crimes against children three of them were transgender the odds are one in one million 391 sorry you've reached your three minute limits thank you [Applause] fully of pocosin everybody again my name is Lee bradshawkin um I have no children in the school system thank God I have no grandchildren in the school system and again thank God I'm also here to talk about the bathroom issue for me personally it's very simple if you have a penis you
051go to the boys bathroom if you have a vagina you go to the girls bathroom I feel for students for people that are confused whatever it is whatever the problem is the issue is whatever it is my issue for me this is not a political issue for me this is not a transgender issue for me this is for myself a safety issue a comfort issue for every girl not for the majority of girls in a public school system period period um I just I I never in a million years thought that would be this would be an issue but here we are but again I this the seven hours that a student's in school they can use the restroom that is what their gender is on their birth certificate if they're not comfortable doing that
052there are five other options application high school for a student that is not comfortable doing that to use two in the nurses station in the nurse's office and three faculty bathrooms that were taken from the faculty for unisex bathrooms they're sting if I'm not mistaken they are single saw bathrooms there's five other options use one use one no one's right if they are uncomfortable using the bathroom of the sex that they were given at Birth their whites don't outweigh anybody else's at that school male or female adult or child that's just the way I feel about it I've got some that I will be emailing to you because after what Miss Martin said about what we could and could not say it's really hard for me but I've got some things that I will be
053emailing to each and every one of you but that shows that when you go into a restroom you go on there you do your business wash your hands look in the mirror make sure you don't have toilet paper hang on your pants go about your business that's not what's happening in all of the restrooms at Poquoson High School I have pictures that I will be glad to share with each and every one of you so let's not get these things confused thanks [Applause] thank you I have Reverend Michael Burnett of 40 Pasture Road thank you madam chair Vice chair members of the school board thank you for giving me a few minutes I'm also here to talk about the latest controversy regarding bathrooms in school I do congratulate the school for upholding the Supreme Court
054precedent which says that children have the right to use the bathroom with which they identify in my current occupation I'm campus minister to a campus ministry at Christopher Newport University which while one of 11 Christian Campus Ministries on campus is the only one which does not limit the full participation of lgbtq persons and as a result I minister to a lot of lgbtq people including trans and non-binary people many of whom now in their late teens and early 20s are working with folks like me with other pastors and with trained mental health professionals to work through trauma that they accrued in their early years largely from being unsafe in restrooms that they did not feel comfortable going in again physical assault is very common for folks who are considered to be other in places where
055there are no cameras and nobody watching in my early Ministry career I also served as youth director of Tabernacle United Methodist Church here in Poquoson and I got to know the young people of this community many of whom also identify as lgbtq but many of whom are uncomfortable admitting it even to their parents because they either feel unsafe unwelcome or they might have their support cut off a large portion of that comes down to hearing how their parents and their larger Community talks about people like them I was heartbroken and Disturbed to find out that some of the members of our community some of whom I know wanted to be here tonight had accusations of sexual predation leveled at them when they were they they came out in support of this student um I was
056the harassment that they have suffered simply for voicing support I know we have students in our schools who have suffered similar harassment and threats and false accusations simply for coming out as various shades of lgbtq I hope that we can remember and I hope that we can starting with our school board and filtering through to our administrators and our entire education system I hope we can lead by example and remembering that we're not talking about broad stroke problems to be solved or issues to be addressed but we're talking about young people who need to be loved and supported so I I don't just I don't suspect any members of our school board were part of the chorus I hope they weren't I I wouldn't assume you are sir you reached your three-minute limit I hope
057you can take initiative in putting it into that kind of talk thank you foreign [Applause] I have Jamie Baldwin of five Wilson Drive hi my name is Jamie Baldwin I'm a stay-at-home mom of four kids two of which are in the public school system um so the first thing I wanted to talk about is my son really wanted me to come here and talk to you guys today about the playground at the elementary school during recess it's a time that kids should have a lot of fun but however I hear a lot of times that he comes home totally disappointed with his playground and recess time I've heard this year the school has acquired some new equipment to be used on the playground however that is completely up to the discretion of the teachers whether
058they bring that out at recess time or not last year for example there were several times where my son came home and said that the only piece of equipment he had to play with was a tennis ball that had been left on the playground from a previous recess because the equipment wasn't being brought out by the teachers um if there's a problem with getting equipment I'm sure that parents would you know donate some to the schools to use but again that's up to the teachers to utilize so the real tragedy actually of the playground is the equipment itself and find out tonight that that's not even on the budget until possibly maybe possibly next year we have a nice New it's relatively new I don't know 15 years Elementary School the building itself but then
