Roanoke City School Board Special Meeting & Workshop: February 24, 2026

001Are y'all all good down there, too? Are y'all good? Okay. Oh, red light. Okay, there we go. [laughter] All right, everybody set? The the February 24th um 2026 school board um special meeting and workshop is called to order. Miss Tresy, please call the role. Mr. Cherry >> here. >> Mr. Link. >> Dr. Jamson >> yes. >> Miss Quintana >> here. >> Miss Trigg >> here. >> Mrs. Watkins >> here. >> Mrs. Apal >> here. [clears throat] Thank you to all of those that are joining the meeting in person and with us via the RCPS YouTube channel. We move to the approval of the agenda this evening. Is there a motion and a second to amend the agenda to add an additional closed meeting topic pursuant to state code 2.2-3711A3 of the code of Virginia and

002to reorder the superintendent's reports by moving the budget topic from item C to item D. >> Move second. >> Moved by Mr. Cherry, seconded by Miss Watkins. Is there any discussion? Hearing none. All those in favor say I. >> Any opposed say no. And the motion carries. The agenda is approved. February is school board appreciation month. At this time, I would like to invite Dr. White to share a few comments in honor of this month's observance. >> Good. Good evening, everyone. Uh, Renick City Public Schools is proud to join divisions across Virginia in celebrating schoolboard appreciation month this February. I'm grateful for the dedication and the leadership of our school board as well as the more than 800 school board members across the Commonwealth of Virginia who work tirelessly to support public education. The theme

003from strong roots come endless possibilities highlights the vital role schoolboard members play in planting the seeds for student success, ensuring every student has the resources needed to dream, excel, and meet their full potential, benefiting our city and its citizens. And I appreciate your service to our school board members. You know, I love and appreciate you. I know that you have a heart for children and I know that you care about each and every one of our students and so I just want to personally say thank you for all that you do and it is my honor to now read the resolution uh this year's resolution. So, Virginia Schoolboard Appreciation Month, February 2026. Whereas the education of Virginia school-aged children is the foundation upon which the economic, social, and intellectual capital of our state is built.

004And whereas the locally elected and appointed school boards play an important and vital uh government role, and decisions made by local school boards directly influence instruction in Virginia's public schools. And whereas these decisions affect the present and future lives of children and also set direction to prepare all students to be competitive in a local, state and national and global 21st century knowledge economy. And whereas local schoolboard members work with parents, businesses, education professionals, and other community members to create the education vision that we want for students. And whereas this year's theme, from strong roots come endless possibilities, highlights the vital role schoolboard members play in planting the seeds for student success, ensuring that every student has the resources needed to grow, thrive, and reach their full potential. And whereas schoolboard appreciation month provides an opportunity

005to celebrate Virginia's schoolboard members who champion the mission of public education. Now, be it therefore be it resolved that Rono City Public Schools joins the Virginia School Board Association in recognizing the contributions of the local school board members to the academic success of its public school students and expresses its sincerest recognition to local school board members for their focus on the well-being and achievement of students throughout the Commonwealth. and be it finally resolved that Reno City Public Schools declares February 2026 as school board appreciation month and encourages local community members and leaders to appropriately recognize our school division's dedicated schoolboard members. So, Mrs. Apel, Mr. Cherry, Dr. Jameson, Mr. Link, Miss Canana, Miss Trigg, Mrs. Watkins and our student representatives. Uh thank you so much uh for all that you do for our students, our

006staff, our families, and our schools. And you know that we can't say thank you without a little help from our students and staff. So we've created a video as just a small token of our gratitude. So let's roll that beautiful bean footage. [laughter] >> We are appointed people. We are not politicians but we are in a political position. And so we have to manage that aspect of the job as well as the governance piece to serve our students and our families and our community the best way we possibly can. I do love that not only seeing the superintendent and her staff get along so well, I love that we do too. I wanted to ensure that I contributed what I could as an individual to ensure that um Rono City Public Schools got the support

007they needed. >> Going into the board, uh initially it was all about student voice, giving them more of a voice uh when it comes to our decision-m >> everyone that I've been in those boardrooms with and the superintendent, they've all been about the kids. You know, we our first question all the time is how does this impact our kids? >> And our main focus is their education and their safety. >> When they walk across the stage, they are prepared to enter society in a productive way that where they will feel fulfilled. >> Thank you for supporting our community builders program. >> Because of you, we get to learn and grow in our own city. >> Thank you. >> On behalf of the Oasis team, we'd like to thank you for everything you do for Rono

008City Public Schools. On behalf of the women girls basketball team, thank you for your support. >> To our school board, we thank you for all you do. Reno City Public Schools is so thankful for your service. >> From the fifth queen of William High School. >> Hello school board. This is Mr. Schmidt here with the PH Symphonic Band. Hey symphonic band, raise your hand if you play on a school instrument from PH. That's what your support means. School board, we cannot do band without you. Thank you so much for your support. Thank you to the school board for your continued commitment to helping HR develop and support high quality professionals every student every day. >> And support dependable, innovative and secure solutions. >> Thank you from the To all of our school board members, we're

009here to say thank you. Thank you for the way that you lead, the way that you govern, the way that you care about all of our students. You lead with heart and we appreciate you. >> Thank you Join me in thanking our school. [laughter] Thank you. That was that was so so sweet. Thank you. >> That was adorable. >> That was amazing. Thank you. Truly. Thank you. >> So again, we appreciate you. We appreciate all that you do. We see you and we recognize the long hours. We recognize the dedication. and we just want to say thank you for everything. So, Madam Chair, I'll turn it back over to you. >> Thank you very much. And I know we are all very um touched and appreciative for the time and effort that went into that.

