Roanoke City School Board Special Meeting & Workshop: April 28, 2026

001Mhm. >> Mhm. >> There it is. There we go. Do I Do I need to gavel again? Okay. Okay. Um the April 28th, 2026 school board special meeting and workshop is called to order. Ms. Winterwear, will you please call the roll? Mr. Cherry. Here. Dr. Jamison. Mr. Link. Here. Ms. Quintana. Here. Ms. Trigg. Here. Mrs. Watkins. >> Here. Mrs. Apel. Here. Thank you very much. Thank you to all of those attending the meeting in person and those that are joining us via the RCPS YouTube channel. Uh thank you also um Mr. Mayor for uh joining us this evening as well. Um so again, we appreciate everyone um everyone's engagement um with our school board meeting. So, next is the approval of the agenda. Is there a motion and a second to approve the agenda as

002presented? Moved. Second. Moved by Ms. Watkins, seconded by Mr. Cherry. Is there any discussion? Hearing none, all those in favor say I. I. Any opposed say no. And the motion carries and the agenda is approved. Um before we move on to the superintendent's reports, um I just did want to take a moment to re-emphasize the school board's awareness of the difficult budgetary times we are experiencing collectively. The decisions made affect real people and do have consequences. Tonight we'll continue discussions related to budget development for 26-27 and keep in and we will also keep in mind the years beyond 2027. The school board is constantly seeking and receiving information about all aspects of the state of education in RCPS impacted by the budget. Thank you for everyone's continued engagement and investment in the educational opportunities that

003have been have been and will continue to be afforded to the students of Roanoke City Public Schools. So with that, Dr. White. Thank you, Madam Chair. Good evening, Madam Chair, Mr. Vice Chair, members of the school board and student representatives. This evening we're bringing forward items for your consideration and information including a quarterly update and a 2026 General Assembly report from the Constituent Services and Government Relations Office. First reading of policy revisions and an update on the 2026-2027 budget process. Before we get to our agenda items, I'd like to highlight a few items for the board and for the public's information. Yesterday, Mrs. Apel and I were invited by Kate Dunkley, Executive Director of the Higher Education Center, to attend a ceremonial bill signing by Governor Abigail Spanberger. We were honored to have our students

004and staff stand beside the Governor as she signed several education bills into law. This included legislation that made permanent our Community Builders program and supported career and technical education. RCPS helped to champion many of these bills which directly support our students. I'd especially like to thank our legislators including Delegate Sam Rasoul and Senator David Suetterlein for leading this bipartisan work. I'd also like to thank Dr. Alan Seibert, Coach Corey Aldridge, Josh Johnson not only for helping to stand up our community builders, but also to implement this wonderful program for our students. So, if we could give them a round of applause, let's just thank them for that. Also, last Thursday, we hosted our fifth RCPS Works Student Job Fair, and I want to thank the more than 90 businesses and community partners who participated this

005year. A special thank you to Jess Trueax, our communications and marketing team, and everyone who worked to ensure that this event was successful. Also, I'm proud to share that Wix Filters, in partnership with the automotive magazines Tomorrow's Technician, has named the Charles W. Day Technical Educational Center their 2025-2026 School of the Year. This national honor recognizes top technical training programs across the country. Uh tomorrow, award representatives will visit Day Tech to present a trophy and a $10,000 check to Day Tech program director Eric Lear and automotive teacher Derek Ray, and so we are so proud of the work that our CTE programs are doing to ensure that our students graduate with a diploma and a resume. You know what I'm going to say. Uh and we look forward to celebrating them tomorrow. Also, our elementary

006schools participated in the Little Feet Meet last week at Roanoke College alongside nearly 800 athletes from 35 elementary schools across the region. And so, we are proud of all of our young athletes. Several students from Hurt Park Elementary School even had the opportunity to serve as torchbearers during the opening ceremony. So, thank you to our special education teachers and our our members and our administrators for your leadership in supporting this annual event. Next, as part of our ongoing boundary study, we are reviewing attendance zones to ensure that every student has access to safe, high-quality learning environments close to home. So, with the new Preston Park Elementary School opening in August, which will provide more space, we will be making adjustments to reduce overcrowding at nearby elementary schools. So, we invite families, staff, and community to

007review the proposed adjustments and provide feedback at town hall meetings next week. So, in addition to Preston Park, the proposed changes would affect some students at Monterey, Brown's Hill, and Lincoln Terrace and Fallon Park. So, we will hold a virtual town hall meeting next Monday, uh May 4th at 5:30 p.m. and an in-person town hall meeting at Preston Park on Wednesday, May 6th at 6:00 p.m. Uh which will include a tour of the new school. So, if you're curious about the new school, come on out. Also, we will publish a survey for families to submit their input that way as well. So, if you can't come out to the town hall meetings, you can also fill out the survey or you could do both. Uh more information is available on our RCPS website. Also, next

008week is Teacher Appreciation Week. And I want to take a moment to recognize the extraordinary work and dedication of our teachers. Every single day, you serve not only as educators, but as mentors and role models, um and advocates. And you build uh meaningful relationships with our students. And you create classrooms where our students feel safe and supported. And we appreciate you and we want you to know that. As we celebrate Teacher Appreciation Week, I encourage everyone to visit the RCPS website next week where families and community members can submit digital thank you cards to our teachers. So, thanks to the generous support of several community partners including One Roanoke, which is a coalition of church congregations and the Roanoke Central Council PTA, we will be delivering a token of appreciation to each of our schools

009throughout next week. So, let's thank our community partners for joining in this effort >> [applause] >> So, with that to begin our report this evening, I'll ask our constituent services and cover government relations officer, Dr. Alan Sebert to come forward to provide the first quarter update as well as a recap on the 2026 General Assembly session. So, with that Dr. Sebert. Uh good evening, Madam Chair, Mr. Vice Chair, Dr. White, members of the board, student reps, and everyone in attendance. It's a great pleasure to have this opportunity provide a quarterly report in accordance with our our community feedback system. And so, if we can put that slide back up. All right, here we go. Quick reminder is orientation familiar to you, but for people who might be tuning in, the board has in place a

010policy about community feedback and that involves standing up the constituent services office and that is operated in accordance with the International Ombuds Association standards of practice. As part of that, we also have established a process where we think it's best practice for to resolve problems, questions, and concerns. Part of that process is to really establish that we want people to get answers resolve the concerns as close to the source as possible. That's both a way to give an immediate response and also help empower the people who are helping resolve the concerns. We have board policy KAA which requires a community feedback system. The board will remember that we have been migrating from a system for the previous 5 years called EthicsPoint to a new and more affordable and also more functional system. And tonight you

011have the chance to see some of the things it does well, some things it does differently, and some questions we have an opportunity to get feedback on using that new system called OnBase. So that journey has been from NAVEX EthicsPoint to OnBase by K12 Insight and it has been a really good process. I really do thank technology and HR for helping out. The thing you're going to see different reporting tonight is that EthicsPoint a report would come in, it would be tagged one way. In in the current system, you think about how on your on your phone you can tag photos with lots of tags. So rather than saying oh this was this person in this photo, you can say it was this person, this event, at this location, during your vacation. And so as

012a result, the tag system in OnBase does creates a duplicated count. So you'll see we have 11 tickets in the new system, but we actually have more more tags coming from that. In terms of the system, we had 11 tickets that came in and that's what they're called OnBase tickets, not reports or cases. And that could pretty consistent with nine cases in the old system in in the fourth quarter and even looking back to to last year. Visits to my office, however, have increased 88 visits in in in the quarter. 88 88 visits in in the quarter, that's higher both for the previous quarter and also higher than the quarter one of of last year. Visitors primarily employees followed by a lot some inquiries from partner agencies and and then parents. Video conferences, workplace, and

013and lots of email. So here's a couple of just the reports that come directly from OnBase. One of the things we want to do is is try to leverage what it does for us rather than trying to always recreate things. So this is a report generated from OnBase uh for the Constituent Services Office for the quarter. And uh the first thing you get is like a little dashboard approach. In this dashboard, um we have very good customer service score. That's because only two of the 11 tickets provided feedback, and they were both complimentary. I There's only one way to go from a 10 out of 10, and that is down. We [laughter] can tell you that uh um uh we are very committed to giving people answers to their questions. Sometimes they don't like the

014answers, and so I I don't think this next quarter will include some of the same scores. However, the the timeliness to excuse me important uh that we are responding quickly and and acknowledging receipt, and um and and and doing a really good job overall with that. The The one thing we are learning about this system is where in EthicsPoint you could be anonymous, and I could put information back to you, and I would never know [clears throat] if you looked at it or not. In the uh OnFlow system, there's two ways to be anonymous. One is putting your information, say hide my information. That way we can provide information back to you, but there's also an option where people can be wholly anonymous, and that's already proving to be problematic because there's really no way

015to give any kind of information back, no way to correct a misunderstanding, and so we're going to have to continue to look at that system, and and as we think about next school year, we might have some recommendations for you. So, here's the tags. And and the nice thing about the tag system is again, you can have multiple tags to help us do it. This will really help us with our trend analysis. We want to find out the trends, things that are bubbling. Uh the tags will help do that cuz one report can involve multiple things. So, the tag system will be good with that. The challenge is is that the way it reports out of the system currently is a frequency distribution, which is handy cuz you can see what the hot most frequent

016tags are, but it also then mixes the way we've typically reported to you what are the outcomes and what are the actions. And so, because it doesn't do it alphabetically, it's not organizing those. So, we we are going to ask the vendor if there's a way to maybe sort this alphabetically as well as by frequency, and they're amenable to that idea, but I don't know if it'll be ready in time for next quarter or not. If you take a look here, you can see that again, the system is a great way for people to ensure there's administrative leader division level review of their concerns. Obviously, we've been in a season where a lot of these things have involved budget and and concerns related to that. And well, I was asked a couple about weather. Again,

017you know, this was the first quarter of the year and some some of the issues and also how we handled the outcomes. In terms of looking at the trends, here you can see that the visits to my office have had a marked increase and we had a pretty high over the previous five quarters. The in the in the first quarter, the migration from EthicsPoint to OnFlow has was about the same number of cases that we see. I will tell you already this quarter I I think pretty sure this quarter we're going to see an increase in in OnFlow tickets as well. I think it's some of that's because of the outreach we've been doing. I also think part of it is because it's a easier to use system that EthicsPoint was and so I'm I'm

018encouraged about that. Um also at your not at the place, but coming around you're accustomed to receiving That's all right. And this is part of this process you're used to at the quarters, the chiefs also provide their anecdotal remarks of what what some of the themes that came from their offices. So that is coming out to you. This report is again, the back of it includes those trends, but the front is where we're trying to use the some of the reporting that comes out of OnFlow and we'll continue to talk about that. So before I shift to legislative out outcomes, which are very encouraging, I want to take a pause to see if there's any questions on the quarterly report and you know, if if you how are you feeling, what your earlier thoughts are

019about the OnFlow system and the way it's reporting versus is chart that I used to use in the past. Um Mr. Lopez Ortiz, any questions or comments for um Dr. Seibert? Ms. Quintana? I'm just excited to see how it's working cuz I remember last year you were talking about it and we were how we were going to switch and then it's exciting to see how it's working and how it's helping. So, I'm excited. Thank you. Mr. Link? No comments. Thank you for the information. Um Ms. Trigg? Oh. Ms. Watkins? Dr. Jameson? No. Thank you for the excellent report. >> [laughter] >> Vice Chair Cherry? We love dashboards. >> [laughter] >> Well, thank you very much and I look forward to seeing how it progresses with the new system. So, thank you, Dr. Seibert. I will

020move on then, Vice Chair, to the uh our government relations update. We had a policy governance legislative committee meeting on the 15th and went into a pretty deep dive, but we have a summary document for you today and I'll hit you with a few highlights. Um General Assembly, over 1,200 bills made through the process. Governor was very busy. She mentioned that yesterday. About 200 education bills that we were tracking at some level. That's too many to track in depth. So, [clears throat] I I we use we use other focus and our priorities. Most of our emphasis is on the board's priorities. And so, I'm happy to report some of those. We had a largely successful session. As of right now, we're about 13 out of 15 in terms of success, but we have one still

021deferred and kind of pending. And that is our advocacy in conjunction with the city for the 1% referendum opportunity. Uh those bills didn't go through, but there was budget language in the Senate budget to make that happen. But since we still don't have a state budget, we don't know the outcome of that advocacy yet. But I do have another handout. I like this one as well. Helping with the reporting. We did have a largely successful session and some of those successes were highlighted yesterday and and we're really pleased. Community Builders is a demonstration site. The word pilot has been removed from the Code of Virginia and it exists. It also was in both budgets and so we hope it would be in a reconciled budget and since it's been signed and celebrated, I think that's

