001okay we're ready good evening February 21st I will ask Lexi to come up and read us through the pledge and inspirational reading and a moment of silence please foreign Phil lied to us about the six more weeks of winter it's pretty hot outside so fittingly this is also Mark this week also marks the beginning of Spring Sports and I'm also thinking we're going to be starting to see flowers outside because it's supposed to be 80 on Thursday so I have a quote today from Sitting Bull behold my friends the spring is coming the Earth has gladly received the Embraces of the Sun and we shall soon see the results of love thank you thank you Lexi and I want to thank April birth who is our new um board Clerk and I will ask Mrs
002first do we have any additions and or modifications to the agenda no ma'am thank you and for recognitions I will call Miss Purdy up who's going to walk us through all of them foreign members of the board community members thank you for joining us today we have three special events that we would like to recognize but before we do that I also wanted to comment that we have a lot of great Athletics going on recently that we will be recognizing in March and especially we have the girls Regional basketball team playing tonight and one of the teachers that we're going to be recognizing is coaching so she um zarber won't be here for that but without further Ado I would like to start by introducing our February student of the month the February student of
003the month is a young woman who excels in music and academics during her time here at pocosta high school she has challenged herself with a number of advanced level courses and her academic efforts have earned her place in the National Honor Society the German Honor Society and the tri m music Honor Society she is also active in the student to student organization and outside of the classroom she's a proud member of the Poquoson Islander marching band which she led this past season as one of the three drum majors she's also received the band's leadership award when she is not working on school work or band practice this young woman can typically be found volunteering right here at the Poquoson Public Library where she is a teen Advisory Board member she's also very active in her
004church where she has led the children's ministry for the past five years and last year she volunteered her time at the primary school as a special friend probably one of the most unique facts about this young woman however is that she has a passion for writing and is already authored not one but two published Works in 2021 she doesn't need a muse Writing Center teen fellow and this fall she will attend Christopher Newport University where she plans to follow her Passion by studying English and secondary education please join me in congratulating Miss Evelyn weimert your February student of the month thank you congratulations information [Applause] thank you and I can attest her writing is amazing it's really really fantastic okay next we would like to recognize our Poquoson High School Virginia All-State horse members earlier
005this month 23 of our precaution High School singers attended the district course eight event at War Hill High School during this time all state course editions were held and with much thanks to the leadership of their teacher Rebecca Wade and the natural Talent present PHS had four young people recognized with Allstate placements and those were senior Avery Natalie Brooks who was the first alternate for Tenors to senior Lauren romanelli second alternate for altos one Junior Abigail Smith second place Delegate for sopranos 2 and sophomore Zana Weems first plate Delegate for altos one congratulations young ladies on this amazing accomplishment it is very well deserved foreign I don't think they were able to join us this evening so we'll be sure to give them their certificates if you haven't heard yet about the amazing collaboration between
006biology 2 and intro to culinary arts take a moment and familiarize yourself by scanning either these barcodes to learn more about the giving Garden if you wanted to take your phones out feel free to right now we have a whro article as well as a giving Garden website throughout each semester Mrs yarbrough's biology 2 which is also often called botany class researches grows and troubleshoots everything about the garden from soil to seedlings to Pest Control students hold complete responsibility for their plants during the entire process once harvested the plants are given to Mrs Duvall's entered a culinary class who researches information about the plant as a food and identifies a recipe to try then they actually cook it and taste test right there in the classroom plants not cooked are donated to the local community
007so that there is zero waste it's interesting to note that the start of this program is even pocoastin-led as the garden boxes themselves are homegrown by Patrick Nelson for his Eagle Scout project we are so proud of our students and teachers for their dedication of this worthwhile project and we can't wait to see how it continues to grow we'd like to take a moment now to show you a segment created by whro which can highlight this collaborative project for the entire peninsula [Music] is so awesome because of our community care in the community it makes our job easier the kindergarten came when Miss Duval and I were talking about starting something that we could do together with anything planned growing them and then give them back to the community it's actually both Department of my
008Eagle Scout project every Scout has to plan and execute a project out there bedroom so I started about February 2021 and I was just an ideal form in my head my feet and then I talked to the school about it and they set me up with a teacher that was also working on this project took about five weekends without I like where it's going right now it's being used by the bombing class when I got a bigger cycle of plants and then any produce that they harvest is going to the research we get work from this Yarborough and her students what product will be ready to come out of the garden we next and so from that I then tell my introduction to Culinary Arts students and then within their group which is composed of
009three to five students they will know what the product is and then they find a recipe that they're comfortable making that they should be able to get done with within the 50-minute time frame and they go into the kitchen and they make it so it's the ownership of the students so that they really buy into the product I like how we go out there every day and take care of the plants and then we can see the progress from the beginning of the plant so now that they're finished now I really love getting product and we can find a recipe and make the product from scratch it is definitely my favorite one but I love how important you don't use goes to someone in the environment who needs the product so if you don't use
010something from it then we will get it the joy that you see in their face stays with you for a long time and makes you as a kid to realize that you're doing something that is impactful whether they may never make that cake again because they felt the pride in doing it themselves and putting it from there whro owned by 21 School divisions supported by people like you Mrs Yarbrough as I said has a regional basketball game tonight that she's coaching but we'd like to recognize Mrs Duvall and Lily and Liza come to please come forward and be recognized for the hard work for this program and if Patrick Nielsen can also join for his hard work and getting it all started with the garden beds [Applause] thank you take this back to your classes
011thank you I want to be invited I would like to come to you okay thank you thank you [Applause] that concludes my acknowledgments for this evening thank you very much thank you all and we understand if you were here to get her for a recognition if you want to speed out we completely understand we're going to move on to presentations and reports our first one is an instruction update with Amber Brown who is their assistant superintendent of instruction all right good afternoon Madam chair members of our school board and our Poquoson families and Community today we have a couple of instructional updates that we'll be sharing with you and we're going to start off with our teaching learning and instruction portion so first will be our textbook updates the last time we met we discussed
012the adoption and it was voted upon for our health textbook just to let you know where we are going with that we have ordered two full class sets and we also have online student and teacher subscriptions that will be that have been purchased for seven years so we know we will have that the supplemental materials that we discussed before were reviewed and they were not purchased so that you all have that information so we have upcoming Sol writing we have at pocosin Middle School we've got March 8th coming up and that's going to be the long writing essay that essay typically takes about two hours for some of our young people sometimes a little bit longer on that day our students will not be attending school if they are not taking that test we try
013to look for an option where it was an early release day we'd like to thank Miss bunting for being creative with her scheduling students who are in sixth grade and seventh grade will be home but our eighth grade students will be taking their writing Sol March 17th is the multiple choice everybody will be there that day for Poquoson High School we have March 8th that's our multiple choice writing and March 9th the following day is our long paper essay remember for our students at the high school level those are our 11th grade students who are taking the end of writing who are not taken writing Sol that day will have asynchronous learning one thing we want to discuss today a large portion of our presentation is going to be on literacy so just to keep
014you updated with where we're at in Literacy for Virginia according to the National and state average for our nape assessments and that's the national assessment of educational progress since 2019 we hit a pretty good high for the national average we were looking at 219 is the kind of range for our test was the average test score we looked at Virginia and having 224. unfortunately what we realized from the pandemic is there's a great deal of learning loss and so one of our strategic goals deals on uh recovery of learning and instruction and it speaks directly to this Virginia Department of Education um out of reviewing the data reviewing our nape scores looking at progress overall also determine that this was a crisis that needed to be reviewed in 1998 when we first started looking at