059the playground is very broken and sad very sad the other thing I wanted to talk to you about is something that I've seen to be a recurring Staffing issue last year my son's third grade teacher was the school's full-time sub she was brought in to fill a position because there wasn't a teacher to take that spot it was supposed to be a temporary position no one was hired throughout the year so she stayed on as the full teacher for that classroom and then this year his fourth grade year we found out that the tag program had been cut in the beginning of the year because the school is missing a second tag teacher so these staffing issues seem to be recurring year after year and I'm very concerned with the Legacy Homestead that's being built
060next door as to what we're going to do to staff the schools for excellence when we have an influx of new students because we seem to have a problem Staffing for our current student population the third thing I wanted to mention is simply to reiterate the reinstatement of the gifted education advisory committee with our recent parent meeting with the administration a few weeks ago concerning the tag program we talked about reinstatements committee I'm just here simply to Advocate that that actually becomes an active committee and with both parents and teachers can work together to improve the gifted education program district-wide thank you for your time thank you thank you last I have Krista godell of six here in circle thank you my name is Krista Goodale I'm a coson resident Virginia high school graduate Virginia
061college graduate mother of two boys in the tag program in fourth grade in seventh grade here in in town I'm a big advocate of pocosin as a city and our schools you know we're a bedroom community here in Poquoson with strong pocosin pride and I believe that that Pride begins in our schools so the first thing I want to say is thank you so much to Mrs Briscoe Miss Dubose and the district and the Poquoson Elementary School staff you listened and quickly accommodated a much needed adjustment to the Tag Services that was the initial plan for the year and I just really appreciate that as a parent of a child that's in that program in terms of kind of the long-term plan I think that acceleration is needed Miss Brown discussed rigor within the curriculum
062and I'm excited to hear that she's thinking about that and that the board is considering that I think it's very important and much needed I've been watching our seventh grade kind of start out in this program and continue on into the middle school and now I have another one starting in the elementary school acceleration is needed across the board for the gifted students starting in second grade and then all the way through in math literacy and science um acceleration needs to start at the third grade level to prepare our students for stem in high school in Middle School um college and during their future careers on the Middle School side acceleration seems to be only occurring on the mathematics side we talked a lot about we heard a lot about the mathematics acceleration happening and
063I'm excited to see the changes that are in place now because last year our sixth grade student who was going through that cohort there were several that were unprepared for the rigor of that pre-algebra program and ended up dropping within the first 18 weeks our son made it through and he's doing well but many of his friends did not make it so I'm glad to see that there's some emphasis being placed there but I do think that more is needed especially on the science and the reading literacy sides we need to be accelerating all of our programming um on the terms of the budgetary side we have about a 28 million dollar budget for our schools and I believe we're only allocating about one and a half percent toward tag um that really leads to
064some things like our unfulfilled and open positions that Miss Baldwin just talked about we have kind of a low pay compared to our districts we can't necessarily recruit and retain the teachers that we need and now we're planning ahead that we've just um you know identified more second graders that are now coming into our program and so we need to make sure that we have the Staffing there available to meet that need and that demand of these students that are coming into the program um finally um just also do the reiterate on the giac committee we ma'am we've reached your three okay we're excited for Jack to start and um I think that it would be great if you could also ask for parent involvement outside of the survey because that wasn't Anonymous thank you
065thank you I don't have any more speakers this evening is there anyone else in the audience that didn't get a chance to sign up okay we'll proceed down with our consent agenda Mr Dr Burbidge sorry yes um the consent agenda is to approve Financial reports authorization to change appropriation and to accept and expend funds in accordance with attached request approval of personnel action approval of minutes for August's regular meeting work session and special called closed meeting I'm chair I'm going to move to take sub item D and vote separately for all of the meeting minutes okay I'll second him okay well if I think protocol requires us to have a motion to approve second and then a discussion and then the motion to be made isn't that correct the substitute motion first since then okay
066so then we'll take a vote Mr Ingram aye Dr Goodell hi Mr Childress aye Miss Jones aye Dr Mr Dubose aye Vice chair Burbage aye chair Martin aye motion passes voted 7-0 so now can we get a motion to approve the consent agenda with the approval for the work session minutes removed motion approve the consent agenda with the motion the motion to strike the work is there a second second any discussion we call for the vote Mr Ingram aye Dr Goodell aye Mr Childress aye Miss Jones aye Mr Dubose aye Vice chair Burbage aye Martin aye motion passes vote is seven zero is there any other motion to be made for the work session minutes I move that we open the work session minutes for uh revision or input okay is there a motion for