022a pretty good indicator that hopefully it'll survive the whatever budget compromise comes there. We also had success in terms of reestablishing a career technical credential licensure opportunity, which is going to be very important moving forward and it's also it's a three-year license, but it's also renewable. So we'll be able to really make sure we bring in practitioners. The we were advocating for some assessment reform. So we've got we've made progress on that. The the we wanted to have continued flexibility on the three-year growth assessment. That actually was eliminated. So that's considerable flexibility [clears throat] moving forward and we've also been had the opportunity to engage in the process of the new RFP that the state will use to seek a new assessment system and I had the opportunity to serve on that that task force

023at the Commonwealth level. The construction referendum as I said was is still TBD. It's the bills did not pass. They decided to address it through the budget, but the budget has not been resolved. Really excited that we talked a lot about assessment and accountability and the student support and successes student school support framework SPSF. That the bill passed with another one ceremonially signed yesterday is that the the The board will have to look at the JLARC recommendations, and we support that. and And uh Dr. White had the opportunity to hear some of those that early work yesterday. And it was largely encouraging. Um we also worked to defeat some unfunded mandates, including another effort to really require the board to to put in pretty onerous HVAC testing. We already have our own apprenticeship program where

024we bring people along and they become journeymen and and masters. And so why would we have to pay external people to do things we can do ourselves? Now that being said, this is 2 years in a row this has come up. And so we don't always want to be an organization that's saying what we don't want. We also want to think about what we do want. So I've had the opportunity to talk with Mr. Perkins and some of the team in operations. And our plan for next General Assembly session is to say General Assembly, if this is the desire, here's how we think you could do this in a in a in a more practical way that would definitely uh would be hopefully less damaging on very small rural divisions, but also honor the the

025the expertise that we enjoy in Rock City Public Schools. And then lastly, I would count it as a win was our uh there was no bill introduced about uh trying to take away elected school boards from the remaining localities who have that. And in fact, had a conversation with a senator uh who shared with me that she thought our uh approach where we brought a letter signed by the mayor and by the chair thanking the the senators for their work last year, that that actually worked pretty well because after that was circulated as people received it, there was no talk about a bill. We'll see what happens next session. But we did count that as a win. Now although the session is not quite done cuz we're still waiting on the budget, and the session

026technically runs from January through March, that doesn't mean where our advocacy lies. Our our legislative calendar is year-round, and we have scheduled uh the Region 6 Superintendents Luncheon for for June 17th. Dr. White continues to serve as a legislative chair for the Region 6 Superintendents. And we look forward to engaging and getting geared up for the 2027 General Assembly starting then. So those are uh the highlights. You have the handout there. The handout includes a look by look by bills. Some of those bills, for example, there's there's 15 bills, but really it's it's probably closer to 30 bills cuz you usually have a companion in the House and in the Senate. And so, I save space on the chart by putting both on one row whenever there's a companion bill. So, if you have a

027chance to look at that, and I'll answer any questions you might have about our General Assembly session. Thank you very much, Dr. Sievers. Ms. Traeger or Ms. Watkins? Ms. Thank you. Mr. Lopez Ortiz? Ms. Quintana or Mr. Link? No questions. Just thank you for doing this. This is amazing. I have >> [clears throat] >> two if you'll humor me. Um one of them is probably asking you to look into a crystal ball that you don't have. Uh as we are doing our own budget funding or budget planning here at RCPS, part of that is waiting on finalization of state budget. Um I think the [clears throat] last coverage I read may have been in Cardinal News that they're not predicting a finalized budget until June. Um do you have any insight on that one way

028or another? Any sense of when the state may finalize its The The it was the speaker of the House who said it could be June. Okay. Um on the the budget negotiators uh Delegate Torian uh budget negotiator for the House and and uh Senator Lucas, they have reported that they're making progress on the elephant in the room, which is the data center tax uh piece. And so, because there hadn't been decisions on that, the con for budget conferees had not even been meeting. And because if you're another conferee on the budget, your point has been there's no sense meeting and talking until we know how much money we're going to have. Until we decide what's going to happen with these these this incentive piece and a few other things, we really don't know. So, there

029there was looked like there was some movement and um whether it's it's this week or next week or I sure hope not June. But, [laughter] I I think there is a desire uh to to see this get moving. I know the the governor has stated she's working very hard to get to get them moving, but uh the right now it's uh Senator Lucas and Delegate Torian the chairs uh have to come to an accord on what they're going to do about the data centers. Okay. Okay. Thank you, Mr. Angle. Was that your first or your second question? That was my first. Do we have time for a second? Yes. Um in our budget planning over the last several months, um we have been discussing how many standards of quality lag behind actual practices in public

030education. Um is there any work anywhere on updating the standards of Is Is that kind of a known problem that just isn't getting traction yet amongst our legislators or where is that? So, the SOQ gets updated every 2 years by the state board. The state board doesn't have the authority to implement those recommendations. Um they can recommend, but then the General Assembly decides whether or not they're going to fund them. We 2 3 years ago now did have success in influencing standards of quality to better reflect the support needed for English learner families. And so, that that that was a good thing that that adjusted. That also then required that we add people, which also then required the local match and the local cost and created financial burden. But, it was a way to recognize

031that there was a need there. Moving forward, however, in this last session, the General Assembly was not interested in hearing uh ideas about staffing ratios because they're still pointing back to a 3-year-old JLARC report about school funding saying, "Hey, instead of funding X teachers for Y students, let's fund based on student needs." And so the idea is moving from a staffing ratio to a student weighted funding formula. And the idea of moving to a student weighted funding formula makes sense. It makes sense because oh, you have higher need students, you have more students with special needs, you have more English learners, you have more children in poverty, you have more children are homeless, more resources should flow to those places. So, it makes very good sense logically. It it it it great. The devil is

032always going to be in the details because if you're really going to change a state funding formula, you've got to be able to bring new dollars to the table to avoid having winners and losers. And so, if if you're just going to divide the same pie up the same way. So, this is where you see some other states such as like Maryland, I think they're using a 10-year plan to implement over time, but it begins by saying this is how many dollars we think we need to have. But the gap for the Commonwealth is huge because the JLAR study, which is now 3 years old, said that the state is underfunding $5 based on what localities are doing. So, that that is a really big lift, not something that's going to happen in one budget

033cycle. So, Circutis answer there, there's an understanding that there's a better way to do it. There's going to be movement, I think, in the coming years to go in that direction, but while they're doing that, they're probably not going to do any more tweaks to staffing ratios. Thank you so much. Sure. Thank you for that, Mr. Link. Dr. Jamison. Uh not so much a question. Congratulations on what looks like a very successful um season overall to the extent that it's not quite over. Um I I guess what I'm wondering, I'm imagining with so much new, right? A new new governor, so much going on, who knows what's going to happen that there's probably a lot of potential issues shaking out of this particular session um that we might want to attend to on our next

034year's advocacy um schedule. I'm wondering um because uh where's Mr. Freeman? We have a short summer and we have a long session at in Richmond. Does any of the schedule change for you for the development of the lobbying agenda for this year from, you know, in working with the legislators? I know we have this annual calendar where we begin developing our issues. Is there anything that you could see that we should add as things be coming bubbling up, coming to our attention, etc.? I mean, I I I might be asking for that crystal ball again, but but I would imagine with this much um roiling of uh conversation that you're probably spotting a lot of things that are like >> [laughter] >> Yes and no. For So, backing up 3 years ago now, the board

035did adjust the timeline and began doing first review and approval of your legislative priorities a full month earlier, and that has served us well. I think it's hard to go too much earlier because we would learn so much at the Super Tens conference, at the VSBA conference, about what is bubbling that we don't want to get too far ahead. So, I think the timeline for that still looks pretty good. Uh next year actually will be a short session cuz this was the long session for the biennial budget. Um so, next year will be a short session, which again there'll be probably the same number of bills, just less days to do them all. So, it will be very very tough and and challenging. Um I do I do think the other thing that I think

036we could see, again, this is the cloudy crystal ball with cracks in it, that um I think there is a desire, we're hearing a desire, to re-empower the state board to to do some things. There was a lack of trust between the General Assembly and the State Board for a period of time, and so the General Assembly was really doing things that really should be were more regulatory, should be a state board function. So, what we heard even as recently as yesterday from the the the su- uh state superintendent is that they're going to do some work, they're going to use the the JLARC study for the SPSF and make some changes, but they're going to try to make those changes thoughtfully and they're not trying to just like yank the steering wheel and move

037the car from one lane to the other suddenly. They're trying to do some course corrections and then do some modeling and take a multi-year view on how to make some of these changes. So, I think that we are engaged. As I said, I have the opportunity of participating in the assessment task force. We have a staff member participating in the literacy task force. We have another staff member participating in the math task force. So, RCPS is well represented in those projects right now at the I can't move up. Dr. Jamison um Mr. Cherry Oh, no. Thank you for keeping your finger on the pulse. I don't think I think sometimes we don't understand the work that you do and always we're always having to pivot trying to keep our finger on the pulse of what's

038going on in Richmond. So, you've been really you've been such a valuable asset to this division and I just wanted to tell you thank you. Thank you. Ms. Walker and Ms. Trigg, I did get you on this one. Okay. Um yes, and thank you for that. Um I the advocacy work is a you know, a slower moving train, but it has you know, longer term impact. So, thank you for the work that you do on that and to help keep us well represented and with our fingers on the pulse of of what's coming at the state level. So. Okay. So, Dr. Seabert, you can stay right there and and let's pivot to the first reading of several policy updates. Yes, thank you. You have your pre-placed you have a bound document and and just just

039to remind everybody who might be listening in. You as a board, you do not do policies on first review. You this is your first review. We will be bringing back recommendations for adoption. This document you have and the versions that are posted in BoardDocs online show the changes and you we invite you to take take and and and provide some feedback. But, I do want to hit some highlights. We're not going to go page by page through this what is a 140-page document. Uh we're just going to hit some highlights, but I will speak to anything in particular you would like to. Uh again, minor, we do rely heavily on the Virginia School Board Association model policy manual whenever possible. We can use a copyrighted policy. It gives us another level of legal defense. However,

040model policies don't always meet the needs of our community. So, we have several policies and especially implementing regulations that are our own. It's a great pleasure to work with the team and the and and to to work on those and also uh with with Mr. Collins. So, if you if you have questions, thoughts, or concerns, this is first review, no action tonight. But, we have asked that if you have some feedback, you give that to the clerk by by Wednesday of next week, May 6th. That way we have chance to incorporate it, polish things up. So, um then we already have on the very first one a slight change for you. So, starting with policy BBBA, qualifications of board members, this is another one where we noticed that the RCPS policy was longer, more expansive

041than the model policy. And that was because and in talking with Mr. Collins at the end of last week, the BBBA RCPS had in place was seeking to also address um other policies that you have already in place. So, it was a little bit of a redundancy. So, what we're instead what we're going to do and when we bring this to you for for final review, we're probably going to use the VSBA model, but we're going to make sure we include cross-references to board member removal from office, unexpired term fulfillment, and and residency, other things that are required uh for for board members. So, uh that that is BBBA. Continuing with section B, um the every every there's some tweaks and updates to uh you see a lot of these things say policy updated for

042clarity. This is cuz VSBA has yet another new attorney and um she's bringing her own perspective to, you know, words and language. They're continuing to do things. They're trying to take taking out pronouns in places. They continue to change shalls to will, those kinds of things, but you're also getting a new take. So, a lot of these updates are just kind of clarity. I do want to lift up to you, um we had this was a big policy lift for our HR team and also for to less percent for operations. So, I want to stop at GCBE, which is um page two of your summary chart, but if you go into your booklets pages 19 through 31 and then [clears throat] pages 32 through 34. At first look, you might think, "Oh my gosh, we're

043deleting the family medical leave no, um we are actually moving to the VSBA model policy and taking all the good work that's been recommended by your human resources team and putting it into a regulation. Uh that will make the regulation a little bit more uh something you guys can work on and change quick more quickly. Similarly, when you get to that GCBEBR, um that is a lot of changes, too. That's pages 35 through 57. And the reason there's so many pages is cuz sections are being deleted and then moved to different locations and worded differently. So, a lot of work there from from human resources. Sticking in section G, which continues with human resources, um you have uh some some support staff things. You'll we'll get to later that this is with some Mr. Collins