015instruction in our literacy rates the nation was at 213 for our average score Virginia a little above that at 217. as you notice throughout the years and we'll go through some more data it starts to rise in 2019 we're at the 224 but as you notice in 22 there is a dramatic decline for the nation but especially for Virginia looking at the averages you can see more of the immediate need here in 1998 are below basic was 71 percent and only 30 percent of our students were reading on grade average or better 2019 in Virginia 62 percent 39 were reading proficient and advanced and if you look at the data in 2022 we have 68 of our Virginia students that are grades K through 3 who are not our third grade testers who are not
016meeting the proficiency level so what does this mean means pretty much students who are reading or not reading on grade level by the end of their third grade are four times more likely to drop out of school it also means that three out of four students grades K through two are at medium to high risk of not reading on grade level ever it also means that one in three kindergarten to second grade students are reading below Benchmark one out of three of our kiddos so video we decided that this is obviously something we need to address as a state but all of our communities so we created the Virginia literacy act and as you know that is a bill that has come to pass and basically it's to ensure all of our students k-3 will
017receive evidence-based literacy instruction and intervention to improve outcomes it means our focus is on early student literacy that we have that evidence-based instruction and that there's a science based reading research and you'll hear more about the science of reading and where we are training our instructors now by the start of 2024-25 this will all go into effect and every student K through 3 will be receiving that literacy and the evidence-based literacy instruction schools have to make sure that all curriculums that are being taught have been approved by vdoe the Virginia Department of Education is compiling a groups we are actually in the second stage now of review for curriculum and Once An approved list goes out that'll be approximately we're thinking the beginning of April then schools will then look to that list of curriculum
018other schools have also been given the opportunity to submit their curriculum if there's a curriculum in place and it must be reviewed by vdoe in either approve or denied those with approved curriculums can continue using their curriculums those who do not have to select a different option in a nutshell what does this mean to our families our teachers our students for our students they'll be receiving core instruction and evidence-based literacy and student reading plans any student who is not performing on and meeting their Benchmark in grade three will be have a individualized plan that is created for them the good thing for parents is that this is something our parents can participate in they work with counselors the teachers and the students as well to identify what needs are there based upon data and they
019create a shared goal for getting our students where they need to be for families there's free online evidence-based literacy resources and again they may assist in developing those plans for our teachers all teachers will be using evidence-based literacy curriculum for the entire literacy block there will be approved literacy screening assessments that will be given multiple times throughout the year k-3 student level data must drive all of our instruction and our remediation and of course professional development which we have already started will be continuing our goal is to ensure that our teachers have everything that they need so that they are able to instruct our students and meet them at their needs for reading Specialists they will be coordinating all of the interventions assisting with developing these reading plans that we have and monitoring them our
020school divisions will be accepting the division wide and creating our literacy plan making sure we have our K through three evidence-based literacy curriculum our reading specialist ratio for grades K through three will be a 1 to 550 student ratio professional development must be implemented and of course working collaboratively with our regional literacy coaches the last is for our educator preparation programs there has been a big change there as well for any programs that are working with producing our teachers coming aboard they too have to have an evidence-based literacy instruction and courses and our upcoming teachers will have to be assessed in that as well all right so let's talk about some resources that are out there for our parents and our communities to utilize at home these resources are not directly tied to pocosin City
021Public Schools but they are ones that we recommend they have been in our community and our Public Library works with them as well the first one is through Dolly Parton Dolly Parton has Her Imagination Library it's with a host of books for students and she has a passion for literacy in younger ages as well for our families that want to register for this what happens is there is a book program for students age birth through five and if you register for it online you actually get about a book a month there's 12 books that come to you each year they're on the grade level that you need but it helps to develop your own children's library that meets their needs too you have our online registration they work in coordination with the good foundation we
022are currently set to be registered for this having reached out to our public libraries as well and families by the end of February will be able to take advantage of this opportunity also through vdoe there is engaged Virginia engaged Virginia is an opportunity for our students to have an academic recovery and coaching program to help them recover from the learning loss from the pandemic this is actually something that has been spearheaded through vdoe and they have put it out to families to have a little bit of remediation from home not only do you have your learning in school but when you go home you have extra resources so some of the things that are most noted or notable for this is that it helps students stay on tracks it works with some of our soft
023skills organizational skills a lot of those executive functioning they're coaching portions that are in there educational resources to help strengthen reading skills and math skills and it's somewhat of an online tutorial program the last tutorial program that we'll talk about again more resources for your children are is brain fuse when you go on to brain fuse and log on to the website you're going to see libraries this gives patrons of all ages and online homework session where you can have an instructor once logged on that will work with you and help provide some of that coaching and tutoring they hope they help with homework with writing lab assistance test prep they have video lessons and they have study tools as well so definitely some great resources that we hope that our families will check out
024moving on from literacy February is our CTE month so we definitely want to thank all of our instructors out there that work with our Career and Technical education programs one thing going in line um we have our academic and our career plans we start from the elementary school working with our students on providing skills for possible careers once students get into sixth grade we take a little bit of a deeper dive in sixth grade students begin to log on to a program to develop their academic and their career plan this is a plan that follows them until they graduate so that every year they're touching base with their counselors and their teachers making sure that it's a conversation and not just a document one of the programs that we have purchased after reviewing with our
025middle school counselors and our high school counselors and other administrators as well is Major Clarity major Clarity is a fantastic platform that unifies counseling teaching and CTE and It prepares students for successful post-secondary transitions some of the highlights of it would be the career exploration and activities they have diagnostic tools students can log in take an assessment kind of like a career interest inventory and once they do that then more resources and tools are provided to them there are video interviews with experts in the field of interest that they identify and what's fantastic for our pocosins City Public Schools Employees especially our counselors is it talks to PowerSchool which is our sis system so when we start logging things in there for major Clarity it's automatically going to hop over so all of the information
026is shared and everyone has access to the same thing so we're very excited we're hoping to have all of that in and training provided probably towards April and May we're in the process right now of onboarding and once our counselors have that they're going to start right at the beginning of the year as soon as students come back and so this is going to be our goal coming up for next year foreign and well-being is a Hot Topic right now it has been for a few years especially post pandemic we know that our students are struggling with trauma struggling with things within their home our community that we don't necessarily know about however we receive those students every day you've already heard from earlier this year about vtss I'm going to give a quick overview
027vtss is important because it's a group of Administrators and staff members teachers we have counselors that are there outside resources and coaches that come together to discuss academics attendance behavior and other ways to support social emotional learning basically vtss is a decision-making framework everyone comes together to make the decisions that are in the best interest of our students so you know with tiered instruction and intervention where we have those tiers we have about 80 percent of students are receiving those tier one in green the common practices in your classroom right good instruction where you have um having your climate that is there having those relationships with students greeting them as they come in then you go to your tier two strategies your tier two strategies are going to be about that 15 of students who
028need them this is where we need to kind of decide could this be group counseling small group counseling or working in different small groups and targeting some skills that are shared among all of them and then we have our tier three remember academics behavior and attendance are what we're focusing on and that's about five percent some people feel that five percent could be special education and precaution what we really believe is that there are some more individual and targeted uh practices that we can be doing with students such as remediation one-on-one digging down to the skill and we like to make sure we have those intensive interventions first so as you see tier one it's that school classroom all students ever tier two is going to be a little bit more specialized right it's a