067addition motion for addition to the work session minutes I'll second it is that what we need to talk about now to make the change a second and then a discussion okay so discussion so the reason why I wanted to pull it separately was been reviewing the minutes I think there was just some some things that were captured in a work session that I wanted to be put on the record the first was with the um book Code of Conduct when we discussed these that action resulted in a reduction of student fees uh that's not put on there somebody hey Goodale guys increase the peace great yeah I wanted to change that and then uh the only other provision I saw uh is in our business about two review of policy 7.12 um more more often
068than not in that meeting we discussed the compliance of Virginia code to T I just want to noted that the lawyer said that our our current guidelines Meet Virginia code and Federal Credit Law reference it's in our policy that we 've been on the record there those are the two Editions I think you just the clarity I agree with them too just clarifying kind of what we have before you put it on okay so we'll proceed to vote is there a motion to vote on the changes to the do we get the changes first and then vote on the next meeting next meeting then once we see all the changes that we can vote on yeah we'll have to agree on the work session meeting for the next meeting we don't get to see them
069now once the changes get put in writing then we will vote you can typically what happens is if you make a revision to it we you make that revision tonight and then as always they're approved next meeting in the minutes um April so it'll be reflected from this meeting and that you will approve naturally in the consentions okay make a motion to approve the minutes from the work session of the August meeting as attended is there a second I will second to put in the revisions from the work from last time can you call for the vote please Mr Ingram aye Dr Goodell aye Mr Childress aye Miss Jones aye Mr Dubose aye Vice chair Burbage aye chair Martin aye motion passes vote is seven zero thank you and thank you Dr Goodell okay we
070also um need to approve the proclamation for national school lunch week and billing bullying prevention month is there a motion so moved is there a second you need to call for the vote that's right Mr Ingram aye Dr Goodell aye Mr Childress aye Miss Jones aye Mr Dubose aye Vice chair Burbage aye chair Martin hi motion passes voter 7-0 thank you um other Communications and or other Matters by the school board and or superintendent better um I would like to go over the reports for all the different schools starting off with the primary school we continue to have exciting days at PPS our students are really in the groove especially our kindergarteners it is quite amazing how they have been picking up routines and procedures we have practiced our emergency drills such as fire drills
071and lockdown drills we are building our lunch routines in the cafeteria and we'll be welcoming families in for lunch visits beginning on October 2nd we are holding morning meetings in those classes who are piloting our new social emotional learning curriculum have added midday check-ins and end-of-day closing activity this Monday we celebrated Constitution Day by wearing red white and blue and participating activities engaging in student engaging students in learning about this day our Constitution and what it stands for several classes created a classroom Constitution please see social media play ages for PPS and pcps for pictures of the fun this week we transitioned from staff led to student-led morning shows each second grader will get to lead the morning announcements we've also begun to have our reading specialist Miss green join us each Wednesday for the
072word of the week she reads a new book to our students and highlights a vocabulary word using decoding skills and context all students are then able to submit their educated answers as to the meaning of the word last week the word was squabble and we had some super great responses our staff has begun the beginning of the year literacy screenings and assessments with our diagnostic spelling assessments and Pals for first and second graders Pre-K and kindergarten students will begin their Pals assessment in October we use data from these assessments to plan for instruction and instructional grouping and to identify students who have the need for additional support and I want to thank all the families who came to our back to school night last week we hope this we hope this information I'm with our
073teachers was beneficial their presentations have been posted and hard copies sent home for anyone who could not attend or who would like to look at them again thanks for keeping in the loop with all things PBS and parent Square we will use this to provide information updates news and resources so you're all well informed please also consider joining us for the PPS Spirit night which will be held next Tuesday September 26th at the coast and Diner from 5 PM to close a portion of the proceeds go right back to our school and now for the elementary school elementary school has been off to a great start for the new school year our teachers and students have been focused on routines procedures and positive relationships many teachers on each of our grade levels are part of
074the caring schools Community morning meeting curriculum pilot and all of our teachers use a morning meeting routine to start each day we are focused on making sure our students feel safe and a sense of belonging with our classrooms and our school community we are celebrating our positive official office referrals each afternoon and hope our parents are enjoying the pictures of our positive office referrals sent out so far we are almost finished at the beginning of year assessments and are proud of our students for doing their best with these assessments so early on in the year students the SGA is for reading and math spelling assessments and our third graders are being given the pals reading assessments this week teachers use all of this information to determine the best Focus points for instruction as well as