044has been been working on with us for some time and with HR that the Code of Virginia provides for different grievance procedures for licensed staff or support staff. But, if you don't have those spelled out in your policy manual, then there's a default. So, a lot of work from HR and Mr. Collins' office is is going on there and we'll get that that will come back when we get to the uh a little bit further down. Staying in policy, uh we get into some alternative school programs. Um if you look at page 65, you will see that we have uh community resources person school volunteers. So, the operations team observed that we have guidance on visiting schools if you're just a visitor coming in and from the community versus if you're a parent and the

045things are different places. So, we we've moved to some VSBA language in some places and we've done a better job of cross-referencing these policies so that if you're you're visiting or your parent who's visiting or other types of things, you have an easier time seeing where those uh things happen. So, for example, we have IICC, which is community resource persons and school volunteers. It is now cross-referenced with policy KK, which is school visitors, because if you're a volunteer, you're also effectively a visitor. We want that to all flow together. So, those are pages 76 through 79. Then, um operations built out a board regulation to help implement this, KK-BR. That's located on page 80. And that also then cross-references with policy KP, which is the parent rights and responsibilities, which obviously references parents' access to

046schools. So, all that has been thoughtfully reviewed and knit together and I encourage you to take a look at that and I thank um operations team for helping with that. Couple other little updates. Uh you're required annually uh to to uh review restraint and seclusion of students. VSBA has done that. They don't recommend any changes. On page four of your summary chart, there's a big chunk in the middle and these are all policies that were reviewed and had very non-substantive changes. So, legal references get updated, cross-references get updated, uh sometimes typos get fixed, but in your policy, you expect your policy governance legislative committee to review those. The PGL committee did that on on the 15th. So, we've listed for you in the summary chart all the ones that have uh passed the committee and

047and the clerk has already implemented. Then we move into the local policy updates and regulations and some some good work here. Some of these brought to us by the board you you in recent uh months said, "Hey, with we probably continue to polish up our our naming facilities, FFA-BR." So, we we received some feedback there. Again, operations has worked. We have some recommendations to help clarify that for you. When you get back into section G again, so now we're going to be all about the pages 102 and 104 of your booklet and 105 and beyond. This is personnel statement policies of ethics and standards of staff conduct. Um again, HR has thought worked on, used practice. This is how it's supposed to Policy drives practice, practice should inform policy. And so, HR has some recommendations

048on how to knit these things together, make them more clean and concise, and and basically read better. Now, right now, when you got the strike through and the underline, it's harder to read. But, when you have your clean copy prior to adoption, be a little easier. We also have a brand new regulation for you called GABBR, and this is from the technology department about employees bringing their own devices and and how that would work. So, so that's being built out. Then, BDDH. This is your public participation at board meetings. You all have engaged in some really thoughtful exercises recently about board meetings. And and so, we've thought about this room and the space we have. And so, we're making a few recommendations for you for the future in terms of public participation at board meetings.

049The largest piece here is If we ever have a really large turnout that we don't anticipate, and you know, the policy says if you expect a really large turnout, you probably change locations. But, if we ever have a really large turnout that we didn't anticipate, this act outlines that we could have an overflow area that has a live video live streaming, and people who have registered to speak could then be escorted to the board meeting and and prompt. This is a practice that I saw when I served on the state board, and and it's it worked well. And so, we're we're putting that in for you. We also think that um at once we adopt this policy, it'll be a chance for Once you all adopt the policy, it'll be a chance for to think

050about um even some of the the the notes you use as we set up for public comment. Then, some more HR things, staff leaves and absences and then we get to GBMA. This is support staff grievances. I got a happy face I drew in my notes here next to David's name thanking him and HR for working on that cuz we need to build out those two things. I'll talk about the last two and then Mr. Collins I'll bounce back to see if you want to elaborate on that at all. So then we get to advisory committees of the board. We found out we had one committee named differently than the state's. We're fixing that. And then policy DBA. This was your fund management fund balance management policy. Now in the absence of a fund balance

051the finance team is recommending we delete policy DBA. Oh and then lastly your board your policy manual includes a policy index. This policy index takes an enormous amount of time for your clerk to update and revise and and it doesn't seem like anybody ever uses it because the policy manual itself is searchable. So we are recommending as part of this update that we delete the policy index because people just use the little magnifying glass at the top. They don't go to the index any longer. That's a real quick review. HR operations are available to help answer specific questions. Mr. Collins do you want to elaborate on the sports staff grievances piece? Dr. Seibert as always you've done an excellent job summarizing the changes and how we came about to implement those. I do not have

052anything to add. Pleasure working with you on it Mr. Collins. Thank you. No action requested tonight. Feedback by Wednesday next week to the clerk if you could but I'll certainly answer any questions you might have now or I might phone a friend to the people who did the work. On this side of the day does anyone have any questions or comments for um Dr. Seibert? Mr. Link? I have one. Mhm. If we are and this makes sense deleting our policy on fund balance we've now heard from Ms. Jackson that there are two general ways to approach um responsible [clears throat] budget planning. You have a fund balance or you have a contingency built into your budget. Have we codified that in policy anywhere, carrying a contingency in our budget? I'm seeing some shake noses. Okay.

053Okay. I have two I think two comments. One is um I well, three. Thank you for all the hard work and to the committee and to everybody who worked on all of these. This is substantial revision and um I again, when I think about the first time I read our policies nine years ago, this is just such a cleaner and more uh a coherent presentation of the policies in a way that we really understand what's changing and and making it a living document and making sure it's relevant. So, thank you for all the work on that over time. Um Uh the other comment I have is on GAAEBR, the technology uh piece. Does technology policies, do they get to have a special font? They changed their font. >> [laughter] >> Did you Is there Is

054there some sort of sort of propriety on their font? >> [laughter] >> The uh the the font issue is actually BoardDocs is a very difficult uh system to to edit in and um we and and the clerk has to go back and manually put everything back to Times New Roman 12 every single time. Oh my gosh. As we move swiftly toward the end, some of those They'll be tidied up for you for your adoption. That That was mainly a joke, but thank you for reminding us about how much work it is to do this because that I'm not complaining about it. >> It's all It [laughter] is both substantive and tedious and thank you for all the hard work that goes into doing all this. The other question is somewhat related to our deleted fund

055balance management policy. Um and well, I don't see any I guess I don't see any to legislate a discretionary policy that feels like a budgeting function to me, but I do wonder is there any need for us to consider a policy around requesting appropriation, or is that also in the business of operations? I mean, you know, as we think about these, or even codifying a policy going forward around the question of using unspent annual funds, processes and procedures. Maybe that's too rigid. I just throw We're in a new landscape with that, and when I think about the ways in which Um and I don't want it to be overstepping, but I'm wondering about those two functions now, because we're in kind of a different world about appropriations and also um unspent year-end funds. And maybe

056that's just a budgeting function. Maybe I Maybe it's not a policy, but maybe it's a regulation. I don't know. And maybe it's not our regulation. Maybe it's a superintendent regulation. Um ma'am chair, to uh Dr. Jamison's question, um and I'm going to >> [laughter] >> try to frame here. I was I would back up from a policy perspective. I won't go in the weeds in the finance piece, cuz that's that's not my lane. But obviously the board can adopt any policy it wants on any time. We don't do readings, hopefully, unless it's an emergency. However, the the thing that has really been done well in recent years under Dr. Wise's leadership and our organization emphasis organization discipline is departments are continuing to build out standard operating procedures. And standard operating procedures really help organize the

057work in a meaningful way, but and it is always anchored in policy, but it's also then a little bit more flexible in terms of as times change, as you said you don't want to be overly rigid. Right. >> my first thought, but >> That's helpful. Maybe my question about end-of-year money is a standard operating procedure or something as opposed to that, but it does raise the question about appropriation, right? Because Yeah, I But But maybe that's also not a thing. I was just going to sort of echo what Dr. Siebert said, that I think a lot of that I mean the basic process of the appropriating body appropriating funds for educational purposes is based in in state code. Um >> and most of the rest I I think of what you said is is in

058my mind similar to Dr. Seabird's um, probably a an operating procedure or um, our internal regulations and processes that we need to work through. Um, but that's certainly something that we'll keep in mind and you know, if there are pieces of that process that perhaps we haven't um, had to think about before that would make sense as part of policy that we can certainly bring that to the Yeah, and hear me say I don't think it's an oversight. I'm thinking out loud because we're in the first year of a brand new approach. So, that's all I'm pondering out loud. As I see that I again, they the the appropriation piece would probably be more board governance uh, component, but the process of it could be an SOP. Yeah. So, we can we can certainly take

059a look at that. Um, and it strikes me that um, both your question inquiries and Mr. Link's were about you know, we did have a policy in place that codified you know, contingency and things like that. So, with new policies, you know, new funding policies at the city level, then it naturally stands to reason that we're going to need new procedures for how to deal with those. So, um, so yes, so thank you for both of those questions. Um, Mr. Cherry. No questions. Thank you. All right. And um, I just want to also thank Dr. Seabird for also helping to streamline when Oh, did we do I miss the side? I sure did. Miss Trayg, go ahead. Miss Watkins. Just one real quick. Um, from the um, SOPs to the to the policies to district

060Um, >> [clears throat] >> I just want to commend the um, personnel that's working through all of this because when you're immersed in the work and you're writing or suggesting the changes to the policies, it it makes you um you're so engrossed in it, you're living in it. And like Dr. White said, it's a living document. And so, it makes it better for our organization and smoother, and everyone understands their part and their piece um of how this um division works and how um intertwined all of our responsibilities are in making it all come together as best we can. And so, I thank you and I thank all of our associates and employees for the work that they do in getting down into this cuz this is this is a lot. And it and we've

061been watching it Eli and I have been watching it evolve um the longest. And I mean >> [clears throat] >> it's incredible um how um we all take our parts and we do what we need to do to make it better every time. So, thank you. Thank you. Yes. My apologies. Um yes, and I appreciate um Ms. Watkins's sentiments about that it is an evolving document and that the the people who are living how these policies and and regulations are enacted are then also providing feedback, you know, for the board as they are updated and edited. And I think we've all been part of organizations where they might have bylaws or procedures, but nobody knows the last time any of them were looked at or if they're even in force. And so, to know that

062there's a conscientious regular effort to not just look at them, but to improve them for the sake of the division has to be um commended. And also, I wanted to also appreciate just just note um how I know you also emphasize should this be a policy, should this be a regulation? How can we allow ourselves to be clear, able to enforce things, but also be nimble and allow for the fact that even an organization like RCPS is is also an always evolving organism. So, thank you for all of that. Thank you. Thank you, Dr. Siebert. I just want to thank you also for your work and and your support. Words matter and these are This is a lot of words. >> [laughter] >> And Dr. Siebert keeps his finger on the pulse of every single

063word again and policy language matters, right? So, that the words whether or not you're talking about support or encourage or or must or shall, those words matter and so thank you for keeping track of not only all of the words in terms of policy, but all that's going on with the General Assembly and what's happening in Richmond as well. So, we appreciate your work. I appreciate the kind compliments and feedback, but uh that's also very all these words are done by Kim Dresky and in a very wonky system called BoardDocs. So, really appreciate all the work that goes into that. Absolutely. Thank you, Dr. Siebert. Thank you. So, finally I'll ask our Chief Financial Officer, Kathleen Jackson, to provide an update on the 2026-2027 budget. I know that as a board you've been engrossed in

064the budget process for months and months and months now and so we're going to keep the train moving. So, tonight we're specifically looking at some proposed kind of programmatic changes and or and recommendations. And I'd like to underscore to those present tonight and those watching from from home that as the school board wrote in their letter to staff and to families and to the community last week that this is a work session. So, we're not asking the board to take action on anything tonight, but to consider taking to consideration some of these uh proposed changes and recommendations. Um and so this session is is really kind of meant to provide an overview of what has been previously proposed and now what some of those um changes are. Um and so we'll bring the recommendations back

065to the board to the school board for your consideration and we'll ask you to take action at your May 12th regular meeting and uh before we get to that again, I just like to say that as we're getting into it tonight, it's important for us to keep in mind that uh it's we're we're trying to balance and we're trying to move forward productively keeping our students and our staff members at the center. So where where where we may be compromising in one uh programmatic area, that means that we'll have to be sacrificing personnel in another area. So um it is my understanding of what we have been doing is to kind of prioritize to try to save um positions jobs um as as best we can while also keeping in in mind our students and

066the programmatic considerations that are uh before us as well. So I I just like to thank everybody who's been involved uh thus far, all of our students, families, staff members, um community members for being engaged throughout the process uh because that input really matters. Everybody's input matters. And so as you'll see tonight, we have updated several of our programmatic recommendations uh to uh to consider that balance if you will and to minimize the impact to the classrooms or try to um can protect our classrooms as best we can and um to minimize really the impact on our positions uh as well. So uh we continue to have to make difficult decisions and I just want to thank everyone for being involved thus far and for staying the course and making sure that our students stay