029secondary prevention and it's going to be some of our students at 15 percent okay and then of course we have our tier three with our five so what would a tier three behavioral intervention look like well it would be a possible functional behavioral assessment many people associate that solely with special education however functional behavioral assessments can be done for any student you assess where the child is you assess their needs conduct A needs assessment and then you create a behavioral intervention plan that is geared toward their needs specifically and you have a team of people around ensuring that the plan is followed and that supports are provided also we have access within our group and that's many agencies throughout our community come together about once a month when they get together we discuss the needs
030of students who maybe have some of those higher needs um and then on that committee we have outside agencies we have internal agencies here through our student Support Services again oh that's never good we're just gonna go through these and of course access again for our parents and Guardians um that can come along there more information as far as the mental health needs that they have so this concludes my presentation tonight for our instructional updates however I see it available for any questions you all may have a few questions so as far as the uh the deficiency that we're experiencing with the reading and stuff will the bilingual program will that impact this do you see this is in a hindrance or helping what what do you see at this so as a former language
031teacher uh teacher dual enrollment or dual enrollment dual immersion programs are incredible they give students the opportunity to acquire that second language but the matter or the way in which they acquire it is hand in hand with English they're learning two languages at the same time it actually supports I can tell you that the research that's out there says that the sooner a student learns a second language the sooner that acquisition occurs the sooner they gather it and they can go farther with their knowledge it actually accesses parts of your brain that you can't in other ways and it really digs down deep we've we've asked that same question and we actually presented that to the primary school talking to some of the teachers the results that they have and the data show that the
032students who are in both of the programs are outperforming their peers in almost every situation on reading assessments and whatever the state assessments that are there with each state all right then another question so the major Clarity the online program um so we'll we'll the uh the student get the answer or the question addressed quicker with this program from the guidance counselor what how's that going to change so it's not really that um a question gets answered more quickly it's a basis of we provide so many more resources based upon what their career path may be and it allows more people to come to the table and be on the same page so if I'm interested in the medical field it'll show different courses and things that might be of interest to me that I
033can look at in high school parents can go on and they can log you have the videos that are from different people within that profession that you can listen to it takes your track along the way but sometimes if you're great in math you may not think of some of the other careers that are out there because you just hear the same ones over and over so it's more of an interactive platform and when we have these conversations it's a way to document it and then to push it up into Power School and then the last question so vtss um you mentioned an outside agency so if a parent requests like a preacher or priest or something like that or are they authorized to assist you know with with the remediation or or the uh
034the issue you know I would say that if um the preacher had a degree in a Content area and did not mix the um the two but was certified to teach and provide assistance and guidance we wouldn't turn anyone away who was going to adhere by our our standards and by our policies and regulations but if they are certified in the area that's what we're looking for my behavioral issues stuff like that so if there is some behavioral we're looking for people that have we encourage our community members to go out and there's always external things within the community but if they're working with our students we really want to have that behavioral background like a psychologist a psychiatrist or some of the people that come to the meetings are actually from some of the
035clinics we work with William and Mary and they have their program for interns and counseling and those things so other than that but they're supervised by that clinician that is there it's more of the medical group that's getting together with certifications does that answer your question yeah it does thank you absolutely I think I have one sorry no that's okay um are the teachers prepared for all of this do we have enough teachers I know it's a national teacher shortage um are they prepared for what I just saw on that screen it's not you know overwhelming right right so I can tell you right now in our profession many things are overwhelming because there are mandates but what is more overwhelming is having a student sitting in your class who can't read and it's very
036frustrating seeing the frustration on their face because you're trying to reach out that's what I'm asking though do we have enough readings specialist or can any reading teacher or what an English teacher do this so here's the thing a reading specialist actually has a specific certification that they have to get above and beyond we do have reading Specialists that are in our division right now and of course that's always something that we're looking for this teaching for vla that's going to be through our regular teacher so any teacher who is a teacher of reading is going to be the one using that literacy curriculum that is approved that is science of reading and evidence-based our reading Specialists that come in are going to actually provide more of that tier 2 intervention to sit down they're
037also going to act as a coach so they have a lot of that background knowledge and those strategies so they're there to not only support students and smaller groupings but also support the teachers as well absolutely I think so do you think some of these kids that now are going to school again will be caught up so we're only missing the ones who were pretty much not in school like the earlier kids coming in will probably get the education that other ones missed out on during covid so do they think we need to focus on the certain age group that hit the pandemic wise so you can try focusing on those two years or three years have lost education that's a great question I know that right now I think the pandemic honestly was just
038an eye-opener for us if you look at our rates from 98 even if you look at the rates from 2019 we still had over 30 percent or over 68 of students who are not reading on grade level the pandemic just took the Band-Aid off so that we actually saw what the issue was that we're facing and I think this is a long time coming and so it's very hopeful that we have all of the support from vdoe and from our governor to kind of push through and get the resources we need I think they're using the screen and reading perfectly fine on a screen just like they would in a book I think it's a matter of preference our students are growing up these days and again this is Amber Brown talking but our students
039are growing up today and you cannot connect with them and you can't get their attention without the technology Technology's the tool that we're getting given to get them to access the information but to just hand them a book these days it's not like us I love the feel of a good book and I'm the only one in my family that does so I think it's actually probably better because they're able to access any book they want my son last night just went online to the library online and he reserved all of his books that he wants to read next week so it's a way to get them the information now the goal is for our teachers and our Information Technology resource teachers for them to all come together and show us how to use these
040tools effectively so we can reach out to our students and we're going to do it a lot of them using audiobooks or scrolling and then getting sidetracked and going and doing other things and then going back it's just I don't know it just leaves my focus of a comprehend it's more Let me listen and comprehend or let me see right and you're right they got to see it they have to see it and put it together but those are the things that will enforce with good reading and good reader strategies let me just weigh in as well on that topic um I think it's important for us to realize that you know as much as we have become accustomed recently to blaming a lot of things on the pandemic um this process that um Miss
041Brown was talking about tonight is has been in the works for a long time long before the pandemic uh the Virginia literacy act started uh in its initial stages years ago as research was being conducted about the science of reading this research has been around for a long time and it's culminated in Virginia's response to that and it's a very healthy body of research that's [Music] um going to generate some really good things for kids and how kids learn to read and then what we do in response when they don't learn quickly enough and so this is good stuff the pandemic kind of slowed that process a bit but um we're excited to get the final report that should be coming out a lot of This research is actually being done at the University of
042Virginia and um the the curriculum that's going to roll out behind this uh from the the legislation the Virginia literacy act the the curriculum and the resources that come behind that will be really good stuff for kids there is some training uh Miss Everett that our teachers will all be part of as we learn how to teach uh perhaps differently um in in the science of reading but we have great teachers who are ready and many of our teachers some of our teachers have already been a part of some of this training in the past again this this research for the science reading is not new um so this is good stuff uh not anything to be alarmed about um We're Gonna Roll It Out carefully we're waiting any day now they're saying it's going