010So, um and it is a privilege working with these people that are here tonight and the ones that I've had the privilege of working with before and that will come after me. And I know those of you who have worked with others before my time as well, you know, so so thank you for that. Um, moving on to schoolboard clerk appreciation week. Um, >> we also, so technically that was last week, but the board would like to recognize clerk Kim Tresy and Deputy Clerk Don Winter Wear during school board clerk appreciation week for their dedication and hard work. Um so we shared a token of our appreciation last week with them um individually but um I cannot say enough um and we cannot as a board say enough about Miss Tresky and Miss Winter Wear.

011They are the glue and the WD40. >> Oh yeah. and the ones that that heard that heard the cats. And um there aren't enough superlatives. And we just as a board hope you feel valued for the effort that you put in uh put into making sure that this board and this division works. So thank you. >> Thank you. >> Right. >> Um we'll now continue with the personnel list. Is there a motion and a second to approve the personnel list as presented? >> Second. >> Moved by Mr. Cherry, seconded by Miss Kintana. Is there any discussion? Hearing none. All those in favor say I. I. >> Any opposed say no. And the motion carries. The personnel list is approved. Now, um, ahead of the superintendent updates, I did just want to take a moment to

012thank all of the hundreds who turned in there, uh, who tuned into the budget town hall. Hundreds. Um, I believe it was over 700. Um, people who either watched during or after the fact. Um, also thank you to the 170 plus who submitted feedback through the link and email leading up to um, last Friday when that closed. Um, you know, I know the board has really been paying attention to as much feedback as we can get from as many sources as possible. Um, also thank you to my fellow schoolboard members for the work that is ongoing that we're putting in during this development this budget development process. And to the RCPS employees who, you know, especially our chiefs and exec team, which we're'll hear from a lot more tonight, who are doing yman's work regarding

013the resources at play for fiscal year 27. This is the most difficult budget cycle I've been a part of um during my time on the board and I just want to express the gratitude for the dedication to preserving the integrity of our mission and prioritizing the classroom as much as possible during this. So, Dr. White, I'll turn it over to you for your updates. >> Very good. Good evening again, Madame Chair, Mr. Vice Chair, members of the school board and student representatives, and members of the public. Uh this evening we're bringing forward several items for your information and consideration, including approval of our comprehensive support and improvement plans, an update on the capital improvement plan and the capital maintenance program, as well as an update on the 26 uh 2026 2027 budget. So before we

014begin, I would like to take a moment to highlight a few items for the board and for the public's information. I would like to congratulate all of our middle and high school students who participated who participated in the citywide science fair two weeks ago. The grand award winners will now move on to represent RCPS at the Western Virginia Regional Science Fair next month. So, we're so proud of their hard work and dedication. Let's give them a hand. I also want to remind our teachers and staff that applications to work during our summer programming open last week with a deadline to apply by Monday, March 16th. So, we will be continuing our STAR program this summer which supports our rising third through 8th graders with a who have a demonstrated academic need uh through a focus

015a focus on reading and math. Uh so we will also continue to offer a traditional high school summer school and uh our community builders program as well as staying safe by staying connected. So more details will be shared with invited families and those who are interested in our summer camp opportunities as we get closer to summer. Finally, kindergarten registration for the 2627 school year opened yesterday. Our schools and the community empowerment center have hosted registration events uh this week to support parents and guardians with the process to uh answer questions and to connect them with resources. Tomorrow, families can continue to stop by the community empowerment center from 9 to 4 uh for in-person assistance. If you need that assistance with registration, we're here to help. I encourage anyone with a rising kindergartener to visit

016our website for details to begin the registration process. All right. So, to begin, I will ask our chief instructional and administrative officer, Archie Freeman, to provide an update on the comprehensive support and improvement plans and applications for two of our schools for your consideration. So, Mr. Freeman. >> Thank you, Dr. White. Good evening, Madame Chair, Vice Chair Cherry, members of the board, student representatives, and Dr. White. On January the 27th at the schoolboard workshop, as we stated on February the 10th, the board did receive an overview of our current student performance data, including an update on our federally identified schools. On February the 10th, you took the opportunity to allow us and Dr. White to provide a signature in regards to our federally identified application to receive funding for our TSI schools. On tonight, we

017want to submit the same information as needed for our comprehensive support and improvement plan um for our comprehensive support and improvement schools under the Virginia Department of Education's new accountability system. The VDOE now requires that we develop and imple implement, of course, as I stated earlier, the multi-year plans for all schools also identified for CSI. So, those plans must be submitted for review and made publicly accessible upon completion. As we're completing alignments of our VDOE requirements, the division um will present the finalized CSI multi-year school support plans to the board and post them on the division's website. But as we're moving forward through the application process, we want to go ahead on and secure those funds by asking Dr. White to have that signature provided because for our CSI schools, it'll be over a two-year

018period and we have the monies up to 150,000 plus that we could possibly use and we want to secure those funds as soon as possible. So, the board has asked tonight to approve the signatur superintendent signature, excuse me, on the completed application workbook to secure additional funding for the two CSI identified schools, which are Her Park and Preston Park Elementary School. >> Um, thank you, Mr. Freeman. Does the board have any comments or questions at this time? >> That funding. >> Okay. Um, is there a motion and a second to approve the signature of the superintendent for the completed applications? So move >> second >> for the CSI schools as presented. So moved by Miss Watkins, seconded by Miss Ms. Trigg. Is there any further discussion? All those in favor say I. >> I. I.