067at the center and the heart of these conversations. So, with that, Mrs. Jackson, I'll turn it over to you. Okay, thank you very much, Dr. White. Good evening, Chair Mrs. Apel, Vice Chair Mr. Cherry, members of the school board, and um those present and watching virtually. As Dr. White said, we're sort of continuing our look at our budget and taking one piece at a time, and I appreciate very much the school board's diligent work a month ago when you looked at the some difficult decisions on the personnel side. So, we're going to focus, as Dr. White said, on some of those programmatic areas that we have discussed before. I want to bring that back to the forefront for continued discussion and and your consideration. I'll start first, however. I was hoping that I would have

068a budget update for you, as you just heard from Dr. Seabird, and I know you've seen in the news, unfortunately, we do not have a state budget yet. So, we are continuing um to to move forward with the Senate version of the state budget, which was the lower of the two options that were on the that are on the table. So, we will keep doing that until we have further information from the state. So, keep moving the course there. So, coming back to the the programmatic changes that we've considered, just wanted to to bring back and remind you and the community that we had some criteria that we wanted to keep in mind when we were looking at possible changes. And and one of those first items was does that program or service require specially

069transportation routes that add cost? So, that is a significant cost driver. So, a lot of what we considered was whether it was something above and beyond basic transportation required to to transport students to and from school. We're also looking at whether or not programs or services go above and beyond what is required by the standards of quality. So, certainly we've had a lot of conversation about the standards of quality being kind of the bare minimum that we certainly don't want to uh move everything down to that lowest bar, but nonetheless, it we do have to at least meet that minimum. So, we wanted to make sure we were looking at ensuring that we were meeting that minimum um and then consider anything above and beyond that. Um >> [clears throat] >> Are additional personnel required

070to provide the program or service? So, again, um that is uh looking at whether there is additional cost above and beyond the basic services that would be in the form of personnel. Um and lastly, we looked at whether or not the programs or services um could be retained through a different service model. Um so, those were some some key points that we want to keep in mind as we're going through. Um also wanted to bring back and I won't go through these these this is all information that you've seen before, but it's been a while, so I wanted to make sure and and take a little minute to um to bring back to your attention the the various uh methods of feedback and the questions um that have risen to the top in this process

071and throughout this time period. So, as you recall, we've had um a lot of opportunities for input, a virtual town hall meeting, um had meetings with uh UCLs assortment of um constituent groups um throughout the the last several months to get feedback um and have had a lot of uh very helpful engagement from our community. Um just hitting the highlights of the feedback themes that we've heard from our community. Um certainly we've had comments about the Plato program and our gifted programs. Um staffing reductions is a big area and program cuts that we got a lot of feedback uh and concern over. Transportation and activity buses um uh received a lot of comments and um student behavior, climate and safety um was another area that um our community brought to our attention as a priority.

072Um community advocacy and partnerships, um that was something that uh that came up through our feedback themes, teacher pay and compensation, an area of concern, um making uh making sure we're doing the best we can to stay competitive there. Um our facilities, maintaining our facilities, that is something that um is on is being considered um and overcrowding concerns, and then technology and um our our student devices and the one-to-one um device to student that we currently have uh in practice uh was something that came through as well. Um and then uh we received um much feedback and questions from you, the school board, as well. So, we certainly appreciate your engagement. Um had a lot of focus on uh the personnel side, of course, um and concerns there, as well as operational things that are

073on the table, like our activity buses and um thinking about the boundary change that's coming and how that might impact our current situation. Um questions about teaching and learning, especially looking at that 3-year-old preschool program, which we'll talk about in a minute, um and our and of course our Plato gifted program. And then we had some questions and uh focus on our budgeting process and other resources and um other other requirements that we might need to keep um in consideration as we move forward and make these uh difficult budget decisions. So, um a lot of important feedback that we've gotten leading [clears throat] us and and helping us get to this point. Um so, I'll jump into the programmatic areas that are uh under consideration for some changes. First being activity buses. So, just as

074a reminder, um this is uh additional late bus service after school from school to home for students who might stay after um for an athletic practice or a fine arts practice or to attend a club meeting. Um That sort of thing. Right now, we have three buses that transport twice daily at the high schools as well as Breckenridge and Addison. Two buses transporting twice daily at Fishwick, Madison, and Woodrow Wilson Middle Schools. Um and our average ridership was about 173 students daily. I know um we we have been looking at how that has fluctuated and changed. We were asked to look into if there are uh times when that is most necessary. And that led to us uh bringing to you for consideration today a a bit of a change. Uh a meet in the

075middle, if you will. Um our original recommendation was to eliminate those activity buses. Um our our projection is that that would save us about $350,000 a year in additional transportation costs. But when we did look into the when those buses get the most use, um we did find that the spring sports period is when they are most used. Um Uh many more sports at that time um happening and um tutoring, preparation for SOL testing, that sort of thing. So, we did find that ridership is highest in the spring months. And then also Monday through Thursday, we found that ridership drops off on Fridays. So, our recommendation for consideration and discussion would be to move it forward with eliminating activity buses with the exception of that spring time period Monday through Thursday. Um that would still

076uh result in our projection is about a $232,000 savings. Um so, that's a that's a difference of about $117,000 less in savings from our original uh proposal. And I will invite you to stop me at any time, but I will move forward and if if that's acceptable and Um is the board all right with um how about we wait, let her go ahead and finish um the presentation and then we can go ahead and make sure that we get um questions and we can focus the questions say on a particular topic if it lends itself to that. Okay. All right, thank you. All right, so the next item for consideration is the 3-year-old Virginia Preschool Initiative or VPI uh program. Um we do have VPI 4-year-old classrooms. We're not talking about any changes at that

077level. Um we have nine VPI 3-year-old classrooms um and and that is sort of that's state funding. We get partial state funding um for those classrooms through the Virginia Preschool Initiative and um so our proposal would be to reduce our 3-year-old classrooms from nine to three. Um and our proposal today is not changed from that. So we are still bringing to you for consideration a reduction in 3-year-old preschool from nine classrooms to three. This would not affect students with disabilities. Um no change to um students with disabilities. This would reduce the number of slots available for student 3-year-old students who are placed through that VPI program um into that program and and we would certainly work with as we already do um the many other community providers um through through with whom we have a

078common application already um to help those families find placements. Um we do project that that change would result in about $430,000 in personnel savings. That's netting against that reduction in state funding. Um so that's taking into consideration um that revenue would go down, but expenses would still go down more than than that loss of state funding. And I'll I'll get into transportation at the end because that does certainly have a an impact on our transportation costs as well. >> [clears throat] >> All right, gifted and talented, particularly focusing at the elementary level. We do have um resource teachers and and differentiated instruction already in place serving students in grades K through 2 as well as grades 3 through 5 for students who are not in the pull-out Plato program, but we do of course have

079that Plato program serving a portion of our identified gifted students in grades 3 through 5. Um that is currently located at two schools. So, we did we've had a lot of conversation about this. We've looked at one point. This is from a previous presentation, but I just wanted to bring it back to see the many options at the various costs of that program if it were its own standalone program. And I've given you a teaser with my orange box of what we are bringing to you for consideration, a modification from where we started. Our original proposal was to eliminate that program. Um we are bringing to you for your consideration and discussion today to phase out the program over the next 2 years. So, in the coming year it would just have fourth and fifth

080grade. Um and the following year fifth grade and so on that we would consolidate that program at one school instead of two. That would allow us more efficiency in the number of classrooms and that we would offer transportation to families that need it in order to be able to continue their participation in that program. So, our projected cost savings from this new model we expect to be just under $450,000. And again, I'll get into the transportation in just a second because that does all of the transportation kind of fits together and works together in helping us reduce our reliance on specialty services. So, I'll get into that in just a second, but I did want to take a few minutes. We do not have changes in these other savings areas that have been proposed, but

081they are no less important or impactful. So, I did want to take a minute to just bring them back to the attention of the board and the community that we are proposing a significant reduction in our budgeting for facilities maintenance, about $672,000. So, we would be looking at sort of extending the life, reducing our maintenance efforts in some of those area, deferring some of the the updates and and improvements that might be necessary that we otherwise might be able to do more immediately. Similarly, on the grounds and landscaping area, about $280,000 reduction we're proposing to that budget. So, we would be reducing our mowing frequency to be able to realize that savings and deferring some updates to improvements [clears throat] to the the field at behind Lucy Addison and some other changes that were under

082consideration. And technology, we are looking at reducing software packages that are used, really scrutinizing how much some of those software services are are utilized, as well as making some adjustments at grades K through 2 in our device use, our student devices. >> [clears throat] >> Also, in our safety area, we have proposed a reduction of about $174,000. We had originally in our original budget proposed to add an evolve weapons detection system. We already have some that we we pop up as needed. So, we were looking to expand that, which we removed that from our budget for next year and some other considerations reducing our contracted crossing guard services using existing staff for those those needs, that kind of thing is on is being proposed. Um, professional learning, we have a $190,000 reduction proposed for next

083year's budget, which is based on us discontinuing our use of the letters training, which is language essentials for teachers of reading and spelling. And we would replace that with state modules. We did originally go with letters, just we found it to be superior, but there is a state option that is available. Um, so it's not like we would be going to nothing. We would have a resource um for that. Um, under student assessments, we have $80,000 in a reduction proposed, which is based on our proposal to stop using MAP testing. Um, that is a a nationally normed growth assessment, so we would not have that that type of assessment available anymore, but we would continue to use the Virginia growth assessment benchmarks and our own developed benchmarks for assessing student achievement. And finally, we have

084other school and office supplies. We are proposing about $163,000 in reducing building allocations that just funding this available for each principal for the the day-to-day needs of running their school as well as central office department budgets for materials and supplies. >> [clears throat] >> So, last big piece I want to jump into is I said I would get back to transportation. So, we are proposing about $650,000 in savings and reducing our reliance on external transportation services that provide point-to-point services where our bus services can't meet that need currently. But in order to do that, we need to free up some buses to be able to meet that need. So that's part of the cost savings that we are anticipating from um our changes to our Plato program and 3-year-old preschool in particular. So I I

085noted previously that when we were looking at our activity buses, our original proposal was a cost reduction about $350,000. Our revised proposal to continue to offer that service just in the spring does reduce those savings by about $117,000. And then similarly, our proposed adjustment to phase out the Plato program and continue to offer transportation where families need that would still require some bussing, of course, obviously. So that would reduce the savings there. Our estimate is about 107,000. So So that adds up to about a 220 almost to almost 225,000 in additional savings that we would need to find, which to be honest would likely come in vacant position additional vacant positions not being able to be filled. You know, I think with what we're covering here, we have exhausted our our ability to find savings

086in the non-personnel side. The vast majority of our budget is people. So I you know, I don't want to pretend that any savings we don't find in one place will have to be found elsewhere. So um I will just wanted to take a minute. Dr. White already mentioned this, but just in terms of keeping that in mind, our prioritization is school staff. Looking at, you know, hoping to be able to bring back folks who have have been um have been laid off, thank you. Um if possible, and so certainly if any more funding becomes available um either through uh as the city finalizes their budget or once we finally have a state budget, that will be the first place we will look um is hoping we can bring back some of those folks. And then

087of course also preparing for we've had some conversation about contingency and just sort of the unpredictable nature of the work that we do, particularly in areas that affect staffing. Um special education is an area where increased enrollment will require additional staff. English learners um that that funding is much more tied to the number of staff. So if those numbers shift, we may find that we need, in order to meet those standards of quality, um more staff in that area like we did last year. So that's just something to to keep in mind um as we're continuing to try to come to a finalized budget, but with some unknowns still in play in terms of particularly the state budget. >> [clears throat] >> So lastly, I just wanted to bring to you kind of put in

088your minds next steps. Um we will, as Dr. White said, bring to you an update of any information we have at your uh meeting on the 12th and ask um for your support of uh next steps in these particular areas that we're discussing today. Um our intent would be to bring you a preview of the the final full budget at your work session on May 26th, and then that final budget coming to you for approval at your June 9th meeting. Of course, I do have a little a caveat at the bottom there that um we may bring to you um some adjustments in that schedule depending on what we're hearing from the state, but at this point um with with so much unknown there, yeah, we're staying the course with our original um timeline. So,

089I will stop there and open it up for questions or discussion. Thank you very much. So, um since we had some kind of larger um substantive items that were discussed there in particular, um and I know the first one that I noted were um people look like they would like to weigh in. I'd like to start by discussing the activity buses. If there are any um I know it looked like Ms. Watkins may have had some comments, but we'll start with Ms. Trigg. Do you have any comments or inquiries focused on the activity buses? Yeah, um I know with spring sports being heavier for us, did we look into how it is going to affect the fall and the winter kids in those sports in reference to um or just kind of get any idea

090of who uses the bus then, how it will affect them, and will it affect them whether or not they could participate or not? So, yes, Ms. Trigg. Uh we uh solicited input from all principals and athletic staff. Uh it will The high schools, they wanted it year-round uh because that's where their students ride it. Uh the uh middle schools uh utilize it uh mostly in spring, but uh they still have uh for instance, winter sports at James Madison, the entire wrestling team uh usually utilizes it. >> [snorts] >> Uh but the uh frequency as provided in a memo to the board uh really raises up during the spring uh because it is more than just athletics that activity buses are used for. Uh they use it in remediation uh in preparation uh for uh out

091of school or for in-school suspension or detention. Uh those things uh pop up in the spring and increases that usage, uh, which led to the recommendation, uh, brought forward tonight by Ms. Jackson uh, for a spring, um, Monday through Thursday. Thank you, Ms. Trigg. Ms. Watkins. Um, think I I think I asked I asked this question before and I don't know if you had a chance to do the research, but, um, did you analyze the cost of what it would be to do two and two? So, you have four days of transportation in the spring. Um, what did the savings look like or how did the savings decrease if you did two, um, >> [clears throat] >> activity bus days in the fall and two activity bus days in the per week in the spring?