043to probably be around March before the state actually releases the the new literacy curriculum and it will focus very much on literacy from from day one and the rollout will be comprehensive it'll include programming that will be engaged in we'll be back talking with you about programs that we're going to buy into that will help with not only the train for our teachers but also the delivery program that already has built-in lessons and and modules for kids so it's an exciting time really to be launching a new literacy program across the state so it's good stuff if I remember right because something a little bit better than this mate on their reading yeah our numbers you know what uh Miss Brown quoted to you was even some nape scores that's all national stuff we don't
044have local numbers associated with with Nate for example we didn't engage it's not a Virginia initiative pull scores from around and make comparisons but um if you look at our students performance even right after the pandemic our kids did very very well comparatively um not that um you know we rest there we're always looking to get better but but our kids um comparatively to this the state did very very well in in all measures including literacy virtual learning is dedicated to all these students to keep them and it's a great thing that our teachers did I agree thank you so much thank you very much and next time we'll call Miss Tracy Spence up our Executive Director of Finance for our financial update please okay all right thank you madam chair members of the board
045I'd like to give you the financial update for the coast and City Public Schools I actually know I've heard I'm sure you've heard um the era that the um Virginia Department of education had in their state calc tools the estimating tool for the local school divisions uh did not deduct the local grocery tax hold harmless amount and as a result the local basic Aid funding estimate was overstated the overstated estimate only occurred when using the count tool provided by vdoe and this era was discovered January 23rd of this year the fiscal year 24 estimated reduction for the school system is 156 683 dollars which for the fiscal year 24 proposed budget has been factored in for this reduction but for 20 fiscal year 23 what happens the house bill 1400 does not allocate any additional
046funding to the school system to cover the local grocery tax hold harmless amount this is based on its projected sales tax revenue and enrollment there were 64 School divisions that were designated to receive funding under this house bill however that wasn't the case for Poco Sun Senate Bill 80 sorry should be 800 fully funds the division local grocery tax hold harmless reduction for pocosin here is a representation of the the far left hand column shows the pocosins budget at 16.1 million the house bill based on the count tool which they assure us is right now house bills council at 16 million and the Senate Bill count tool is 16.2 you'll see of course this is how it is currently and they're all negotiating it now House Bill actually will reduce in fiscal year 23 the
047allocation at 72 mil of 72 000 and the Senate bill will actually increase it by about 30 39 rounding up but that's the effect in 23. next just to provide some budget highlights and of course after this we're going into work sessions so we'll discuss it a little bit a little bit more detail the state funding Outlook the general assembly has not yet approved a state budget but the the school's fiscal year budget was based on the governor's budget which was issued in December 2022. there's a net increase of 1 million 174 553 million dollars in state revenue is projected based on the ADM of 2096 which is basically a increase of 50. State included funding of five percent salary increase for soq funded positions the state has recommended a one percent retention bonus for
048soq recognized instructional and support positions and the school's budget provides a thousand dollar per full-time employee and five hundred dollar bonuses for part-time employees at a cost of three hundred forty three thousand now again I tried to provide a representation based on the count tool that's provided right now of what it is for the governors State funds are at 15.7 million at the house bill what what they have right now what they're talking back and forth what the house would give us is about a nineteen thousand dollar increase and if the Senate does what they have right now it would increase our budget by three hundred forty three thousand but again we don't know what's going to happen until whatever shakes out so for a fiscal year 24 other items to note the request for
049materials supplies and instructional materials from principals and directors have been honored without increase to the current budget everything that they had requested has been honored within the current budget in the fiscal year 23 budget the school received 1.5 million of school construction funds and the division has chosen to utilize a portion of these funds for the primary school roof replacement on its fiscal year 24 to 28 Capital Improvement plan we just wanted to note that that was approved in October of last year here with a Personnel cost increases as previously noted there's a five percent compensation increase included for all employees in addition there were two K-5 teachers and two paraprofessionals due to protected enrollment increase also there's a coordinator Behavior specialist due to projected increase in enrollment with students with special needs health insurance
050premiums we just met last week there's three percent increase which we born by the schools not passed to the employees um and there's no change in Dental premiums due to a two-year rate guarantee that was secured last year and again as previously noted bonuses there's currently right now in the budget and the recommended budget a thousand for full-time employees and 500 for part-time employees other primary operating cost increases New Horizons New Horizons there's an average of right now A 21.9 percent increase for the New Horizon contract for and that adds up to 158 882 dollars utilities is an average of six percent increase and transportation there was an increase of twenty six thousand three hundred forty two dollars for garage services yeah yeah so and the recommended budget action as previously noted the two K-5
051teachers in the Paris at the cost of 217 361 dollars and the coordinator Behavior specialist is about a hundred and thirteen thousand I'm not going to go through all of this but there's basically a 6.8 percent change totally 1.8 million and again as you as you would expect 73 of the budget is an instruction and we'll go through this during the work session the revenue impact we have about 1.2 million projected State funding increase and again that's based on the governor's budget we don't really know how it's going to kind of flail out we won't know until they're anticipated to adjourn the 25th of this month and there was a small decrease in federal grants there's 1.8 million as previously noted in the prior slide the bulk of it is in compensation increase of that
052five percent um that's in the governor's budget 894 000 the health insurance of 65 000 bonuses at 342 and the recommended budget action of the teachers the para and the coordinator paider specialist utilities are at 40 Grand contracts at 37 and of course the New Horizon about 159 so when you get up to the projected Revenue increase of 1.1 million and the protected expenditure increase of netit of the 1.8 that's the projected deficit is of course the would be the cities contribution increase and then I just wanted to provide the dates of course today would be the budget work session and then the approximate date of the general assembly adjournment March 21st would be the public hearing on the proposed budget and approval of the proposed budget and then going to the school board the
053school board approved budget forwarded to City Council on the 31st of next month and that concludes any questions sure sure yeah I have a question as far as New Horizons goes is there a Max increase per year or is it a new contract where they can put any amount increased on there that that's not actually representing additional cost specifically at New Horizons it's a slight increase like every School Division has had in operational costs to do business but it's primarily because we have increased enrollment we pay per child so it's actually a good problem to have we've we've really encouraged those programs they're great opportunities for kids um we have had a steady increase and this year a significant increase in enrollment in those programs primarily the Career and Technical education programs that they offer
054so it's the The Lion's Share of that increase is because of more enrollment in the program so it's not for tools materials and stuff like that it's a slight increase again inflationary increase in everything you're going to see in every budget including ours but the majority of that increase represents additionals again we pay per child thank you very much okay thank you all right next up is the operations update with Dr Ratliff good evening Madam chair house with Mr tillett and board members I do have a brief presentation for you tonight for the for several different of our operational capacities the first things I wanted to go through is the the heating and ventilation system at the primary school and the roof at the primary school um after we initially thought we were going in
055One Direction with the with the HVAC system at the primary school um I guess as time went on and the proposal came in the what we were we weren't getting a big enough scope of work it was going to take a couple of different phases in order to get the um the the I guess the building replaced to a point that people are really going to feel the need that we need them to so at that point we went out and we saw more proposals um and we The Proposal that we got back that we're recommending tonight that you all approved the superintendent to sign the contract with actually comes down under the 2.4 million dollar allotment that we received from the city and the combination of the city and the funding that we had
056from the school division just slightly under but it comes under that amount the good thing is is that is a complete replacement of the entire system at the primary school with the exclusion of the the kitchen and in the kitchen we've got new gas packs back there we're in good shape it doesn't need to be changed um the system that they're going to be putting in will be a vrf system um and in the end we probably will see some Energy savings and um as well as much needed relief for temperatures for just about everyone in the building um probably a lot more immediate than what they're they're um they usually have so tonight we do have a motion for you to approve for the superintendent to sign an agreement with Warwick mechanical so that