019>> Any opposed? Say no. >> And the motion carries. The approval for the superintendent signature for the two CSI applications is approved. >> Thank you, Madam Chair. And I also want to thank Dr. Wimbush and Mr. Bowman for working to secure it fast because of the quick turnaround time. >> Thank you, Mr. Freeman. >> Uh, next, I'll ask our chief operations officer, Mr. Chris Perkins, to present the annual report for capital development for fiscal years 2027 through 2036 and discuss the capital improvement plan as well. So, Mr. Thank you, Dr. White. Madam Chair, Mr. Vice Chair, members of the board, ladies and gentlemen, I bring to you tonight uh the capital development initiative. The main part of that is the capital improvement plan and the capital maintenance plan. Uh at your seats, uh you have

020the written report. I do want to uh bring your attention uh that there is a proposed $650,000 cut uh to facility maintenance. This will require us if approved uh to require us to defer maintenance of several projects uh within our cap develop initiative and reschedule those for future cycles. It will also require us to concentrate on projects that address immediate health, safety, and essential building integrity issues uh to to secure the environment for all of our students. Um that uh is the that's a unfortunate situation for us. I will uh move into uh an explanation of the captain and improvement plan. Keep in mind that our c our maintenance uh capital improvement plan and our capital mainten actually um a testament to preventative maintenance and uh renovation that we've been able to do at Reno

021City Public Schools. Uh the capital improvement plan provides us with a roadmap on how to do that. Uh at the request of city council, specifically Bill Best pitch about four and a half to five years ago, he requested that we move from a 5-year cycle uh to a 10-year cycle uh to allow the city to uh better plan for the needs of uh the school district. We did just that and we turned it around in a very short period of time. Um, we uh use this 10-year plan uh to uh map our way to improvements across the district. Keep in mind the average age of our facilities is over 70 years. Again, a testament to preventative maintenance and renovations. Our approach uh is simple. Our superintendent and our strategic plan sets the course and the

022vision. Uh then finance and operations collaborate. Uh we then submit uh or solicit requests from our principles uh for capital maintenance and capital improvement projects. Those uh are returned. We turn it over to a needs assessment team. That needs assessment team then scores the projects. They then help us to prioritize those projects for which we are going to present to you tonight. Uh [snorts] then uh we will be asking your approval. uh in two weeks at your uh regular meeting. Uh once approved, those go to the city budgeting team and then for approval in the overall city CIP. Uh so that is the uh the annual course and annually we review this uh for uh information and updates. Uh some of the data sources that we use of course we go to last year's CIP

023and CMP capital maintenance. Uh we used the feasibility study that we completed. We reviewed every single building in Rono City Public Schools in August of 2024. Uh we've talked about this a lot in the last several meetings or several years or excuse me the last year and a half with the board. Uh we use functional student enrollment capacities. We use department of education information. Uh we look at funding sources and available dollars. I'll cover that in a lot of detail later. uh facility maintenance work orders. Uh the school board has two policies related to capital improvements and of course the requests from our principles um what they need for their uh buildings. The team that scores our needs assessment team uses a couple of uh of items to prioritize our our our projects. First, they

024look at improving learning environments. They look at facility maintenance and major system replacements. Uh they look at health, safety, and sustainability upgrades. And uh we now have to take all of their input and then we have to navigate the new funding reality that we're dealing with. Uh what I want to note on this page, this is very different from what we have done in years past. You will notice there are five columns missing. Those five columns are the capital fund balance that we no longer have as a district and has been removed. Uh we are limited now uh to what the city uh at this point has still agreed to provide us and that's $5 million. Uh as you can see we've got a lot of things that are needed. Uh each one of those

025uh again go to the agreed amount from the city. I want to highlight the red bordered and that is the modular units. Uh we have overcrowding even with the lowest estimate uh provided by our third-party review future think uh we will still be overcrowded our high schools. However uh based on the new funding reality that we are dealing with uh we can't depend on having the ongoing money to pay for uh the ongoing costs related to trailers at our high schools. So I have left that blank at this point until we go through uh some of the decisions that be before the board. That's for the first five years. That's that's the our best estimate for those five years and and within those five years our estimates can be much better uh of course because

026we have the ability uh to forecast look at inflation and things like that. Moving forward in our next five years uh we we have to look at planning and adaptation strategies. our annual re-evaluation of projects on emerging needs. We try to cluster those projects together to optimize cost and campus aesthetics. We consider warranty expirations, roofs, mechanical, electrical, and plumbing equipment. And then uh we look at the enhanced cost estimation accuracy updated each year as we get better estimates on those costs. Uh again, I'd like to point out the change in the chart. We no longer have a capital fund balance to use for local funding from the schools. So, we are dependent again on the city's $5 million that at this point they still agreed to. Uh we have stretched that out uh to cover

027uh playgrounds. You will see athletics, uh floor replacements, demolition. Uh we still don't have a decision from the city if they want to uh what they want to do with Raleigh Court. So, we have that on the plan still. Uh and other items. I'd like to have have a nice shout out to Kevin Bowman, our needs assessment chair, uh his consultants and team members, uh Miss or Dr. Shawanda Jackson, Miss Tanisha Scales, Mr. Jeff Shaw, Mr. Greg Burgess, Mr. Don Richardson for their assistance uh in working through this difficult capital improvement or capital development initiative plan that I've brought to you. Uh I'll take any questions that the board may have. >> Thank you very much, Mr. Perkins. Um, so Miss Trigg, any questions or comments for from you? Uh, Miss Watkins, >> a question.