092What was that analysis? So, it it costs the division on average about $2,092, uh, for every day that activity buses run. Uh, so, depending on, uh, the season, um, the it's about a 60-day season on average. Uh, we would, uh, if we run two days, uh, that would and we run it for 60, uh, days, uh, and that would be, you know, the the the the money would total up that way. Uh, so, uh, any the savings, uh, boils down about $150,000, uh, would be it would what is what it would do for two two days at 36 weeks, uh, and that's 72 days to run it those two days there in those seasons. 100 and, um, 50,000 >> 150,000, a little over 150,000, about 150,700. And as we've learned in previous conversations, any adjustments

093that we make on the program side or the activity buses or anything like that, we have to potentially eliminate a position or two or three to accommodate for that lack of savings. Is that right? Yeah, we have to find the savings somewhere. And unfortunately, we're a people business and staff is the unfortunate location we'd have to go to. Okay. Thank you. Mr. Lopez Ortiz. Um Miss Trigg answered my I mean asked my question. Thank you. Miss Quintana. No, just um Just thank you. It's just heartbreaking. It's But thank you guys. I know you guys have tried to figure it out every way possible. Thank you. Mr. Link. So [clears throat] by eliminating activity bus service in the fall and reducing it to four days, we're we're looking at a savings of $233,000. Um But we

094know that these activity buses help increase participation in these after-school curricular activities. Um I'm a little worried that we're reducing a school Generally chasing down this thought that we're we're reducing a school expense and creating a um a municipal expense elsewhere uh by board adolescents who are intelligent are going to go find entertainment for themselves in other ways. Um Earlier on, there was an idea of looking at Valley Metro utilizing Valley Metro resources to meet some of the need of activity buses. And I don't remember how far we got how far we got on vetting that and if we have any sense of the cost of using that. That Can you go back to that slide, too, with the activity buses? Uh and Oh, thank you. Right, go back. Yes. No, go forward. Go back.

095>> 10. You have the transport >> There, that that one? That's the one. So, yes, sir. Uh so, Valley Metro, there's a collaboration right now for students, it's $28 per month uh for unlimited student rides, uh and we projected that the mineral expenditure, if we did that a full throughout the all three seasons, uh that'd be just over $24,200 is what it would cost. So, the school budget could carry I- I- if the school budget carried a cost of $24,000, that would give us the ability to issue vouchers to to students and they they can use Yeah, they can use their student IDs and and vouchers. They would uh and then we would pay based on that. Uh the difficulty comes in tracking uh the actual usage cuz we could be paying for lots of

096trips and things like that. So, that could be problematic. >> Or that it's being used for non-school related Or paid for but not used at all. I would assume paid for not used. I I assume if it's a successful program and we remove it from the budget next year, we'll hear about it. That would be our feedback. Uh so, they get they get unlimited usage in that $28, but uh tracking if this is actually a activity bus ride or not, that's that's the difficulty. And we could sort of earmark that to maybe time of day that it's being used, but we the Metro doesn't have the resources to track that for us either. >> Uh I have not asked if Valley Metro can do that. Uh they've been uh very uh willing to work with

097us as far as you know, the cost and and because we have a program now where we provide uh you know, vouchers to in certain situations for students who need transportation to other activities. Uh but uh I haven't got into that detail with uh Valley Metro about how could we could you know, what their tracking system looks like. But the infrastructure's there. We have Valley Metro for stops at each of our high school. We for sure have them at the high schools, but most schools uh have have access. Uh and I think most of our middle schools do. And then it runs till about 8:30, 8:45 uh at night. And I'm Remind me again of the the cost of adding the voucher program. So if if if looking at the the amount of service uh

098and estimating that based on the $28 per month uh for the per student, it's about $24,200 over $200. That $24,000 then gets added to the funding deficit we're still trying to gain ground on on the other slide. Okay. Okay. Thank you. Sorry, go ahead, Dr. Jameson. I was just taking notes. Um I think really my comments on the activity buses are probably more to my uh just kind of opening up the conversation with my colleagues. Um cuz I thinking about first with Ms. Watkins, um you know, playing the thought the thought uh the thought imagination of 2 days uh per season or 2 days fall. My concern about that then becomes, you know, many of us had children who participated in sports or whatever, is that if your child can't go to practice 4 or

0995 days a week, they're probably not going to get to participate in sport. So then we may be able to spend the same amount of money, but we lower capacity we lower the number of people participating. I mean, I put that out there because it there is something appealing about having it running around, for sure. But, I I And we start we kind of had this conversation offline, as well, that that that is I would point out that that probably has doesn't cost us any different, but we might negatively impact the number of people riding the bus. Um And the other uh thought that I have here, since it's a workshop and we're just chatting, I was thinking about I've been thinking about the bus interaction, um the bus possibility. Uh Valley Metro, not activity

100bus. Sorry. Thank you. The Valley Metro intersection. As someone who rides the public city bus, I would remind us all that it doesn't go where our kids live. Sure. Uh I mean, we are talking about Now, I also think riding a a city bus is a life skill. I am not anti If we can find $24,000, I am not anti a bus voucher. That is a life skill. If they live anywhere else, they're probably going to need it. So, I am certainly not anti public transportation. Being married to a transportation engineer, I'm very pro public transportation. I ride a lot of public transportation. Um but but I think when we're talking about it as a suggestion for getting kids back and forth at the end of a very long day, it is worth remembering, if

101you haven't ridden a city bus in the city of Roanoke recently, it goes to the center before it goes out. >> Right. Right. >> We're talking about very long days for some people, depending on where they're located, and it's not about where the bus stops are, it's about the route it takes to get there. So, >> That's time in between. as we think it Yeah, and there's it and it's it it's a wonderful thing that we have. This is not a criticism of the Valley Metro system, but it is a reality check on what that answer means for our kids who also have to engage in academic participation >> [laughter] >> and homework and all all sort of thing. So, we could be a 1-hour bus ride for a kid who doesn't live that far

102away but yeah, but once you're waiting for the bus to arrive and then you may have to transfer and and you may still have a decent walk home. So, I just think I want to put a reality check on it. Again, pro bus voucher because I think it's an important life skill. We don't use public transportation enough, but realistically I think we might be achieving different goals with that. Well, if we're paying for unlimited rides, I don't care where they go. >> [laughter] >> Ride it all the time. Um but so I just would put that as we're as we're considering these soups, you know, do we want to do something how we're kind of confronted with a choice of what things are we going to do well? Because the reality is there's some things

103we're just better off cutting than not doing well because we don't have the resources to afford to do anything not well. So, I that's what I have to offer as we think about this as a as a collective. Yeah. Mr. Cherry. Thank you. No, my thought process was with public transportation and my mind immediately goes to increase safety risk for our children because of that point and um I do not want this board or this division to uh stretch ourselves thin trying to provide resources that are going to put our kids at risk for safety. All right, I want our kids to learn. I want our kids to be engaged and active, but also want our kids to be safe doing it. And long walks home, those those are the things that I think about

104as my children are growing up as well and as our children have grown up as well in the in the division. Uh my biggest thing was Oh, question that I think about is how does this How does this risk safety for our our children? All right. Um they're riding the bus with public, which is fine, but also when stuff happens, we these are These are our kids that are on the way to activities in our division. Um so, I just I just I kind of question the whole partnership with And I'm not saying it's it's nothing wrong Yeah. with public transportation, but my immediate thought goes to the safety of our kids. So, um that's my thought process for uh activity buses. Thank you. And um so, I heard a lot of, you know, good

105conversation around this. I I know I've mentioned before, I first started teaching in Chicago, and there is no city There is no school bus for any high school student. It is all city bus. So, and that was over 20 years ago. Um but um but additionally, I also appreciate what Dr. Jamison pointed out both about the logistics of how our students would access and utilize public transportation. Um but also is giving a little in the budget a net good, or will it net shoot us in the foot? Because the reality is, if we could still offer 100% of the activity bus supports that we were doing, we would do that. That is the choice that the board would make if we could afford that, but we have to choose something. Um I do appreciate the

106recommendation to put it back in for the spring, because it does cross over the most sports. Um but additionally, it's testing season, and so it gives schools the ability to get kids remediation with rides home or extra supports academically at the same time as meeting some extracurricular um needs. Something that I think will be important if this is the recommendation that the board ends up ultimately supporting in a couple weeks is I think we need to keep track of how our students engage in extracurricular sports in the seasons where it's not offered and what that impact may be because there's a reason we have sports and extracurriculars in schools. It's because it's a net good for our students in so many ways because they learn so much and it also helps to invest them in

107their school community. There's a jillion reasons why extracurriculars are good for our students. So we need to track not just how it impacts the participation in the extracurriculars that they don't have access to the same transportation to but how that may trickle also into behavior or attendance or grades. That's not a there's not a straight line there but I just think these are things we should keep track of. Um So and additionally regarding the Valley Metro expense, that is not something that is built into the current budget as it stands, right? So okay. Um I did have one other logistical question or operational question. Let's say um and this will get into also when we discuss other programs and further budget development as we hear for more from the state. What is the feasibility of

108adding back in activity buses say when we get to winter sports when we haven't had it established for the fall. Is it logistically possible to just all of a sudden say okay, well we'll do four days a week for the high schools or four days a week for the middle schools. Is that logistically possible on the fly, if you will, as opposed to having the summer to prepare? So, the nice thing about our activity bus program is that it is school to home, and we do they we don't route them cuz we don't know who's participating. So, when they board the bus, the route is set by based on who's on the bus. So, logistically it is easy to bring them back if there is funding. Okay. Thank you. Were there any other questions about

109or inquiries about the activity buses, Ms. Watkins? >> Just one more thing. Um just one more thing. I I heard [clears throat] you mention tracking other things that are lost or impacted by not having the the participation in sports for lack of transportation. I also heard you say, Mr. Um Perkins? Perkins. I'm [laughter] tired. I'm sorry. I [clears throat] also heard you say discipline in the spring. I think I heard you say discipline in the spring ticks up, which we know everybody gets that end of year itch, right? Two things came to my mind. One is not only tracking the impact of to programs and to stats and all that stuff, but tracking the at-risk kids and what slippage there is in their academic progress. Like we are doing those things in other ways with

110community builders and other programs, but I think that we need to also track those kids that are on, you know, sort of on the spectrum of an an issue and sports or activities has improved or helped them improve their engagement, right? I don't know how we do that. Um, but I think we need to track the kids. The other thing is, what happens with those kids? I mean, in my mind, I'm thinking, well, you get in trouble, your parents have to come get you. Right. But, what does that realistically look like when we've been providing that transportation for these kids that are in in-school suspension and and they don't have a ride home in the fall? What What happens? Show a shout-out to Ms. Duncan and James Madison's administrative staff. They utilize the activity buses

111for that very thing that you're talking about. >> Yeah. Um, we It's hard to predict which children are going to be in using the the in-school suspension after school, but they utilize it as as far as tutoring and and academic progress as well. Um, I I would have to talk to the principals that are using that and uh, you know, figure out how we could track that. Uh, but it is based on, you know, it cuts down on our out-of-school suspension days. >> Right. Uh, it cuts down or improves, uh, you know, some academic process or progress for those students because programmatically, the, uh, administration, uh, for instance, at James Madison, the shout-out is to her, uh, they use that to to improve the academic performance of the students. >> Right. Yeah. Okay. But tracking