057we can go ahead and get this project underway one of the good parts that I did not put on the slide is this also comes with the 10-year parts and labor warranty through Warwick so it's not only going to help in the immediate but it's going to be a lasting impact as we're going to save in our human capital with our maintenance staff any service or the yearly service that's done on the unit and everything um so we'll feel that immediately once it's done we do anticipate it being substantial completion by the time kids get back into school so next year when we actually have people there they should have a good heating and cooling system uh the roof we are still working on the designing phase we hope within the next month we can
058actually get a uh an RFP out once we get that we will actually begin the process of installing it this is a wind vented Roof System that we're putting on and the good thing about this is it can be done while people are in the buildings and it also comes with a 30-year no dollar limit warranty so again we're saving a lot on not only the um the materials and such that should we have any problems but the human capital and finding where problems may be Human Resources we have started back again in a lot more artists now with recruiting and hiring as the hiring season is upon us for Education we've already started going to job fairs which really I say we've already started but any opportunity that's come up we always attend and
059we go to Miss Purdy will have another social media fish coming within the coming month and employee intentions have been submitted after the meeting tonight we will go ahead and get those positions that we know are going to be vacant posted and principals are encouraged to go ahead and start the hiring process so hopefully we can be on the front end of the hiring and get more in as quickly as we can get them in as we know that it's been a challenge over the last year a couple of years [Music] um you also have before you deny a policy for approval on first reading that 6-5.10 that's the instructional materials with sexually explicit content that is the policy that we reviewed in the work session this past month and there have been no changes
060in it since then just to give you a couple of reminders we haven't we are required by the Department of Education to adopt this policy as a School Division not a policy rather not this policy a policy is a School Division what this policy does is it actually kind of formalizes the practice that we've already been following essentially the principles that the schools will identify a process to identify any materials that fall under this category with the superintendent's approval parental notification would have to occur if there were any materials being used that would fall under this area and parents can view the material and request an alternative material to be used within that time period this doesn't have any kind of relationship to the Family Life curriculum it's a whole kind of separate entity than
061what you would be talking about regarding that and tonight you also have approval for the calendar for the 23-24 school year and again I'll remind you we talked about this at the work session last month there are no changes from the the discussion that we had from the different versions of calendars that we brought you as a reminder the version of the calendar that we brought that we had is a has a four day pre-labor day start with students as a reminder the all of your surrounding School divisions are doing that around us this year this gives us an alignment with the regional calendar calendar committee we surveyed parents teachers students and community members the school to leadership team made recommendation and then each school's leadership team the school leadership team took the principal Stick
062it to their leadership team they had recommendations it is a 180 day calendar we our practice has been to build in 181 to 100 two days so we have time built in for inclement weather because of how some of the days fell we weren't able to do that this year each school has 12 hourly dismissal 12 early dismissal days and we do have a full two-week winter break built in within the calendar and just a couple of things that we have later tonight in the work session I will be reviewing reviewing some of our school safety protocols and we'll be talking about our facility capacity due to our the next few years enrollment and what we could potentially be seeing with the new housing developments that are being are currently being built that is my
063update if you have any questions I'd be happy to answer them I'm only going to ask this because I've been in the system before okay the intent forms you have a rough number of who's not coming back so that we can get on it we need it's a shortage we really need teachers so the if someone says that they're retiring or resigning we use those intent forms as their formal notice so essentially if they've identified that to us through the intent forms it's going to be on your board action tonight um so we'll see that it's it should it's within your packet for tonight okay and if they say they're leaving with no reason behind it I guess this is to you I'm not sure do the principles have a little chat with them and
064find out like you know am I doing something that you don't like is the school system absolutely I would say we make every effort to prevent someone from separating from us um we have a process that that is underway that also includes a survey I think we shared that with the with the board in the work session that that includes detailed information because we're trying to gather as much information as we can about why people are leaving um some of them are obvious transfers military moving out of the area retirements um even those folks we try to prevent prevent them from believing if we can so there's a there's a process in on multiple levels formal and informal to you know to keep our employees uh engaged in because is it crossing a line for
065the school board members to see the intent forms of the ones that say they're going to leave not at all no no we we um we plan to give you like we talked about in the work session uh when we talked about the survey we plan to give you a full report when we finish this process so you can look at all the information that we have um just don't want what happened last year or the year before where everybody and you know I'm going to blame Cove out on a little bit of it but 40 some teachers is a lot to lose in one year but if we can get a jump start now I mean I even know that may apply we're we're actively recruiting and one of the things that um we
066we mentioned before we uh we're using or electronic means uh with some of the work that Miss Purdy is doing to blast out through social media we're finding people seek jobs in different ways than they use wonderful so uh we're out there looking at other sites indeed other um location sites as well as our normal traditional ways and we had suspended before I got here they kind of quit going to job fairs they've found that that wasn't really producing much in the way of new hires so um we've tried we've we've reinstituted that we're trying everything we know the old-fashioned way and the new way because it's a it's a crazy time you know pocoson has been one of those School divisions that that didn't have to be as aggressive in the recruiting Because it's
067such a wonderful place to live and work but I'm sure they don't come here for the money so you know that's that's what we're really looking for that's right that's right and we're um we're as we'll be talking in the budget session uh work session later we're uh being as aggressive as we can on the on the financial side of it knowing that that's always difficult but there is a bill out there that we'll be talking about in the work session that that's still alive in the Senate that that has even a larger increase for for um salaries than than in the governor's budget or in the house budget so um I know you know folks who follow this may be watching that bill I'm hopeful that it it survives and then we may be
068coming back to you with another number but right now what we built in the budget as we always do is the governor's budget uh which has a five percent increase but everything we can do financially and otherwise to recruit teachers we're going to be aggressive about it thank you as far as as far as that bill is it unfunded by the state where the city has a funded well it's like always um they fund it through soq uh standards of quality so that's a portion of our our staff it it actually turns out to be just over 50 percent of what they fund so if they say five percent they're going to fund about a little over 50 percent of five percent increase for our staff so the city then has to come back and
069backfill that difference and have historically worked very hard to do that for us um it's a double-edged sword you know we we don't want to leave money on the table coming from the state when it when it uh equates uh to increase salaries for our staff but at the same time it creates an increased burden for our city to make up that difference because um as you pointed out they only fund a portion of it and that would be the same very generous very much very much so yeah so with the roots we keep talking about 30-year plans on are we going to look at some point going to three schools instead of funding the four schools that we're doing now and all that extra increasing costs of General services and everything else I could
070add to it the short answer is everything's on the table because the the reality is we are for the first time in many years looking at an increase in enrollment in pocosan schools we've been flat for some years um we're going to be sharing with you in the work session tonight uh the results of the the um analysis that um Cooper Weldon Cooper Weldon Cooper I always forget their name and they're a state demographic um agency has provided for us that that shows an increase over over the next three years that is significant so we're going to have to do something what that is is that we're going to come to you tonight with multiple options to look at you all will have some ideas but doing nothing is not an option so we have
071to do something is it consolidation maybe is it adding on to another school should we hold off on the vote for the HVAC and roof maybe the problem is we it's um we can't do uh fail to do nothing now either because we won't have a solution for next school year and we can't get through without a new HVAC and roof and that building um the primary school that we're talking about is not base that is in such poor repair to tear it down I don't think so wherever it ends up and whatever service it provides whether it's something for the city or something you know it could be a lot of different options for it if we decide to move in another Direction and of course that's multiple conversations away but um if that's