075determining students specific needs our teachers provided presentations to parents last week during our back to school night event parents learn more about classroom classroom routines assignment and homework expectations and much more we are grateful for the time parents set aside to attend our back to school night September is also attendance awareness month and we want to help build positive attendance routines with our families parents can respond to the parent Square attendance alerts or call or email our attendance secretary Miss Hopkins we want our students to be in class to receive the instruction provided and make the greatest gains possible we thank all of our parents and families for their support with the start of the year and look forward to seeing our students grow this year now for the Middle School Coastal Middle School is
076in full swing between covet and the renovation this is our first normal opening since 2019 and we are extremely thankful for this our students have completed student growth assessments for this for the state in English and math they have also participated in four fire drills two Intruder drills and bus evacuation drills safety is key our students are collecting Golden Bull tickets for demonstrating our school-wide expectations of being respectful acting responsibly and building resilience the first all-in Boutique will be held during lunches on Thursday September 28th this is a school store where students are able to redeem Golden Bowl tickets for prizes after schools clubs started meeting this afternoon and our student council officer election will take place next week we encourage all we encourage all students to get involved PMS parents are encouraged to view
077the back to school videos on each teacher's canvas page if they have not already done so to learn the important information pertaining to each class PMS school counselors have been busy hosting new student lunch bunches this gives students an opportunity to connect with one another and check in with counselors to ensure their transition to PMS is positive PMS counselors are also conducting classroom lessons with all sixth graders on Friday the focus of these lessons includes organization getting involved self-advocacy and life as a middle schooler and finally for the high school all of our sport teams are Midway through their season and representing precaution well the band has received their new uniforms with the help of the school board the drama class has submitted for their yearly play and will soon be notified for its approval
078there are a growing number of instructional activities and lessons happening at PHS these can be viewed with the help of the island times in Miss Morrison's AP US History classes the veteran project will be conducted on September 28th where students will have breakfast with several veterans and can ask them questions about their experiences one lunch is continuing with great success to students who wish to make up work or get Physically Active can do so easily PHS is also offering more options for one lunch as the year continues of coming in October is homecoming week which is October 9th through the 14th this will include the spirit week as well the football game parade and dance also upcoming in October is the PSAT and ASVAB tests which will be on the 11th finally you can keep
079up with everything PHS in the parent Square app that provides all youth useful information for students and parents that is all thank you thank you Thatcher Mr Ingram yeah I just want to welcome the students and teachers and administrators and all that back to school I know that the the teachers and administrators were there a little earlier but now that everything's in the full swing welcome back and I want to thank the Kiwanis Club for their generous donation of a thousand dollars to each principle that's it also want to thank the Kiwanis Club for your donation I also congratulate the building principles and all the teachers for the results on past years Sol results I think that's astounding as we're coming out of the the coveted years seeing some growth and uh you know work
080that were you know about five in the state and it's always great given uh given the resources that we work with sometimes and uh lastly I just want to uh you know thank the speakers that come you know no matter what side you speak on or what topic you speak about the school board is your representative and uh you know I think it's always good for us to hear what you're thinking as we are throughout the year and all over different stuff for the school board so I appreciate your time coming out and talking tonight I'd like to welcome everybody for back to school since his first meeting since I had my kids very much enjoyed it so I did a great job I like to thank the honest club and the volunteers follow your
081hard work and dedication to our school system your generosity is much appreciated my son and I had a chance to come have breakfast with them last year and they were very passionate about the children and their education so thank you guys uh being fully accredited and fourth in the state in SOS scores I'd like to thank all the employees volunteers parents and students that's something to be proud of and y'all did a great job I'd also like to thank the speakers your time and input is very valuable a lot of the same sentiments but I think they are important to continue to State uh thank you to the Kiwanis Club for your very generous donation I think it speaks volumes that you are entrusting an unrestricted donation to the principals that is exactly where the