028>> Mr. Lopez Ortiz, any questions for you down there? All right, Miss Kintana. >> Oh, ma'am, just thank you. >> Dr. Jameson, >> I have one question. Um, regarding the $650,000 of a cut for deferred maintenance as we I think I have been public about how I feel about deferring deferred maintenance, but given the realities, uh, I guess my question is as we play that out over time, uh, so it's 650,000 next year, uh, do we have a sense of escalation over the plan? Will we continue have to have to make cuts? Does there become some big decisions that we think may impact our planning going forward? Does it become cumulative? Are we hoping to absorb that and readjust over time? So, how are how are we going to manage this going forward? I think

029is my bigger question. Not anything about this. This look the rest of it seems >> great question. Uh first uh each year uh we'll have to look at the uh funding provided by the city. We'll have to determine what appropriations we'll need to ask for based on need. Uh unfortunately, when you defer maintenance, uh a $3,000 cost for repair, if you do not have that $3,000, could cost $25,000 as an example when you go to repair it. Uh also, deferring maintenance means that we are cutting items, as an example, uh we'll be cutting emergency funding. Uh if you remember two years ago, we had an HVAC handler uh or air handler rooftop go out at one of our elementary schools that was over $250,000 to replace. We no longer have that ability because that is

030part of the money we have to we cut. So we would have to ask for an appropriation depending on the f funding position of the city. Uh that we don't know that that will continue but what we have deferred this year will have to be addressed at some point. Uh so we have to plan and that's why we look for health, safety and immediate building integrity uh to address those issues. Unfortunately when you defer that things like painting uh go to the wayside, chipped paint uh draws away from and while broken window theory and law enforcement may have been uh misused. There is some theory that if it looks good, people will take care of it and people will take pride in that and they will they will enjoy going into a nice uh you

031know school. Uh so we have to consider those things as we go through. But unfortunately painting and floor replacement take a backseat to HVAC for you know to make sure we got good quality air. Uh the state has changed the law on indoor air quality. Uh it means we have to address accessibility. Uh we have to keep our elevators running because uh we have students and staff with disabilities that we have to address under ADA. Uh we have to address accessibility to not just our our inside our schools but uh for students and staff with disabilities to our uh amenities outside our school. So we have to we have to prioritize those uh and uh other things will fall through the cracks. We hope that it does not last. Uh but uh in reality, I

032think we are facing a very difficult situation going forward. That 650,000 now is going to cost us uh potentially uh more in the future. >> I would uh I think I would thank you. Uh that's a weird Thank you for the answer. [laughter] Um, I think I would like to ask uh for my board members for whom we'll still be here at that time, should we have a $250,000 expense, which >> yeah, >> that it um that it be brought to the board, which is new, right? You all always handle it. I think we now need to bring it to the board to consider bringing it forward to ask for additional funding in extraordinary circumstances. I mean that isn't how we've managed it before uh under the old funding formula. We that's what fund balance

033and other kinds of considerations were. Um but I would like us to think about in the case of outside of our planned events that we um bring that forward >> because we're not really going to have any sense of how much of that is unless we are talking about it from the dice. >> You miss Watkins you noted something that you wanted to ask. Yeah, I think it was answered, but I I I need it answered separately and plainly. Is there no line item in what you showed us? No line item in what you showed us. That's a contingency for anything emergent that comes up. >> So, we Miss Jackson, her team has placed a contingency within uh the budget that we are presenting to you uh later in this meeting. >> Okay. >> Um

034and so there is some contingency there. Uh keep in mind that that contingency is about uh half of what it should be. Usually you want a 1 to 5% contingency. Uh but we're about a half percent of our overall budget. >> Thank you. Um Vice Chair Cherry >> questions. Thank you so much. >> Um I did have a couple questions. I noted um I can't recall if it was in your presentation or in the annual report. Um what are examples of end of life cycle items? because that was noted that those go straight to the top. >> As an example, uh warranties for large equipment, uh for instance, a rooftop handler, if the warranty is coming is coming due, then that's an end of life cycle. Uh we, you know, the repairs then become uh

035much more uh difficult for us to cover. Uh so when you start looking at uh and I I use playground as another example, most of our playgrounds are are built to last 20 years. uh as we approach that 18, 19, 20th year, we need to start uh looking at how we replace that. That's an end of cycle. Generally, most things have warranties or life expecties uh especially these larger projects. >> Um [clears throat] I did note a lot of the capital maintenance projects. Um you know, I appreciated that. Um, you know, I wanted to note for people especially like newer on the board or new to tuning in that the capital maintenance, you know, projects and that whole plan and that whole rubric and everything that's only like two years old now, maybe three for

036all the capital maintenance that's at the school levels >> that that is three years old now. We presented that to you three years in a row. So, this will be our fourth year upcoming. And um I also wanted to note that $5 million, you know, allocation from the city that's in debt service that then we then pay for the debt service on those dollars that we use for that capital investment to the schools. Correct. >> That is correct. We pay 100% of our debt service. >> Okay. Um All right. Any other questions? All right. Um, I do appreciate how thorough this is and how and also you can always go back and look at last year's report and the year before and you can see that this is not set in stone. It is always

037being evaluated to make sure that the needs of the entire division are being met in an equitable and responsible way with the resources we have and the needs as they rise to the top. So, um, thank you for that, Mr. Perkins. Um, all right, moving on. >> Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Perkins. Uh, finally, we have an update on the 2026 2027 budget development process. And before we begin, I do want to briefly kind of frame how we are planning to use our time tonight. Uh, because this conversation has a lot of moving pieces. And I do want to thank the board for setting aside again this work session time to have this important uh public conversation as we're trying to really meet this moment when when it comes to a budget deficit. Um so

038we have intentionally structured tonight as a collaborative discussion. you can um see members of our team here so that we can answer uh the the questions that you've submitted to us ahead of time um and to receive any additional feedback ahead of uh your your March 10th meeting when you will be asked to approve the preliminary kind of categorical budget. So we're operating in what we have called and you've heard Mr. Perkins referred to this as our new funding reality. And I'd like to take a moment uh to recap uh what we have previously discussed again so that we can level set so that we can make sure that everyone and the the public and everyone has kind of a baseline understanding of where we are uh today. So over the past two years, the

039city council has amended the school funding policy three times. Uh most recently the policy shifted from a guaranteed 40% of estimated revenues to up to 40% and now uh to a um 106.9 million baseline plus 34% of revenue growth. At the same time the division was flatfunded at 106.9 um million dollars last year. So, it's really important and and I know that they're getting the the clicker ready to advance the slides. Um, but I'll just talk a little bit about who we are before I get into all of that because I do think it's important for the public to understand again who we are as a school division that again we serve nearly uh 14,000 students um most of whom many of whom live in poverty and so um and we serve several students with