112them, it really depends on the the students that are engaging in activities that lead to the detention. Right. Yes. Practically speaking, it goes back to what you said, Ms. Watkins, that it's it is more for the parents. I mean, the parents will need to come. Right. I'd like to actually Uh, Sorry. >> Dr. Jameson, go ahead. >> no, no, no, cuz What? I'm never going to do two. Mhm. Dr. Jameson and then Mr. Link. Go ahead. Me first. It's fine. Okay. Um, well, I'm going to offer something easier to track as I'm thinking about this cuz I'm What I'm thinking about is, I mean, one of the things we've gotten from all the letters that we've received is um uh uh a a bubbling of ideas coming from the community about how they might be

113participating. Um or might be willing to participate in transporting children, doing these sorts of things. I think it would be interesting to see in the fall if we could ask coaches to distribute surveys about how are our not just how are their current athletes going back and forth, but let's ask them. Do they have friends who didn't participate because of act you know, the coaches I think there's going to be some grounded up activity, right? I mean car pools will emerge. There will be some systems that emerge that didn't didn't exist before. It'd be good to know how effective, how pervasive they are, so that could become the beginning of a gap analysis for us. Um at going forward, right? So there is um some positive information that I can share. Our activities our our

114athletics department has uh utilized uh vans recently to help offset the cost of some of our transportation. Uh those vans are available and uh and it is not unheard of around the state for coaches uh to drive those vans. Uh so there is an opportunity uh for us to have in-house uh activity buses depending on the coaches and the sport and the coaches uh you know, uh desire to do such things. Um uh If we control it, that's great. What I'm concerned about is uh us as a district condoning uh a group of individuals that we we can't confirm they've got a driver's license, we can't confirm that their driving habits are great. We can't confirm confirm all of those things. So, I want to be careful from a liability's perspective that we don't condone

115an activity that could set us up. But, I am to be optimistic, I think the vans each high school has access to vans for that situation. So, I think we could, you know, based on hardship or demonstrated need, I think those things can be overcome very easily. Well, and to be clear, I am not suggesting us engage in a new activity. I am just suggesting there will be a natural set of events. Like, I mean, I could not have been a working mom without all my carpools. And we frequently had other people in that were like, "What are you What are you doing here? Get in the car. Let's go." It would be interesting to know once those things emerge, you know, what are the holes? That's Yeah, because I I I hear you and

116I completely agree. I think it would be worth though finding out after people have had a time to kind of sift through that. How big are the holes we just created in the in the winter and the spring? I mean, winter and the fall. Thanks. Um Sorry. Mr. Link, yeah. This is a niche question. What is How long does the How long is an average activity bus route? Uh we run them twice an evening, uh generally 5:30 and around 6:30. Uh it depends on the number of kids riding. 100%. It really does. When the kids get on, uh it could be 15 minutes, it's out and it's back, uh or it could be up to 45 minutes to an hour, depending on where the kids are, uh based on and and keep in mind I'll

117use Addison Middle School as an example. Mhm. Addison attendance zone stretches from city limits in Salem to the city limits and >> [laughter] >> Right. Uh so, depending on the students and the and the buses we have available, uh that could run that run could take 45 minutes to an hour to get them all home. Okay. Um I did note and I know Ms. Trigg has a question, but I did note that um in the presentation I did note that we offer a more extensive service than a number of other divisions do and that some do like drop-off like locations as opposed to home service. Did Was there a cost savings um a cost and or time saving with that that was analyzed at all to do not to home? Yes, ma'am. No, there's there's

118really no cost savings and or whatever buses we run, no matter where they go, we pay a minimum of 2 hours for for whatever we do. Thank you. Ms. Trigg. Um I would like to know as we do this as well um to piggyback off of Dr. Jamison, if we'll keep track of a uptick of disturbance when the kids do decide not to participate in sports and activity happen out in amongst the city. I don't know. I know we have resource officers that are on task for certain schools, but just um recently through the spring I know it's warm, kids on spring break, doing a lot of things, but a lot of activities do happen and these kids will be on foot and they're all throughout the city. So, I'm worried thinking about the fall

119while it's still a little warm going into the cold that this could be some of the same activity that we might experience. And just as not having that um carpool experience because some parents don't have that opportunity and don't have that particular bond and some kids are definitely not riding anything and they may just be on foot. I want to know that we have something in place that we're going to keep track of that portion. So, I have a little experience in my previous life in tracking juveniles and interactions with local law enforcement. The police department does a great job of reporting back to us in the morning briefings with the SROs and principals of activities that go on. They also Lieutenant Love now at the police department who is the lieutenant in charge of

120our school resource officers and Lieutenant Palmer at the sheriff's department. They do a great job in calling us and saying something's went on involving your students, you need to know about it. >> [snorts] >> So, that that is something that we would have information on if there is police involvement and someone shares that with us. Right now, it's fantastic between the two lieutenants at both departments. We get that information, so that would be easy to show if there's an uptick in activities. The other thing that we also have is we've got the SRO MOU coming up for review in 2026. And so, I'll share if there's any input based on the MOU that would lead to suggestion of tracking X, Y, or Z. So. Thank you. Thank you. And Ms. Quintana, and if maybe this

121can be our last comment and then we'll move on to another topic. Go ahead, please. Now, um thanks to my colleagues. I was thinking have we looked into maybe offering the bus, the after-school bus just for during the fall, just for the big game. And I know everybody knows what I mean by the big game. Fleming MPH cuz those are big games and we know a lot the kids all come out for those. We don't offer the bus for the big games now and they still come out. So, I think I don't think we're going to have any problem getting to the big game. In fact, we have to invite all of our middle school administrators just to control the big game. [laughter] Uh so, I don't think that's an issue. Well, Well, thank you.

122And um what I'm hearing from this discussion on this particular topic, but I think this is a through theme for what what what we'll discuss further is as we make contractions, we want to try to keep some data on it so that next year when we're doing budget development, it may impact how we prioritize where we put money in which buckets. Um so, and I think we've heard uh handful of things thrown out about how we can try to track the impact of the contraction in this manner for the activity buses. Um but that will be something for us to follow up on throughout next year and then into um the budget development for 27-28. Okay. So, the next slide was the pre-K-3 program and the recommendation was to um eliminate it as previously recommended.

123Does anyone on the board have any comments or inquiries about that? No change to that recommendation. Dr. Jamison. Um I have a a a question that's rooted in this and it's going to kind of I don't think it fits in a bucket. Do you want me to hold it or do you want me to ask it now? Well, why don't we So, let's hold it then. Okay. >> it. >> I'll ask it at the end. >> not specific to just this one. Yep. It impacts more than this one. Right. Okay. So, let's hold it then. Um so, don't don't forget it. I wrote it down. Okay. Great. Um the next slide, can we move forward to after the pre-K-3 was the um I believe the Plato program was the next one. Yes. Um Okay. So,

124with this one, um with this recommendation of going to a single site with transportation with only fourth and fifth grade, not third, fourth, and fifth grade. Um, we'll start on this side. Mr. Lopez-Ortiz, do you have any questions or comments about the the change in recommendation? Thank you. Okay, Ms. Quintana. Mr. Link. I have I have a thought. I don't know if it's the question. Um, a lot of a lot of the comments that the board has received from the public have been related to the Plato program. Um, as Dr. White has said repeatedly, uh, we typically don't build up successful programs to then stop them. Um, >> [clears throat] >> and to say that phasing out the program over the next 2 years, we don't know what next year's budget is going to look

125like. >> [clears throat] >> But, it's I'm sorry. Really, what we're doing right now is for next year is we are contracting it from a 3-year program to a 2-year program. And that's all we know right now is that we are contracting it from a third, fourth, and fifth program at two sites to a fourth and fifth program at one site until we start planning for next year's or, you know, the as long as we start planning next year's budget planning for the year after. Then we would know whether we are phasing out or not. That's correct. Yeah, so at this point, that's the the revised proposal on the table would be to move in the direction of closing out the program, but you are correct that what is on the table for next year's

126budget would be a contracted program where the current fourth the the current third and fourth grade students in the program would continue to be served in fourth and fifth grade, but would all be served at one site instead of two. One site yet to be identified, right? We're still waiting to figure out what that site is. Highland Park. I I think at this point we're we're pretty focused on Highland Park. That is already one of the two schools that hosts this program. So, um that that's where um we feel like it would fit the best that we continue to offer that program at Highland Park Elementary School. We we received um you know, again, a lot of feedback from parents about continuity, stability, sustainability. And so, taking that into consideration, our recommendation is Highland Park

127to Um so, again, that's another item of note, I think, in a little bit of a similar vein with the activity buses is tracking uh the success or failure thereof of that contraction is and the impact on students. Um and whether, you know, then reevaluating again during the next year's budget cycle on, you know, what what gets funding and what does not cuz we know it's all a give and take at this point. Um Dr. James, anything Yeah, I guess I would just say that's an interesting reframing of this. Um I would what I want to say so it's clear for administration is that um this strikes me as the right recommendation. I would not have supported this without transportation included. I think it's important for equity. I know that that's what where the administration

128has come from with this recommendation. >> Yes. Is a point of equity and fairness. I we appreciate, certainly, the outcry of people who have offered to help. Um but in terms of continuity and consistency for our children, um, I appreciate that you've done that. Um, I I my I have a child who also went through this program. I know how valuable it is and I know how painful this is. It is an interesting reframing that because to my mind it's been a teach out. Right. Right? Which also, I would point out, opens up opportunities for other gifted and talented opportunities in our division which already exist and can be extended. So, but this leaves something on the table. Probably the right the full right reframing is we are taking the current gifted and talented program.

129The third graders will be served at their home schools >> Right. using resource structures that we already have. Right. And we are contracting the Plato program, at least for next year, to a fourth and fifth program at one school. And then we have this conversation all over again, uh, next year. Yeah, that's I I did I have I mention it today I won't be here? >> [laughter] >> No, we're waiting for her. I just did. And we still have your phone number. >> a community member. >> I am. And actually, so I uh I appreciate this and I will say I would just say out loud I found compelling some of the arguments. Um, the arguments that were presented to me that made me rethink this. Because I really thought we were going to have

130to kill it. So, um, for for monetary reasons. So, I just wanted to say out loud that this is what I will support and I appreciate, um, all the hard work that's gone into this, um, because I know that all of those dollars are several positions because we've talked about them all one by one. So, this is not an easy choice. Um, Ms. Trigg. Uh, I'll just say that I'm definitely glad as Dr. Jamison stated that we are keeping this portion with the program and just to reiterate those third graders that are be at their home school that they will get good quality gifted and talented education. Um, my son actually chose not to go into Place Hill. So, and he loved the gifted and talented part at his home school and stand amongst his

131friends. He was a complete opposite not wanting to leave his friends, but he did take pride in the gifted and talented um, program even during COVID. He loved every bit of it. Thank you, Ms. Trigg. Ms. Watkins? Yes. I want to um, thank my colleague Mr. Lang for reframing it and laying it out a little better because when you got to me, my question was going to be, are we phasing it out? Are we contracting it? Right? So, thank you for bringing that to light so that everyone can understand exactly what we're doing and and how we are um, listening to the community and listening to you know, our hearts and um, trying to make it work in a difficult situation, right? So, my question now is, can Highland Park hold all of the that

132are going to want to be in this program? There's an answer. Highland Park actually loses two classrooms based on this recommendation, which helps because if you recall, uh, the boundary study, Highland Park has the uh, was getting very tight and so this actually relieves, frees up two classrooms. Okay. And I believe numbers wise, you know, Fairview only has one classroom per grade and my recollection is that um, one of the arguments that has been made is that there's still the same number of students in our CPS that will still need a third, fourth, fifth grade classroom teacher, but the classroom ratios right now across the two sites are lower than a lot of standard classrooms, if you will. And so, my understanding, and Mr. Freeman's nodding his head, is that the singleton classrooms from Fairview,

133for example, if they if we do approve the single site at Highland Park being merged with the two classrooms each, they will still be able to just do two classrooms. They'll just have a higher classroom, you know, teacher to student ratio, but it'll be probably more on par with um the non-Plato classrooms as they are right now that they're split into the two sites. So, um I pres- That's why I presumed, but I'm glad you asked that the recommendation had two classrooms, cuz if the numbers needed three classrooms, then that would have changed recommendation. So, is that all correct? Okay. Um >> Thank you. So, I support this recommendation as well. Um great work figuring this out. This was This was a big one as well as the activity buses. So, thank you. And it's

134a It's a lot of It's again, it's based on the data. Trying to balance, making sure that we're balancing the the continuity of of service. Also looking at the space, considering that if we're going to make this recommendation, we felt important that it was important for us to offer transportation, as Dr. Jamison said. >> Yes. So, that there where it's not a you know, equity issue, especially since we we still had a number of parents who said that they would transportation for their students. And so, again, but keep in mind that we are still talking about positions. So, I do want us to to keep that in mind that um when we're compromising on one, then there's still there's a sacrifice on the other side. Yes. >> But, um again, listening, learning, taking into account

135the feedback, we believe that this is the best recommendation that we can offer. We are protecting the classroom. Yeah. Thank you for that as well, Dr. Wyatt. Mr. Cherry. Uh, want to thank all my colleagues for their comments and their questions. It definitely adds value and brings a lot more context to the community. Uh, but I do want the community to understand that we are truly doing the best we can to do the make the best decisions for this division. We are listening. We hear you. And this is not a obviously, but if you see the original consideration versus what we're doing, it speaks to that it speaks to the point that we don't just come to the dice and nod our head to everything. There's been a lot of work. My eyes are heavy.