072the case it's going to need a new roof uh it's uh leaking like a sieve and it it we've band-aided it every way possible the good news is for the first time in many many years maybe I can't find I can't go back far enough to find a time when the state actually gave Capital Improvement money to schools so this year our share of the capital uh installment or the construction installment from the state is just under 1.4 million dollars so it's a good time to share that with the city and the capital plan and and replace that roof in addition to the money that already allocated from the city to do the HVAC so those Wheels have already been turning it's probably wise to go ahead and finish that in that we're going to
073have an increase in kids next year but it but the the big increase will come in in the following two years with the calendar starting four days early to match up with York County and then are they going to do the two weeks for Christmas or are they going because last time they did not accept his bullet points so your county is doing two weeks because they don't normally do two weeks they they work it's interesting what I have seen on the local calendars and I I don't know really if any have been published I think several are going this month and several are going next month but um there was a mix in Christmas break or in winter break and and how long they were out I I'll so you had to mix with
074that and then the other difference that you really would see was where we are you still utilizing the half days for for professional development a lot of your surrounding places are now going to whole days and what that is doing is that's kicking their last day of the school year back to where it would be on a normal start time so you're starting early and finishing late whereas we didn't do that we are backing up four days but we are at we will end that much earlier as well so the kids in the vocational programs how does that affect them if they go on Wednesday and we have a half day and someone else has a no day do they get the half day or do they still go to class for the full day
075to go or how's that work for them since we're trying to line up I don't know that there's any exact rule of thumb of how it has worked the Verizon's follows two of The Big Three so they follow between Newport News York and Hampton so whichever the majority of of the schedule is is what they follow they have had a combination of days where um they always take care of kids okay but the the depth that they may have in class may be varied if say our kids are the only ones that are there or if our kids are missing and you may not have Newport News there you may not have Hampton so there there is not really a great deal of alignment among from the the divisions within the professional development days or
076the half days that are going on so when we started a week late this year they took us a week at the end of the year still in vocational schools those kids didn't really miss anything they just didn't start with the other kids okay well they had the option to go early and some did and some didn't but they didn't go early then they still stayed in late and still made up those days they didn't miss any days from it okay it's funny when I when I first got here um someone said to me pretty early on that we have a regional calendar because we share this school called New Horizons I said wow what a great idea that's amazing I can't imagine how you get six School divisions to agree on a calendar but
077what the fact that you've done that is amazing but I've never seen it so it was it was sounded like a great idea but it's um maybe in Fantasy Island or somewhere but um we our calendars are all over the place on the peninsula which days certain school systems take off holidays are not perfectly aligned um start times end times it's really been all over the place since I've been here um we as you all know were the only School Division um on the peninsula that share New Horizons that started after Labor Day last year and that made took that became a real disadvantage for our students um the opposite happened the year before when Williamsburg Williamsburg James City and York were the first school divisions on the peninsula to start prior to Labor Day
078disadvantaging those students for that year when the rest of us were kind of following the more traditional calendar so um it it's kind of gotten away from us now to to be uh in in alignment and this calendar does get us back at least for start time with all the schools that share New Horizons I have heard from I think all of the superintendents in the Eastern region and I'm not hearing from any of the superintendents who believe their board is going to start post Labor Day so it may be that the whole Eastern region will be in a pre-labor Day start different for us as Dr Ratliff said is we're starting the four days early and we're ending a week early some of the school divisions have start are starting early and then they're
079ending about the same time by adding in work days and other days during the school year are um uh groups that we spoke with school leadership teams and Tac and others were adamantly opposed to that so we've tried to follow their lead in in the recommendations that they brought to you than we shared in the work session it's not a perfect calendar but I think it does represent most of the interest of of the students and and parents and staff in the community any more questions so we'll still begin out a week before York County most likely several negative pieces June 7th accordingly I I don't think York is taking their calendar until um their March meeting um they were the 13th this year so if if they follow what they did last year we'll
080be getting out a week early so there's no Verizon's kids go to New Horizons during that last week or are they you know they have already wrapped up their curriculum by that point in the year for all of them the they they are going to wrap up a little bit earlier than we are when they get into their licensure exams and their certification tests and such that they take let me just mention this one thing it it this may clear it up a little bit um there's never been a goal that that New Horizons functions day for day like any calendar because they're they're serving six School divisions so on any given day one of those School divisions may not have students there because that may be that School Division might have that day off
081um and what they've done has been very flexible with each School Division to work with students if they are closed that day because again like Dr Ratliff said they follow the two of The Big Three that's York Hampton Newport News um if one of the if if those they're closed that day because they're following that calendar then then our students stay at our school and they provide resources so that they can continue their lessons but they are very flexible with days there's just no way that their calendar can be exact with each of the six School divisions unless we all adopted the same calendar I thought one of our biggest factors fact they're trying to make sure that they could start school those programs at the same time but if they're flexible with that program
082and they're going to end a week early in that program it seems like yeah one of our biggest factors is not the biggest Factor well we got a lot of feedback last year from the students who attend that program and again our numbers are as you saw in the slide from the cost are steadily going up in our involvement with New Horizons which is a good thing um we got a lot of feedback from those students that the fact that the New Horizons started a week early and they felt behind even though we notified them New Horizons is starting on this day you should go to school uh there are a week early uh you can try that with teenagers and it's not really a successful plan um and you know they don't mind the
083End early part but um that was we got a lot of feedback from those parents that um and those students that that was quite challenging so um as much as they were flexible and they allowed us no penalty starting late it was a challenge to come in you know day five in in a in a curriculum and if I can add two I did get a lot of calls um the students that were with New Horizons that started back early they had class with the horizons the days that at the coast and we were having our back to school open house day so that was a big not go over well at all and what was the parent survey was that was it 55 to 30 okay I think there was roughly I have it
084here um sorry we were at um pre-labor day and did not have a preference pre-labor day was 36 percent do not have a preference is 10 and post Labor Day was 54 percent any more questions thank you Miss first do we have any public comment tonight Mr Ingram Would You Walk us through the consent agenda please sure approval of financial reports B authorization to change appropriation and to accept and expend funds in accordance with a tax requests see approval of personnel action the approval of minutes for January's regular meeting and work session e approval of superintendent to sign a contract with HVAC vendor for Prime Poquoson Primary School any questions or additional comments about I'll move to approve the consent agenda do you have a second I'll second it Miss Firth would you please call
085the vote Mr Ingram aye Dr Goodell aye Mr Childress aye Miss Everett aye Dr Burbridge aye chair Hessel aye Jim passes vote is 6-0 thank you very much okay we'll move on to other managers for consideration the first one is consideration of approval of proclamation for National School breakfast week and career and techno technical education month and I'm going to ask Miss Everett to read our Proclamation for National School breakfast week please okay whereas school districts around the nation will celebrate National School breakfast week from March 6th to 10th and whereas Studies have shown that access and to nutritious programs such as the national school lunch program and the National School breakfast Program House helps to create a strong learning environment for children and helps to improve children's concentration in the classroom and whereas students
086who eat a complete breakfast have been shown to make fewer mistakes and work faster in math exercises and those who eat a partial breakfast and whereas studies show that students who Skip breakfast are more likely to have difficulty distinguishing among similar images show increased errors and have slower memory recall and whereas studies show that children who participate in school breakfast programs eat more fruits drink more milk and consume less saturated fat than those who do not eat breakfast and whereas children who fail to eat breakfast whether in school or at home are more likely to be overweight than children who eat healthy breakfast on a daily basis now therefore be it proclaimed on this day the 21st of February 2023 by the school board of the city of Poquoson Virginia that week of March 6