040special needs um and u varying levels of of uh student needs disabilities. We also have a number of English learners. Um we have a number of students receiving gifted and talented services. Uh and we have students who are experiencing some levels of of homelessness or um food insecurities as well. So we do serve u we have 29 schools centers and and programs and we are what I like to call beautifully diverse. I think it's important that as we get into a budget discussion that we keep that in mind in terms of of who we are as a as a school division. And so, um, I think it's important also for us to think about, um, flat funding because we hear that term a lot about, um, flat funding. And I mentioned this during the the

041town hall meeting, but I I think it's, uh, it it's worth repeating. So flat funding does not mean flat costs, right? So um so while uh revenue remained level, our expenditures continue to increase due to factors outside of our control. And if we could advance, I think we need to advance the next slide. Yes. Um, for example, the year-over-year cost increases that are uh outside of our organization's control um might include insurance or salaries, utilities, um, facilities maint maintenance, inflation, and other essential services. So, over time, the compounding effect of these policy changes creates a projected cumulative difference of nearly $39 million over a five-year period. That shift significantly alters our financial trajectory. So I just want to reiterate that this short shortfall is not the result of overspending or mismanagement on the part of

042Reno City Public Schools. Uh our audits remain clean and we have budgeted responsibly. However, the policy changes combined with flat funding and the required return of fund balance removed our financial cushion and created this abrupt structural gap. Uh so at this point I' I'd like to ask Mrs. Jackson to to chime in here and to take it from here to look at our financial overview if you will. So Mrs. Jackson, I'll turn it over to you. >> Sure. Thank you. Um, good evening, Chair, Mrs. Apel, Vice Chair, Mr. Cherry, members of the school board, and Dr. White. Um, I wanted to take to start off with just kind of some um some updates to our process and and make sure that we are being clear about the numbers as this is a in development. This

043is we have updates, you know, every two weeks to let you know where we are in the process. So, I want to start with um kind of a a structural change in how we're reporting some of our expenditures to make sure that that's clear. I don't want anyone to be uh caught off guard um when when you see this. So, this is related to how we report our um costs rel and and revenues related to students with intensive support needs. So, um you may be familiar with this uh for years this was called the special education regional program and um it it is intended at to this day um to provide support for students as the name suggests who have intensive support needs. So you might have a smaller number of students but they might

044need um uh more assistance and support than than other students. And um so one piece of this is kind of the regional aspect is school divisions potentially working together to support those students. So for example, if we have uh three students who are hearing impaired and maybe a neighboring division has one student who's hearing impaired, well we could host one classroom and serve all those students and be more efficient, right? So um so that's how this program works. So currently um and we started this when it was a regional program. We re uh accounted for all of those funds in our restricted grants fund so that we could keep track of that. We would transfer our local share for our students who were in the regional classrooms. Even if they were in our schools, they're

045regional classrooms. Um we would transfer our share of those costs into the grants fund. So um we would account for that out of the grants fund. So, so why I'm bringing this to you and what's changing is um just since it became um less of a regional sort of almost like a separate program uh through this new CISna funding model, what we're finding is um there's not a regional classroom anymore. Um we have students who are funded partially by the state through the CISna program um who might be in a classroom with a student who does not qualify as SISNA. And so that makes it complicated as you can kind of see with my arrows up there um to have some expenses in the general operating fund and some in the grants fund and but

046they're it's the same classroom. It's maybe the same teacher but um you know they're not only serving students with intensive support needs. So it has been recommended to us by our uh special education department that we streamline that through the general the the general fund. So, basically what we are intending to do is make sure that we're reflecting all of those costs um that are funded by local and state funds for students with intensive support needs through the general operating fund so that the costs and the expenses are all in one place and there's less uh confusion and um we're making sure that we can identify the costs by student. It's not by classroom anymore since the it's no longer a regional program. So, um, the main reason why I'm bringing that to you is

047because that's going to increase both the revenue and the expenditures that are reflected in the general fund. Um, it is moving those out of the grants fund into the general fund. So, as you can see kind of in the yellow part at the top there, um, we would have a a decrease in the grants fund, an increase in the general fund. The net change is zero. Um so you can see in the blue part at the bottom um kind of where we would be adding those SISna revenue and expenditures on the general operating side. And so you see here kind of in gray that's what we looked at our our net difference at the last meeting. We were just under about a $16 million deficit that we will be talking about extensively today. We will

048still be at that exact number. U just the revenue and expenditures are a little bit higher. So I I certainly I didn't want anyone to see that and be like, "Wait a minute, why did our revenue and expenses go up?" Um, so this is why it's just a net difference to improve that reporting um given how the structure of how the state funds students with intensive support needs have changed. So any questions about that before we kind of shift gears? >> Okay. I just wanted to make sure that was >> money just same money. >> Correct. just being reported and all in the same fund. >> I want to make sure that everybody's clear on that. >> Yes. >> Thank you. >> So, let me jump in um and talk a little bit about state

049funding. Now, of course, Sunday was budget Sunday. So, um we do have we've started to get some information um about what the general assembly um is is looking to do with the budget. So, we don't have a lot of details yet. So, I just have sort of some highlights here to share with you. um uh key among them is that the Senate version of the state budget um changes the state share of a raise for standards of quality positions to a 3% raise. The introduced budget in December had the state share of a 2% raise. The House version keeps it at 2%. Um you can see that um both made some changes. There was in the introduced budget um some funding for uh part of a bonus um in the current year. both have changed

050how they calculate that to a flat amount and also added some flexibility to carry those funds forward and provide that bonus in in fiscal 27 if school divisions desire. So that apparently is in both versions of the budget. So um seems likely that that um that change to how that would work will go forward. Um there are increases to at risk add-on um on on both sides though handled a little bit differently. Um, one thing of note that's of interest, um, that I I look forward to getting more information about is the House version. As you can see, there's 400 million um, in one-time flexible supplemental funding for school divisions there. Um, so while I don't love one time [laughter] money, um, I do like flexible. So, um, so that is, um, nice to see.