136All right, everybody's tired. Everybody's working. You all are working overtime. We are doing the work and I just want to remind everybody on the board that this is where it counts. I know there's a lot of emotions. There has been a lot of emotions, but we've been empowered and entrusted to these seats to lead and we want to make sure that we lead with poise, with dignity and compassion and I just wanted to point that out. Everybody's already asked the questions and made the comments. I do support this. Uh, but I definitely wanted to reiterate the work that we do. That, you know, we want to at least for me, I think the goal is to try to preserve the forward progression that we've made all of the improvements and the momentum that this division

137and our superintendent and her vision. We want to preserve that as much as possible, but we also have to be realistic and understand that this is where we are in this season. So, this is us coming together to try to figure out not just yes, the main thing is to protect the classroom, but also does it make sense financially, logistically, and operationally. And I just wanted to make sure that we pointed out I just wanted to point all of that out that a lot goes behind the scenes and I just want to thank you Miss Jackson for all the work this this executive staff to our superintendent to this board. I would not want to do this work with any other board but this board. So, thank you. Much appreciated Mr. Cherry. Um One of

138the things that I would like to see come out of um where we go from here regarding this particular program is um Dr. Jamison has said it um at some of at some point in our conversations as a board whether that was in front of the dais or individually that um times that stretch us can also be caught what innovation is the um What's this What's the saying? Like something is the the mother of innovation. >> Necessity Necessity >> Necessity is the mother of innovation, right? So, um I would This is a multi-decade program. But it does stand to reason that over 40 some years there are other mechanisms and deliveries for gifted instruction that other divisions use across the country. So, I think this next year we you know, I think it's important also

139to look into are there other deliveries of this instruction to meet the needs of these students that might be more efficient, better tailored for our division, the realities that we have. And I think that that is something that is it's worth looking at anyway. We should always be looking at are we only doing it for the sake of having done it? Or are we always looking to improve? But I do also want to emphasize that I think one of the overarching themes of the feedback we've gotten regarding this program is that people are advocating for it because it's meeting a need for their student. We always say to know our students by name, need, and strength. And I think that is where the advocacy for this program is coming from. And so that's again why

140I think we should be looking into programs that will meet the needs of all of our students and perhaps there is a perhaps contracting to 2 years is something that we can technically, you know, that we can financially afford or operationally afford or perhaps there is a an even better model out there to meet the needs of our students. So, um so I think that's wraps things up regarding the the gifted and talented recommendation on that program. And then beyond that, I think the next slide was deferred maintenance, technology, One more time for the last >> um Okay. The presentation. And Dr. Jameson, you still have yours on points. >> I think I can probably build it into this next section before we have to go in here. >> Okay. So, Ms. Watkins does know

141that she has a an inquiry regarding something on this slide and then we'll get But you've started at this end a lot. Please feel free to start down there. I try to alternate, but I forgot a whole half earlier. So, go ahead, Ms. Watkins. >> Just a quick question. And I may should already know the answer to this question, but along the lines of deferred maintenance, Uh, uh, Perkins, have we finished all of the updates to the foyers of the schools that had safety concerns? Have we already Yeah, yes, ma'am. >> that and so we're not sacrificing any of Okay. >> Yeah. Fairview and Hart Park were the last two. Those were completed, uh, 18 months ago. Okay. Thank you. You all right. Um, Dr. Jamison. Yes, ma'am. Oh. Um, I I was >> Sorry,

142it was Were there any general questions or inquiries about these remaining topics before we get to Dr. Jamison's? I'm filibustering, apparently. >> Okay. Go ahead. Um, so here is and this is actually related to this, but also the other things in my and it relates to kind of bigger pictures, uh, well, let me start here. Uh, so and we talked about this briefly in, um, our earlier meeting about the grass, the mowing, right? That we will will likely be, uh, out out of compliance with we're reducing mowing by 30 to 30 5%. Um, and the word uh, that I wrote down here is, um, varmints. And what the thing that [laughter] made me think about is when you have large, uh, when you have a lot of extra grass, you get varmints. Um, and, uh,

143that made me think of this, uh, cuz I this Look, we've got to save positions and let me be clear. I think Dr. White, you started here and you're starting from the assumption. Let me confirm for you and your staff quite publicly that is where I will also come down on the side of. I believe, uh, I am not alone on this board, but let me say outwardly, I will vote for positions first. But this breaks my heart because this is my other question. What kind of costs, unintended costs, what magnitude of unintended costs are we creating because of these kinds of cuts and that's where three-year-old preschool also comes in as well, right? Because that's going to cost us educational costs down the road, um among other things. So, as we think about the

144budgeting, I mean, I'm because, you know, if we have varmints in the school, that's a cost, but there's also very significant broader exponential costs that happen, which you have talked about quite clearly, Mr. Perkins, over time. And I'm wondering, how are we going to budget for these exponential costs in a budget that isn't planning to exponentially increase? So, I also would say this, despite I really do like the reframing of the Plato program, I don't want to give false hope that we are going to be awash in funds in coming years because we do not have any real indication that that is going to be the case. But I do think the possibility should stay on the table. So, I guess my question is, have we in the budget we're going to approve in a

145month from now with all of its um un- unknowns, is where are we putting I know we have a discretionary line, where are we putting all of these potential costs that are really going to be hard to estimate right now? And and do we need increase the contingency that we're putting on all of that? So, let me add to your angst. Ah, you're always excellent at that, and I count on it. And that [clears throat] we've reduced funding for deferred maintenance, grounds, and all the things that go into the pest control and all that. We also eliminate not eliminated 19 building operation positions, also. >> Uh-huh. And I haven't heard a huge outcry, so I'm going to provide that outcry now. >> Well, and this is why I'm worried about varmints. We're not going to

146have anybody to get rid of the varmints. >> Exactly right. And we're asking them to do more. Um and uh this new reality. Uh remember there are they are handy men and women that take care of the small repairs. And the small repairs turn into big repairs, and big repairs get deferred, and that's the problem we have. So, working with grounds, the grounds team will offset some of the mowing as for example with not doing mulch. So, the the aesthetics of the exterior of our schools, uh while the grass may not get as high, we won't have mulch cuz we won't be able to afford it. Um unless something changes. Uh so, we will do that for grass. Um we're asking uh you know, um staff at the school level to not prop doors, to

147do away with food. I want you to imagine preschool doing away with snacks. Wow. Okay? Uh because remember I I we met with the principals, and I don't mean to be gloom and doom, but this is this is very concerning to me going forward. Uh we've heard a lot about Play-Doh, but nobody has said what about the the support in the schools to clean the schools. When the children have the snacks, and the snacks have to get cleaned up to keep the mice out. Those are the things that I'm most worried about. Um but we have a plan. We've been meeting with we met we've had our first meeting with the building managers. Uh we've told them the reality that is facing them. Uh our our subsequent meetings will be our cleaning plans on how

148we're going to do it. Uh our grounds team is meeting with our landscapers. Uh we're we're going to work through how we do that. We're going to try to to buy equipment now to help us with our field upkeep. Uh because that's part of the grounds and the grass, keep in mind we've got D2 and potentially even lower D1 rated sports facilities. We've got Bermuda grass practice fields. >> Oh, yeah. Uh and we we've got, you know, state-of-the-art places that we've got to take care of. And we're deferring maintenance. And so, um we have a plan. Uh I assure you that. I've got a fantastic team that I work with. Uh every day they're coming in today, in fact, in our office meeting. Uh that's where we talked about how we're going to do away

149with mulch. We'll figure out some other way to do it, something more permanent that if because we don't we want our schools to be I mean, you drive by a Roanoke City school, and trust me, I drive around the valley, and our schools look great compared to our neighbors. And I'm not trying to put our neighbors down, but because we invest in our schools. Uh and and we still have people complain about it, and we got some of the greatest schools in the in the valley. And our playgrounds by far tremendous. But, again, those upkeep, you know, that that's very worrisome to me. So, we have a plan. I know I'm rambling. Uh but, um I just want to hear a little bit of outcry for for those individuals that are going to have to

150pick it up and do a whole lot more in our schools. Um our facilities guys, our H vac guys, our carpenters, our uh plumbers, all the things that they're doing they got to do more of, and they got to find ways to do it without the money to to do it. Uh so, they're going to they're going to buck up, they're going to meet the call cuz, you know, when things get tough tough get going. And and that's the beauty of the team that I work with. So, um we'll get it done, and it won't be pretty all the time. And we'll we'll have to you'll see you they will feel it and see it. Uh but, we're not going to let them fall into cuz I'm a big believer in broken windows, whether New

151York growing doubt or not, uh that, you know, you you got to fix it to keep it going. And uh we're going to do the best we can. If we have to use, you know, super glue and duct tape, we'll get it done. I guess I would um thank you, uh, Mr. Burkins, cuz I think that's really important when we think about where some of these cuts are. Um, and I I think I want And this is really to my colleagues is one of the things and and it this is um, in a really difficult situation. There are are some of the best of the worst decisions that we've made. I worry most about this. Because when you make cuts because you have to, you also have to make investments. And I think the choices

152that have been made are the right investments. And we've run out of space for this investment, and this pays off for children. I'm not making an advocacy plea to change it. I'm making an advocacy plea plea for my colleagues to keep it in mind as we go forward because this becomes easier and easier to cut every year going forward. Every single year it will get easier. I don't This is not a critique on anything that I have seen so much as a reminder that one investment really had to go, and this one worries me. This one worries me a lot. Keep in mind that we're very proactive in the 5 million we receive from the city for our capital maintenance. That becomes very reactive as we go forward. The more that we have to defer,

153the more becomes instead of, you know, improving our tracks, uh, like resurfacing when we can, we may have to do without a rubberized surface on our tracks. Those are the things that are heartbreaking. Uh, and and and I and I I know academics is our main business, but without athletics, you're you know, it's the three A's the superintendent talks about. Uh, and all of them have to go, the arts, the athletics, and the academics got to go together, so. I wholeheartedly support positions first. But the loss of some of these positions impact things that people aren't going to see until they see them. And they will see them. And they will see them faster than we They will see them. >> than we want everybody to see. We'll see them. I don't I don't think

154that it's going to be easy to cut these further every year because I remember joining this board and I remember before the framework and the parents that had real concerns about their schools and the conditions and that'll come back. It will come back. It's I I I hear you and I think you're right. I I It's not because I think anybody wants these decisions. It's the getting back to whole. We saw what being flat funded one year did to us. Yep. And that's what we're doing in this one category. Yep. Absolutely. Thank you, Mr. Harkins. And um so to go ahead We'll go ahead and move on here in just a sec, but I did want to um note an another um through theme is as we're adjusting to the changing um funding policy both

155budgeting forward and this year, I appreciated the idea of, you know, kind of developing some standard operating procedures on what do we do with unspent funds? How do we prioritize? I think there's um also in that same vein is if we end up with more revenue than expected again, how do we build back into our budget and um how do we prioritize those and um I just had wanted to note that we may build back into our budget some positions that again, next year based on that budget, if it is less favorable or we you know, if the revenues um you know, if the growth in revenue from the city uh doesn't track as projected or things like that um that we may be able to add positions back in this year if our budget

156is more favorable than the than the Senate's projected one, but then that may be again in danger the following year. Um and so I do think um these are things that it would be good for um the administration to help walk us through how you're going to prioritize when you have unspent funds, how we're going to prioritize spending them. And if we have um increase in revenue, how are we going to build back in positions? Um I also wanted to make sure to note that um will you go to the next slide where it shows the lack of cost savings by keeping partial programs there. I want to make want to make sure that the original budget recommendation was to eliminate these programs, but by keeping them in part, it will cost $225,000, which has