087through 10 2023 be hereby celebrated as National National School breakfast program week in all pocosan City Public Schools thank you very much and Dr Burbage would you please read the career the proclamation of Career and Technical Education Month for February whereas economic and technological changes in our society are rapidly reflected in the nature of today's workplace thereby placing new and additional responsibilities on our educational system and whereas Career and Technical education provides ocean students with a career pathway for post-secondary education and workplace Readiness in the global economy and whereas through Career and Technical education is students gain experience in Practical and meaningful applications of basic skills such as Reading Writing and math mathematics thereby improving the quality of their education and whereas Career and Technical education offers individuals lifelong opportunities to learn new skills that
088provide them with more career choices expanded earning potential and greater job satisfaction and whereas the cooperative and ever increasing efforts between Career and Technical Educators administrators and representatives of business and industry stimulate the growth Commonwealth's economy by preparing students for career for careers in high demand High wage and highly technological skilled areas and whereas the theme celebrate today on tomorrow demonstrates The crucial role that Career and Technical education plays in readying our students for successful careers now therefore be it proclaimed on this 21st day of February in the year 2023 by the school board of the city of Poquoson Virginia that the month of February 2023 be hereby celebrated as Career and Technical Education Month all Poquoson City Public Schools I make a motion that we consider approval of proclamation for National School breakfast week
089and Career and Technical Education Month thank you atmosphere okay and Miss please call the call the Mr Ingram aye Dr Goodell aye Mr Childress aye Miss Martin oh she's not here Miss Everett aye Dr Burbidge aye Mr household aye motion passes boat is six zero thank you very much the next one is the consideration of approval of the 2023-2024 academic calendar any additional questions comments thoughts yeah so in the work session last month we had talked about um you know repost and no preference and you know there's parents and even teachers probably that have made plans you know to be uh you know out of the area before the Labor Day and we had talked about having you know like a Amnesty Day or amnesty week or something like that is that still a part
090of this absolutely we intend to be extremely flexible about um that that first week of Schools attendance um we followed the lead from other school divisions and watched what they did as they started a week early it is going to be an unusual summer where we start early and end early and then that compacts this summer by a week so we're going to be very um flexible with families especially ones that already have arranged for vacation and other things during during that week in August just have to start a week or earlier or two are they ready after most of them took surveys we provided you all the information in the work session that you all considered when you discussed this and um all of those things are in absolutely we will certainly work with
091staff as we need to but um if we're going to do that and start early you know it's got to start somewhere and um uh so this that's the the vote before you tonight okay would somebody like to make a motion I moved to prove the 2023-24 second the motion I'll second thank you thank you Miss Firth would you please go for the vote Mr Ingram aye Dr Goodell aye Mr Childress nay Miss Everett aye Dr Burbage hi chair Hessel aye motion passes vote is five one thank you the next one is the consideration of approval for the adoption of policy 6-5.10 instruction with materials with x actually explicit content I think we talked about that earlier yeah we covered this in the work session as you were following the last meeting as well um
092this is a requirement from uh vdoe based on legislation that that each school have a a policy that covers any material that may be deemed sexually explicit our policy of course is designed by our attorneys and meets the letter of that law but also is is very uh parent friendly which is what we wanted so that parents are the ones who would make decisions about the exposure that their children would have to to such content it's very rare I'll say in pocosin it's not something that we have had concerns about um generally speaking um we don't have any curriculum that other than the family life which is designed to discuss that and of course that we already have a policy in place that you all are well aware of that that allows parents to opt
093their children out of that part of the curriculum but um it's a pretty basic policy that we're recommending you approve tonight on first reading it's a question um what triggers like art right I mean like is there like a governing body yeah it it requires our policy requires and this is what we're finding around the state is most of the responses to this requirement from vdoe is that it's it's creating a panel or some group within the school that would vet those materials and say you know this we we're approving this but then it goes out to parents to approve for their child so if a good example like you said an R-rated movie we don't show many movies um but if it is a some part of the content would be R-rated that would
094be an obvious piece that would be shared with families this is what is being presented do you want your child to have an alternate assignment so it would be handled on an individual basis and of course it will run through my office the policy requires that it be approved by by my office as well so that we don't have um things out there that we're not aware of that would have any indication of a sexual content and the other point of clarifying is its only instructional material so it would only that would include something that's being used for instruction um a library book for example is by choice a student might check out a library book that would not be fall under this policy questions okay I'd like to make a motion I'll make a
095motion the consideration of approval for the adoption of policy 65.10 instruction materials with sexually explicit content foreign so all right the all itself uh 22.1-16.8 doesn't specifically list anything about Library books being considered you know heroin news um and you know if you go back to the actual definition that the state gave says any pitcher photograph drawing any so basically when a child checks out a library book we're violating our own policy at that point because we're not you know we're we're not advising that parent that hey this book that type of material the policy is very specific yeah it it has in the their very specific language that separates instructional materials and even gives examples of what that would what would def be a definition of instructional materials versus a a piece of material
096that a student might check out in a library not only that Jonathan um I spent 17 years in the library and those books are already vetted before they get to us we used to order from the junior Library Guild and they are vetted before they get to us so that we don't really have to read every book that comes in and if one does slip by us we always welcomed parents to come in and let us know discussion Earth would you please call the vote Mr Ingram aye Dr Goodell hi Mr Childress aye Ms Everett aye Dr Burbidge aye Mr Hessel aye motion passes vote is six zero thank you very much the next thing is we're going to move on to Communications other Matters by school board and or superintendent and before I pass
097it over I am going to let Mr and yeah I have a couple of things Madam chair first um I'd like to say that this is uh national board Clerk Appreciation Week and did you know that so we're just so thankful to have April here with us she's new to this position but she's doing an incredible job already so happy National School Board clerks week [Applause] thank you as well it's national school board members appreciation month how come you only get a week and they get a whole month but um I first I want to welcome our newest member to the Poquoson School Board Dr Burbage and um Chris has been an active member of of our community for some time he's been involved in attended school board meetings and workshops he also uh Works
098a local agency and has a a student with us in the primary school so we're excited about his role he represents the Western Precinct and tonight's his first meeting so welcome Chris to the school board and in honor of national school board appreciation month um April has ordered some very delicious cookies I'm told yeah and that say thank you here so um it's a very small token of our appreciation for your work being a school board member can be a thankless job you hear all the complaints and um uh you know you get uh uh addressed in the supermarket and Everywhere You Go phone calls and emails um and I will say I've worked this is my 32nd year in this business and I've worked with lots of school boards over the years and this
099school board is it an incredible group of people um in spite of their differences and opinions they have one thing absolutely in common and I've noticed that since I've been in Poquoson and that's to serve the best interests of children we never have a conversation in this board whether it's in a workshop a closed session or in this open meeting where the the Forefront in the Forefront of every decision is not what's in the best interest of children so I appreciate you all very much I appreciate you on a personal and professional level you guys are amazing so happy school boards appreciation month and a couple other quick things I've been asked um by Jean Ray uh who takes care of our impact Aid work impact data I'm just going to say this quickly is
100a way that school divisions that have a significant military presence that are connected to military families can access some federal money to help us do that work we've sent out a survey every year impact Aid survey and you all have seen it familiar with it we are in crunching our numbers recently we found out that we're about 17 people short from accessing a pretty large chunk of money We're not gonna do anything but but exactly right so this is a Shameless plug if you have not filled out your impact Aid information and you have some connection to a military base or federal government property in the area you work on that property at any point during the year you don't have to be military you are military connected by that and that helps us access