051Then, um, we'll get more details about our our options there. And then as you can see, both the House and Senate um do propose some funding for supporting school construction. A little bit um larger amount on the House side than the Senate side. Um and both support the 1% local option sales tax for school construction. So um we'll have to see kind of how that plays out. In terms of getting more details about this, um the Virginia Department of Education always um kind of analyzes what comes out of each each house and provides us with details about um what does this really mean for us. It usually takes a couple of weeks for them to be able to provide that. So, I imagine in the next few weeks, we'll be getting more details um and

052and can uh bring that to you at our next meeting of what this really in in more detail what this really might mean for Reno City Schools. Um so, that is underway. Um so, moving on. Um before we kind of jump into your questions and and the feedback we've gotten, wanted to just take a brief minute and uh remind you and the public about our our methods in approaching the the need to reduce our budget. So on the non-personnel side, um we have identified criteria that we want to use in guiding us um in making objective decisions in what we're evaluating for potential cuts. So um the first item is is does the program require specialty transportation routes that add cost? So that's we have a few things that we do that do add additional

053transportation. So that's something that we have considered. Um do the programs go above and beyond what is required by the standards of quality? Um you know we have discussed before and I'm sure it will come up again this evening that um we recognize that the standards of quality are the the low bar. Um, you know, I think definitely some work needs to be done there on the state side of what the state supports and um requires, but nonetheless, that is kind of the low bar of things we are required to do. So, we have to make sure we're meeting those standards of quality. So, it is certainly appropriate to at least look at and evaluate anything we're doing that is not required. Um, are there additional personnel required to provide the program or service? So

054again, an added cost uh above and beyond kind of the basic level of service. And then lastly, can the program or service be retained through a different service model? Is there is there another way that perhaps is less costly that we should be considering? Um and then on the personnel side, >> thank you, Mr. Jackson. Good evening, Madam Chair, Mr. Vice Chair, members of the board, student representative, Dr. White. As a recap, we mentioned before we want to make sure we have an objective way in terms of when we're identifying which positions to reduce when it comes to staffing. So, we have five areas of criteria. The first one is the position currently vacant or filled or do we know that it will be vacant in 2627 and we are receiving resignations and retirements daily?

055And again, our contracts are set to go out in a in a month or so. The second um option to look at is has how's the position funded? Is it a grant? Is it grant funded or is it uh general funds? The third is is a position above the number position required um by standards or quality or is it not required. So we use that as a criteria. The fourth one is a position in a subject or field that is designated as hard to staff and we use the Virginia Department of Education terms defines what is hard to staff um in terms of those positions. And then the last we look at is this position mission critical based on student achievement data and strategic plan goals. So those are the five criterias that we use

056when evaluating um vacant or filled positions moving into the 2627 school year. >> So thank you Mrs. Jackson and Mr. McKe for that. Just a little bit about the community feedback. I know the school board and your questions you asked about the feedback that we've received thus far and you're curious about um how that how all of that has gone. So I just wanted to give you an overview of that. Uh we have received a large amount of feedback over the past month. We hosted as Mrs. Apel reminded everyone, right? We've re uh we had a bud virtual budget town hall meeting on February 5th. Um we have um we had small groupoup breakout sessions during that town hall meeting to allow for deeper conversations. uh since then and and you can see with the

057virtual town hall meeting in terms of 282 attendees that was that night that does not account for the many people who went back to watch the town hall meetings after that which was over about 700 uh views I believe so again lots of uh participation there and we are very very appreciative of that uh since then we have met with the Reno Education Association uh my superintendent's teacher advisory council the superintendent's business advisory council uh preschool and Plato teachers. We've met with central office staff and we will attend tomorrow's central council PTA meeting as well. So again, very very appreciative of everyone lending their voices to this very important topic. Uh we've also read every comment submitted through the feedback form and every email sent to the school board and to division uh leadership. So

058again, thank you for that feedback. We have been intentional about creating multiple opportunities uh for stakeholder groups to weigh in and um and we continue to listen carefully to the perspectives that have been shared. So, and that will continue to be shared. So, across those conversations and across the written feedback, clear themes have emerged. And so, I thought the board would be interested in hearing about those themes. again. So that we're not going to go over every single comment because again there were so many, but we were able to group them into themes. So certain topics have surfaced repeatedly reflecting both concern and a deep care for our students and staff. So uh in a few moments our team will walk through those recurring themes and how they're informing the options that are before you

059uh at this point in time. So one of the the first themes that I'll talk about is protecting Plato and gifted programs. Uh this is Plato was the most frequently mentioned topic and parents, teachers and community members emphasize that Plato fosters necessary academic and social emotional um growth that uh cannot be cut. According to the feedback that we we've received, respondents pointed out that eliminating Plato would save less than 1% of the gap while causing um trauma by breaking peer groups and crowding general education classes. Specific suggestions mirrored those from the town hall, consolidating uh the centers, that was one suggestion, providing kind of hybrid options. um allowing families to handle transportation using virtual or again hybrid options, exploring donor support and phasing uh changes gradually. So again, we're going to speak to that tonight