157to come from somewhere, which we have said would be personnel costs. We are I want to be clear though that we are not looking at any further cuts or for for people who have been offered positions or contracts at this time. Craig, how are we compensating for personnel if this gets approved in 2 weeks? >> at it through attrition and through vacancies. And so uh and and I'm glad that we're we're on on this part of the discussion because I I do think it's incredibly important for for myself and for my team to be crystal clear about this. That should let's say that um you know, by some miracle, right? That we have more money than what we thought we were going to have. That something happens um and that there is more money than

158projected. I It is my understanding that it is the the the board's desire again because we've had to had those very very difficult conversations and disrupt livelihoods of many of our employees, um, no fault of their own. Right? It's not a performance issue. Um, it is a matter of budget cuts where they have lost their jobs and has have disrupted their livelihoods that that would be the priority Yes, sir. to restore positions and that it's not because without the people the, you know, if we don't have staff, we don't have school. If we don't have the people, then the that does impact the programs, it impacts the deferred maintenance, it impacts the facilities, it impacts the achievement, it impacts everything else. So, I think that and I just want to be clear that as we're

159bringing forth a final recommendation that I'm clear that that is the still the board's will and desire. >> Yes, absolutely. >> Yes. Completely. One last thing, Madam Chair, I'm sorry. Just one last thing. I think that it would be important for us to have some way of tracking how these cuts will impact the strategic plan and and the things that flow into the strategic plan. We need to be able to when we're thinking about no fault of their own and no fault of the division's own, when we're cutting things our strategic plan is going to be impacted and the assessments of how we performed in certain areas is going to be impacted by funding. So, somehow we've got to figure out you know, if it's as simple as, you know, listing out this cut will

160impact the performance and strategic plan we anticipate in these ways and keep that documented somewhere so that when we're looking again and at the future and we're evaluating things, we know that this was caused by cuts, not performance. Congratulations, Mrs. Watkins. I think you just mapped out your entire October retreat. >> [laughter] >> Amen. But to your point, Madam Chair, if I may. I I I think to your point in terms of the you know, we're not defeatists and so we're we have to pivot and it will have an impact on the strategic plan. Let's take the VPI 3s. So we're talking about the compounding effect of eliminating a program that is based on our earliest learners, our youngest learners, right? Early childhood education, which then will then likely play into third on on-time, on-grade

161level third-grade reading level performance, right? Which is a target for us. Right. That means it all of these kinds of things, I'm just using this as an example. Then how do we then not get stuck there, Right. um but still then have an outreach which will impact our strategic plan, building out our community engagement, looking at other providers, early learner kind of providers, working with them, partnering with them, strengthening those partnerships, looking at curriculum, and then also building in more resources for our just-right readers and our take-home resources and other opportunities. Again, I'm just using that as an example because we still have to remain forward-thinking and committed to still reaching that 3-year-old population because if we don't, >> Right. it will have a compounding effect Right. and we we cannot we can't stay in

162this in this space because then our kids won't be reading on grade level. Right. Uh so and everything and again, I'm an early childhood educator, so I'm a little biased in this area, but I know for sure that if we don't um fill those gaps early and then I and work with our earliest our youngest learners at at a very young age then we will we will have more deficits academic deficits later. The same thing can be said for deferred maintenance and the rest right? It has a compounding effect. So that means that the pivot in the strategic plan has to be um innovative and it has to be creative and we have to move beyond this moment in time. >> Absolutely. All right, thank you. Thank you very much and um thank you very

163much for the robust discussion at our workshop this evening and um Ms. Jackson if you can go forward to the slide that has the timeline so that um we can make sure that everyone is aware that we'll be discussing more budget information at the Tuesday um school board meeting on May 12th and that meeting we'll talk about it when we talk about future dates but but these dates will be important um to our budget development because unfortunately while we might not have numbers from the state we still do actually have to start the planning for the 26-27 school year um so that things are actually ready when school doors open earlier than usual. Yeah, I I think depending on what we're hearing if if it's still an unknown I would propose to move forward with

164the information we have submitting a budget to you for approval by that June 9th date which we likely would then have to promptly amend once we finally have a state budget. The only sort of maybe maybe we would change that is if you know, if we were to get a final state budget at the end of May perhaps that would make sense to push that back and ask you to do it one time and maybe I the workshop at the end of June a special session or something like that. But at this point we're still working towards that June 9th date. Thank you. All right, thank you very much, Ms. Jackson. >> Thank you, Ms. Jackson. Thank you, Mrs. Jackson, and Adam too. Thank you very much, Dr. White. On to the work of the

165board and ongoing business. Um so, Ms. Treg, I don't know if you would like to share a little bit from being able to attend the NSBA conference, one of the national conferences that some of our board members have attended. Sure, let me pull up some notes. All right, so in San Antonio, um we had a amazing National School Board Association conference. I got the pleasure of being there. Um one of the things I loved in one of the seminars I went to was talked about the red card. And it was for our I guess undocumented students, um that are scared to talk and get approached and so forth. And I'll just read a little bit to you. It says, "It It allows them to carry it." And they also gave us a site where we

166could pick up cards. You can make them. They can go in the classrooms. They could be in the schools. Some of the school board members said they sometimes leave them in different restaurants. And it states, "I do not wish to speak to you, answer your questions, or sign or hand you any documents based on my Fifth Amendment rights under the United States Constitution. I do not give you permission to enter my home based on the Fourth Amendment rights under the United States Constitution unless you have a warrant to enter signed by a judge or magistrate with my name on it that you slide under my door. I do not give you permission to search any of my belongings based on my Fourth Amendment rights. I choose to exercise my constitutional rights and these cards are

167available to citizens and non-citizens alike. So, it's in the you can Google it and it has red card and it's one of those opportunities is something that we could provide not only for our students with parents and even anybody in the community. Um so, that was one session that I got to and one of the the school board was there from Minnesota that was affected the most that we had seen and they talked about the experience and they did state that this has helped them. And this has helped a lot of their parents and students not be afraid. And also Let's see. And it was called immigration in public schools. Helping schools helping schools be safe for all students. And a little quote that I really enjoyed. So, um one of us in the minors

168where we listen to um What was his name? What did I tell you? Dr. White? The guy Brandon Brandon Fleming. Brandon Fleming. Brandon Fleming. He was amazing. And one of the things that stuck to me most is he stated a good educator can identify potential. A great educator can manifest it. And he was a young man could have gotten lost in a lot of other things than ended up being not only a great educator, a great debater, and taking students from middle school in the heart of Atlanta to Harvard to debate and to win and they're on there they've been winning since 2019. And they just won this past and they'll be traveling again this year to go on this debate. And his he had a teacher that did not only see his potential. He

169was told he couldn't read, he couldn't do a lot of things, and then he was never going to be anything other than what they told him. And once this teacher said, "I am going to help you because you are growing faster pace than I thought you would." And she asked him one day, "Did you know you were gifted?" And he said, "Well, I was I did know I could read really well." He didn't even know some of the words that she was teaching him. Um, and it was just so amazing because he could have been on his way He was 12 years old on the corner selling drugs. And now he is one of the top educators in our country and is opening schools and he started out opening up a garage of five students

170that was just like him thinking he was going to teach everything that this one teacher taught him, right? And they all just looked at him and said, "They're hungry." He they didn't answer anything, they didn't want to participate in anything, but one day they were on their walk to go to get some hamburgers and french fries, they had a debate about relationships. And in his mind he thought I was doing more talking than listening. And in the process of them just walking to get some food he learned that they did have a lot to talk about, that they did know how to debate. And that was what his goal was to do, so he just listened. And he let it manifest. And he ended up getting a call from one of the parents asking him,

171"Brandon, what did you do to my daughter?" And he's like, "Nothing. What did she say I did?" So, she came home asking her mother different conversation different questions in reference to her personal relationships and trying to understand. And the parents said, "I'm not upset. I have never heard my daughter be disinterested in having an actual conversation in reference to anything that she learned." And she he poured into those. And as he grew, those kids went home, grabbed friends, and told these friends about him cuz now learning is fun for them. They're going to school. They're dressing up on Wednesdays because he's incorporated that. The school is telling Brandon, "On Wednesdays is the least amount of trouble that they have going on in the schools. They have no disciplinary problems now on Wednesdays." Cuz these children

172are going to go find bow ties and wearing their Sunday's best on Wednesdays. And I always say that you are going to perform according to how you feel. And if you look good, you feel good, you're going to perform good. So, just listening to so much of that was just so empowering. And all I could think about is this is so much that I wish we could even get this into our teachers because our teachers are the forefront. Our educators reach these students. And if they could have heard that message to just get so powered up to want to pour into kids. And you got to reach them. You have to reach them where they are. We say that all the time, right? So, when you reach a student where they are, you can begin

173to pull them and manifest their education in them. And it's always just one um one little task. And I have one thing to say cuz it was interesting that this just happened last week. My youngest is his English teacher. They have different conversations and they've had different little debates and so forth. I get a phone call the morning that my son made me a full breakfast. He said, "Mom, I'm going to make you breakfast." Woke up, didn't need me to wake him up, woke up at 7:00 in the morning. He does not do that. He woke up, he made pancakes, he made eggs, and he made bacon. I get a phone call from his teacher saying, "Ms. Trigg, I promise you I did not ask your son to make me a full breakfast." Now, he

174told me, "Mom, I'm going to pack a plate and take to school." I have no idea what he's taking his plate to. I'm thinking he's going to eat it. My child can eat. He loves food. So, when his teacher called me and I couldn't stop laughing, I said, "He loves your class." I said, "Whatever y'all talked about." He said, "We talked and joked about food." And he said, "You know, I can cook and I cooked for breakfast." And he said, "I didn't believe it." He said, "And it was good." >> [laughter] >> Well, um I appreciate that you were able to attend that conference and um sometimes we don't know what we don't know and it's it is important both, you know, that we can contribute to the national landscape and the state landscape with

175what we do with things like the community the community builders that is now um a pilot for the state, but also that as board members for us to think strategically for the health and uh well-being of our division long-term to expose ourselves to things from outside communities and bring it back. So, I know something that we've talked about and we'll talk about further for next year is, for example, the the Council of Urban um Boards of Education, the CUBE conference um in Chicago that is tiered that is geared towards urban divisions. So, um so I appreciate that you were able to do that at on behalf of our board and bring some of those things back. And I know a number of um our board members have been able to do that um over the

176years. So, thank you, Ms. Trigg. Um Moving on to pass board development two, um announcements and reminders. So, we have if you can believe it, it's almost May. Um I want to note that there's the the day tech school of the year event on the 29th. We also have the state of CTE um at the Chamber of Commerce coming up this week, and that wasn't on here. Um and off the top of my head, I didn't remember which day it was, but it overlaps one of those. That's Thursday morning. >> Thursday. There's the support staff of the year event on April 30th and the retirement dinner on May 18th. Also, please note that our board meeting on May 12th is at Patrick Henry, not here. Um so, >> [laughter] >> if you might forget, plan

177to be there early in case you need to redirect. Um so, just note those things. Also, the graduations are on here. They are both on the same day. Um and I also wanted to note that it's Patrick Henry versus William Fleming sports day tomorrow. Like, I think five sports are playing each other either at PH or at William Fleming. It's tennis, boy soccer, girl soccer, >> Yep. um baseball. I don't know if it's softball, but it's probably Yeah, so um so, if you go to either of those schools at all tomorrow afternoon, you will see a sporting event um of PH versus Fleming. So, um I wanted to note that as well. Is there Are there any other announcements or reminders there? Okay, any other future business for the board? Okay. So, I think that

178was All right. So, moving on to a closed meeting. We have a closed meeting tonight. Is there a motion for the board to convene in a closed meeting? I move that the board convene in a closed session to discuss specific officers, appointees, or employees for the purpose of considering such persons assignment, appointment, promotion, performance, demotion, salary, disciplining, or resignation pursuant to 2.2-3711A1 Code of Virginia. Thank you. Uh wait, I didn't hear who that was. Oh, me. Okay. Um motion made by Mr. Cherry, seconded by Ms. Quintana. Is there any discussion? All right, Ms. Winter, will you please will you please call the roll? Mr. Cherry. Yes. Dr. Jameson. Yes. Mr. Lane. Yes. Quintana. Yes. Mr. Frey. Yes. Ms. Watkins. Yes. Ms. Apel. Yes. Okay, thank you. The board will now enter into close into a

179closed session to discuss only items within the approved motion. No other board business or decisions will be conducted during this session. Okay.