082money is needed in my opinion they can put it to good use directly so um that is not unnoticed and I know have no doubt it will be put to very good use um thank you to our administrators teachers staff as a whole on the full accreditation as well as the strong composite scores also to PPS and PES for bringing back back to school night I attended the elementary school with my daughter and I think it's very important to get us parents back in the building and we appreciate your efforts it looked like it was well attended um a couple more notes I took I'm happy to hear the update on the playground equipment thank you for that as well and knowing that we're investigating the enhancement opportunities um thank you to those who came
083for public comment uh we do appreciate your time and energy and effort in preparing very well thought out comments um and you're respectful insight and also for addressing the matters in the appropriate setting we appreciate you and hear you and thank you for your time and finally thank you to PPS for recognizing Constitution Day that I think was a very novel and wonderful idea and I think it's very important to introduce that to our youngest students so thank you very much uh again want to thank uh the the quanas for uh for the donation to all the schools is really really really nice to see that uh also want a special thanks to um all the teachers and students um you know I know everybody's had a great first three weeks uh some of y'all
084a little bit longer but um but thank you uh and I know that they are having a good time also a special thanks to uh all those who've jumped through hurdles over the last few weeks to uh um ensure that our students are well educated um and you know there's there's been a lot going on um and a lot in the background so I want to thank everyone for everything that they've done I also again want to thank all the people that attended night and now had public comment um it's always appreciated um and you know it really shows that everyone in here is committed to our most valuable asset our children so thank you so much I'd like to uh sort of reiterate some of the other things I'd really like to thank the
085Kiwanis Club for your much appreciated gift to our schools um it goes a long way to help you know the four schools that we have I'd like to thank the teachers and staff I know you know this fully accredited all schools is huge um also the fact that I made a specific note that the science SOL for pocosin were top in the Hampton Roads area so we're doing a great job our teachers are doing well and keep up the good work I would also like to thank all the people that came for public comment um it's important that the public feels they feel strongly about something that they come and talk to us um in civil discourse I think that's important and thank you for coming and lastly I'd like to thank Thatcher for updates
086on all the schools it's very thank you I actually put the sentiments of my esteemed board thank you to our administrators and I think we should have a party for like fourth in the state that seems like a big deal to me I don't know but I'm pretty proud of that we heard about apricos and pride I think that's something that we should definitely celebrate um as a team so let's talk about that um thank you to the principals and to the Kiwanis Club for supporting them and their their mission to help our students um that money will go a long way definitely thank you to the public and those who took the time to speak we appreciate everybody and the views and the input is important to us as your board so we were
087heard you were heard and we appreciate your time uh lastly I also wanted to thank Thatcher for doing a great job I know this is new to you but you're really doing a great job so thank you very much yeah um hard going last because I say ditto to everything the board has just said uh but I do want to put in a couple of plugs one um it's great being number four but we're shooting for number one so um we're gonna continue to push and pull and uh prod until we have uh the uh distinct honor of number one in the state at everything and everything we do and um that's our goal always has been we're very focused on a very comprehensive strategic plan people ask occasionally what are our goals well if
088you want to see them go on the website and click and you will see very comprehensive goals with action steps that we're very much committed to and this is an you know as the governor says an all-in approach in Poquoson it's an all-in approach we're very much all in um we are going to need and this is my Shameless plug your help with a several with two key things one is we got to get to kids school every day um that covet dealt us all a bad deck when it was easier to stay home especially when they had a device and a lot of the instruction was delivered that way but the best instruction happens face to face in our classrooms with our teachers and and educational professionals so please if anybody's listening out there
089get your kids to school every day we know people get sick and we'll help them catch up if they do have to be out but we need everybody in school and secondly the all-in approach to tutoring this is a great idea one that we actually have been working on before this was launched from the governor's office you heard a little blip tonight from about the program that Mr Robertson the folks at the high school are doing with the one lunch that's a that is a version of what's what has to happen now with all of our schools with large numbers of kids as we really focus on individual students and their growth and this is going to also require some some help from parents and community members we need all the volunteers we can get
090in our school every time I go to the primary school and I know I'm going along tonight there are parents in the hallways reading with kids and it makes it just does my heart good every time I see it and we I'd love to see hundreds of parents out in our schools every day reading with kids helping kids learn we have we actually have rocket scientists in our town you know we say well I'm not a rocket scientist well you are a rocket scientists and we need you here helping our kids learn and grow at high levels so thank you all for everything you do and thank you board for all your support well with that the meeting is adjourned thank you