060and we'll stop uh periodically as we go through. I'm going to go over the general themes, but then that's also how we're going to structure the conversation tonight and we'll stop along the way to allow time for questions and conversation. Another theme was program cuts and staffing reductions. Uh there were objections to proposed cuts, especially to activity buses, field trips, and the three-year-old preschool program. Uh staff and parents fear uh larger class sizes, a loss of specialized programs, and damage to school culture. Several asked whether central office positions and convocation could be cut instead which of course we are uh looking at all of that. Uh also another theme was about transportation and activity buses. So according to the feedback activity buses are critical for students who rely on afterchool programs and athletics. Uh suggestions

061included allowing high school students to ride city buses for free, partnering with radar or faith-based organizations, charging modest fees, and reducing the number of routes. Uh there was also general trans transportation suggestion of of whether we can have families opt in to ride the school bus to further cut down on routes rather than creating routes for all students. And again, we'll talk through all of those uh this evening. Another theme was on student behavior, school climate and safety. Teachers and parents described rising behavioral uh issues and uh mental health needs. They felt there was nowhere to cut from in the schools uh because staff already struggled to meet students needs in those areas. Several suggested that reducing support staff or class- size protections would exacerbate discipline problems. Some questioned also why RCPS uh funds school

062resource officers when many divisions have it paid for by uh the cities that they're that they're in. So in other uh jurisdictions, another theme had to do with community advocacy and partnerships. Uh respondents urged RCPS to advocate for the restoration of the funding formula with the city and to push back against the policy change. And I'll just say here that now we've heard feedback from some asking us to with the city and I I just want to be clear that we we have met with the city and I know that the school board has um a relationship with city council members as well in terms of that working relationship and communication. So, I do want the public I I want you to know that that um th those conversations have happened. And so, we talked

063to them multiple times since uh this discussion first began. And we were many of us were part of a task force um that um that looked at the proposed policy that was approved. And during that task force, we provided the city with an impact analysis of what could happen. Uh and so we we have provided that information and we have raised questions and we have advocated for our students needs. And I'll I'll just say that advocacy is not resistance and that asking questions plus um advocacy equals doing our due diligence. That does not equate to resistance. I'd just like to say that for the record. So, several suggested um forming partnerships with uh local businesses and churches and nonprofits to support transportation, fundraising and program costs. And REA leaders requested to work more closely with

064with us and uh to provide professional development and those kinds of things. And again, I just wanted to thank our teachers and staff and community partners for rolling up their sleeves and asking what they can do to help. And so we're really appreciative of that. Another um theme that came out of this was about teacher pay and compensation. And we've received some mixed feedback on on the raises on whether to provide a 2% pay raise during uh this budget crisis. Others argue that competitive salaries uh are necessary to recruit and retain staff uh by securing matching funds. So, uh, a few suggested asking teachers whether they would voluntarily defer raises to save programs like Plato, while others emphasize that staff deserve fair compensation and should not bear the burden of the of funding cuts. Another

065theme that has emerged has to do with facilities, overcrowding, and infrastructure questions and concerns about overcrowded high schools and how this deficit will affect building a third high school. several questions regarding how returning Plato to schools would affect classroom space. And we're uh we're going to talk about all of those things again tonight. So again, um kind of hold on for the ride. As you can see, we're going to be here for a little bit. Uh but we do want to make sure that we're doing our due diligence by addressing um what our members of the public and our staff members uh and have brought to us as well as your the the questions that you've submitted to us as well. So um again technology and devices that was another theme. Now there was limited

066feedback here but there were a few comments asking whether leasing fewer devices or reducing the onetoone student to device r ratio could save funds and requests to revisit educational technology subscriptions would help as well. So again we have um uh we have taken uh these themes directly from the feedback that we have received and I also want to thank uh you as school board for your thoughtful questions as well uh throughout this process. Your questions are our uh questions as well and so they have shaped uh our analysis uh sharpened our thinking and informed the options that we are presenting tonight. You have asked about the impact of the options on students and staff. Uh you have asked about sustainability and equity and a long-term structural balance. You've asked about leadership, central office, and whether

067reductions are being considered at every level of the organization. And those questions are reflected in the information that you will see this evening. For example, at the division leadership level, after conducting a sidebyside analysis comparing current staffing to preandemic levels, the division has two more division leadership team level positions today than we had prior to CO. That analysis has been part of our review as we evaluate staffing across the organization. Now, as we move through the presentation, you will see how board questions, community feedback, and leadership analysis have intersected to inform the options currently on the table. So, uh, as you know, I'll move on here, that as you know, we have we've currently built in a 2% raise in the budget, but there are tradeoffs to that. And I'd like to just jump in

068here with talking about the personnel piece. Again, we're going to go to the most impactful uh part of of trying to meet this moment in the with this budget deficit. And the the most impactful again, we're in a people business and we need people for our young people, right? And so 75% of the budget is in our people resources. And so, uh, personnel, we'll talk about that and then we'll get into operations and, uh, some of the the teaching and learning impacts as well. So, um, I just wanted to say that again, we have we've built in a 2% raise there. And so, we when you see the projected costs here, if you're looking on the screen, you can see that a 2% raise is a $3.4 million cost. Uh, the state would fund about

069$1.6 $6 million of that cost, but as a school division, we would have to match that with with $1.8 million and then a 3% raise because keep in mind that the House is proposing a 2%. As Kathleen uh shared uh as Mrs. Jackson, I'm sorry, shared uh the Senate is proposing a 3% raise. So that's why we wanted to offer both and show both here to see what the fiscal impact would be. So, with at a 3% raise, that's a $5 million um projected cost. The state would then fund $2.4 million of that and then the school board would need to fund $2.7 million of that. Now, if we go with no raises, uh we would leave some that state money kind of on the table, but going with no raises could save about 20

070or more um positions by cutting the $1.8 million from the deficit. So um so that is something that that again we wanted to bring to your attention for your consideration. We've also been talking about furlows uh which would be an alternative to reducing salaries for central office administrators and looking at five days um for central staff including coordinators and above which legally would have to be five consecutive days. Isn't that that right, Mr. Collins? That five that would have to be five consecutive days >> or exempt employees >> for exempt employees. Yes. >> Because of the salary basis test, you run the risk of um because employees have to be paid for partial work weeks if they're exempt. So, it's safer to do a full work week. >> So, that would save uh the division

071about $150,000, which is the equivalent of approximately two positions. And again, every position counts here. So this would mean everyone in positions from coordinator and up. So coordinators, supervisors, directors um and and above uh including myself um um would see would have these um five furlow days. Again at this moment again this is what we believe is an all-in moment and therefore the proposal about the furlows would have to include all of us and that in my opinion that means me too. Uh so again from the um last presentation we are estimating about 150 positions affected which would cover 12 million of the $16 million deficit. And given that there has not been an opportunity to kind of offramp uh following the city council's uh January 20th decision, this is kind of where we are.