101money so again a Shameless plug if that's you we are going to continue to send out messages in this regard but I know it's another thing you have to fill out and and that can be a pain but we very much appreciate it the money goes directly to help children in this community and and some of the services we do military connected night and welcome back and a lot of the other things this will help us continue to do those things so if you're one of those folks that haven't taken the time to do the impact Aid please contact the school and we can guide you through how to do that and one more thing um I want to thank tonight miss Janet Brown um Janet is in the audience tonight Janet worked with as
102the Director of Finance for Poquoson schools 14 years ago wasn't it 14 years ago and was here for several years retired and then when um Tara left us to go down the hall to the city we immediately started recruiting for um and advertising for a new executive director but we asked Janet if she would come and help us in the interim and she was glad to do so she's continued to help other school divisions since her retirement stay afloat and we very much appreciate you Janet for filling in and I know Tracy appreciates your your help getting started and you all make a great team maybe we need two Finance directors but um thank you so much for for your help with the school division thank you thank you I think that's it Lexi all
103right as your team I'm going to start with the primary school at PPS this month we have welcomed teacher Cadets from PHS celebrated our school counselor we've had the second grade senior social night Valentine's Day and the 100th day of school in the coming weeks we have had even we have even more to celebrate with both in school and after school activities our first graders will have an in-school field trip from the Jamestown outreach program and our PTO is sponsoring their second family bingo night we are also preparing for a spring book fair and read Across America weeks we will have dress-up days to Susa brate so we hope everyone will get their outfits planned and ready next Thursday March 2nd will be our Real Men read event in the school and our Spring Book
104Fair family night that evening we think we think all of our parents for their volunteer hours reading to our children and providing treats for our staff as we hope to and we hope to make many more and take the opportunity to volunteer for upcoming events LPS students have worked to complete the student growth assessments sgas the data from these tests will help highlight areas and strengths in areas of strength and areas of needs for students as we approach asol testing spring students participated in battle of the books competition one team will represent PES at the regional Battle of the books competition on March 8th and March 18th in Williamsburg we kicked off our 13th annual cookie dough fundraiser and students are excited to sell cookie dough to raise money for our school Wavy TV 10
105meteorologist Jeremy wheeler came by for a visit he talked about extreme weather types and what it's like to be a meteorologist and even brought some cool weather tools to share the students fifth grade classes or we'll be going to the Virginia Air and Space Museum this week and fifth grade students have also started working on their research projects now for PMS February has been a busy month at Potosi Middle School the all-in bull teak store officially opened and was a huge success all PMS students were able to select prizes based on the number of Golden Bull tickets they have earned by demonstrating our school-wide expectations of being respectful acting responsibly and building resilience the school store will be open again on Thursday March 2nd students in grades 6 7 and 8 took year in mid-year
106growth assessment for Math and we are now gearing up to administer the writing Sol test for all 8th grade students March 8th and 17th EMS celebrated National kindness week from February 13th through 17th spirit days themes dress up attire and kindness challenges PMS students were encouraged to give each other friendly high fives mix it up at lunch by sitting at a different lunch table and perform acts of kindness for others as well as compliment classmates for as the kindness is a team effort Battle of the classes was also back in full force last week for students participated in theme days competed in Minute to Win Minute to Win It games at lunch had coin Wars and ultimately battled it out in the gym on Thursday evening sportsmanship among the teams was fantastic as they performed
107in front of a packed gym full of family member students and staff congratulations to the 8th grade and winning the confetti trophy a huge thank you to is extended to the staff and PTO for the assistance without the sixth outstanding event we are also currently busy planning for this year for the next year PMS school counselors are hosting parent information nights this Thursday evening are in the process of visiting classrooms to review registration information from the student perspective please visit our website for more information finally PMS would like to extend congratulations to our 22 students who are inducted into the National Junior Honor Society and our February Golden Bowl students of the month Peyton Schmid for sixth grade Emily wise for 7th and Finley Ramos for eighth last but not least High School second semester
108has started and PHS is in full swing with projects activities events and field trips our biology students in Miss yarbrough's class and culinary students in Miss Duvall's class continue their projects of growing food and preparing it forensic students started learning how to measure splatter by finding the degree of the original Source today outside Mrs Easter's class has been working hard to prepare smoothies for the staff and ensuring our recycling is collected each week February is CTE month and our CTE teachers are working with their classes to create videos and pictures that capture all the great things our CTE courses have to offer our band students have continued to impress with 11 students being selected for all district band assessment and one student senior Patrick Nelson making the All-State auditions our core students have also done
109well this month with four students earned Allstate as you guys heard earlier Avery Nunley Brooks Zayna Weems a gill Smith and Lauren romanelli our winter sports seasons are wrapping up and our students have done an exceptional job our wrestling team won the Regional Championship and recently third overall it states with freshman Jared Goodson won the 130 113 pound title our swim team also found postseason success as our boys varsity team earning the original championship and other relay teams in individual advancing onto the states Tony DeVries Soren Lund Lance Owens and Jack Sebring all placed second in the state championship in their events 14 of our indoor track athletes earned All Region honors and will be competing at the state event on March 1st and 2nd at Liberty University our girls basketball team will be in
110action tonight hosting the original game versus Greenville they earned the first round first round buy and our overall third seed in the region our scholastical team also won the region 2A championship and they will be competing at the state championship on February 25th at Jamestown High School our drama students just competed the first ever student directed play this past week and performed for a parent family audience the student director was senior Ashton Hendrickson our Spring sport tryouts are currently underway and last but not least a special shout out to all of our counselors Dr Cunningham Miss Banton and Miss neenan who have done a tremendous job supporting our students and also the school resource officer officer Biggs for keeping our school safe and supporting our students and staff as always please subscribe and read the
111latest Island times newsletter for all things occurring at PHS thank you Lexi Mr Ingram yeah I want to congratulate Miss Weimer for uh being the high school senior of the month uh congratulate all the members of the PHS All-State choir and just want to thank all the teachers and staff for everything that that you do um you know there were some I saw good numbers tonight but you know everything that you've done up until now is is we've surpassed the national average so I mean that that should say a lot right there thank you Patrick Adele I also wanted to congratulate the All-State choir uh also give kudos to the um the faculty and the students involved with the given Garden the given Garden that's a great project when you know a biologist here loves
112to see that the Science Education and actually I'm seeing it applied in real life so um waiting for my kids to get up there and be a part of that product themselves and then uh one other final shout out to Jared Goodson he's one of the first kids I've met when I moved to Poquoson five six years ago hard worker I've been on road trips with his dad chasing national competition and wrestling and it's just good to see all the work and hard work put off uh get Rewards first of hopefully many uh State restaurants such a good thank you Mr Childress I'd like to go along with everything they say and it is really cool to see students actively excited about learning when they're growing and pulling stuff and cooking it so it's awesome
113programs and to see Eagle Scout helped build the stuff just make that much better so other than that I'm good um of course I want to thank all the teachers and their administrative Administration your jobs are really hard sitting on this side right now and I see that they're even harder than I thought they were it's nice to see Miss Brown she was she had a little bit to do with hiring me way back in the day um and um all of the students that were mentioned tonight we we just had excellent students and that's what we want to keep um and Mr tillett I had people calling me this week about you saying that you're walking through the souk schools and entering their classrooms and they love that they love to show you what
114they're doing so I'm giving give you kudos for that and um that's about it I wanted to thank uh or congratulate Evelyn weimert being the February student of the month I'd also like to congratulate the All-State Chorus group and also you know shout out to uh Paige Yarborough living Garden I think that's a great opportunity and just joking that's it I'm sorry all right and I'll just say welcome to the board look forward to working with you and the only comment I will add is I think I finally now got my hearing back from Battle the classes because my my watch my phone everything kept on alerting me that it was too loud um so but seriously it was great to it's great to see our kids get back to normal to see them go
115on field trips to see them do things like this so thank you again as Miss Everett said thank you for all of our staff for everything you do we appreciate it um with that Miss first do we have any material for Board review I mean okay so we'll go ahead and adjourn and we have a work session and a closed meeting that we're going to get to but thank you all for coming