072Uh this equates to a 6% reduction in of school-based positions and a 10% reduction of central office-based positions. And certainly in any areas where we'd need to realize a reduction in force, we would follow the laws and the policies around a reduction in force, certainly where positions do need to be filled, we'll look to fill those with transfers. So people u may not have the same job. Um but we are we're trying to do our best to make sure that they have a job. Uh and so we we've talked to central office about that as well. result. I um I'll I'll stop right there before I turn it over to Mr. McKe and ask school board members if you have any questions about what I've presented thus far. >> Okay. And um so I think

073we'll go ahead and start on this side first. So I'll go with Miss Kintana and then Mr. Lopez Ortiz. Um if you all have any questions. So none for you. Okay, Miss Kintana. It's a lot. It really is a lot. Um, and so back to the furloss, that's what I'm confused. It has to be five days or four. >> Um, [clears throat] >> yeah, it has to be five. Correct. >> That's correct, Dr. White. >> It has to be There's no take one one day, one another week. You can do it, but it's trickier and you run the risk of violating um the Fair Labor Standards Act because exempt employees, even if they work a partial work a week under the salary basis test under the Fair Labor Standards Act, they still need to be

074paid their salary even if they work a partial work week. However, if they are out for an entire week, they don't need to be Yeah. Correct. >> Okay. Dr. Jameson, >> I was just going to go back to a a a clarification. Uh maybe it's for me, but we talked as criteria for the cut early on. So, back with that we are talking about standards of quality positions. And I just want to be take a minute to be clear. We talk about those a lot. Be clear that those are the positions that the state funds at 100%. Yes. >> No. Um the state doesn't fund any positions at 100%. >> That's [laughter] remind us that this is these are the positions we have money for from the state. >> Correct. That's correct. Okay. >> So

075then the state you sort of estimates the cost of those positions and then they use um a local composite index to decide how much um they feel that your locality should be able to cover of that. Right. um and how much the state will cover. So roughly the state covers about twothirds and expects our locality to cover onethird. >> And I'd like to just just so if you wouldn't mind um to remind all of us what kinds of positions that might surprise people are not included in SOQ that we have today. >> Sure. Um, so yeah, there there's not um a a whole group of of positions that we choose to have that are not included in the SOQS. Really, when we talk about positions that are not included, we're talking about more of those

076positions that are absolutely required um than the state helps us fund. So um like let's take a I I don't think I have the exact numbers in my head, but let's take kindergarten aids for example. Um, so the state only funds maybe half of what we actually need in our classrooms and and we're not, you know, having a, you know, six aids in every classroom or anything like that. I think we stab at maybe one for every two. So it it's not um like we're going above and beyond. Another really sort of egregious example in my opinion is assistant principles. I I mean the the state SOQs would fund I think maybe two half-time assistant principles at the elementary level. I mean we have schools with 500 600 uh you know close to 700 kids.

077And so I think everybody um who's been in a school would agree that in some of our particularly larger schools uh at least one full-time assistant principal probably makes a lot of sense. And so we get almost no state help for any assistant principles at the elementary level. Just as a couple of examples, >> if I recall correctly, as a priority of the board, not so many years ago, we certainly work to improve increase our ratios for social work and mental health providers in our schools and supports. >> Yes, ma'am. I just I mean I I think I'm reminding myself but also um putting a I guess an explanate a finger on the depth of the point of the pain this is. And um lastly uh is my math right? Is this basically for this

078one year essentially a 15ish% cut from what we would have hoped to have had equivalently? >> I'm sorry. >> I don't think I can do that now. >> That's not fair. >> Former schoolboard member Dick Wilson. >> Um I I just I when I was when I was working with it earlier, let me not put you on the spot. Let me say this >> public matter. >> The percent that I was coming up with is far more than any percent cut of any organization I've ever worked with before during I am old now during a variety of economic circumstances. So, thank you for working on this. Um because this is hard. I'm done. Thank you. >> Uh can I jump in too with that? I want to note um that so standards of quality are

079also are they also required for us to meet accreditation that we have to meet those standards of quality like that minimum >> usually. >> Um so one of the things that we usually advocate for is no unfunded mandates for example but when it's funded it's funded in part by the state and then this your locality has a required contribution. Our city's required contribution did change for this incoming fiscal year as well. So our city has flatfunded basically us but their required contribution has actually gone up which means the amount of compensation the amount of revenue that we're getting towards standards of quality positions is kind of in effect also getting cut in that way. Um, but I do remember the kindergarten one. I think it was either at the take your legislators to school day

080or a joint city council schoolboard meeting and it's basically like one aid to every 11 kindergarten classes is what is funded at standards of quality. And I also noted ba by the independent third party JARK study that they recommend a 300% increase in monies for like administration at school level. Like that's just one line item that they recommend that the state should support funding wise. So to meet true minimum level of education, quality education at the state level. >> Yes, I think th those var variances in that JAG report were pretty eyeopening in how they showed what the standards of quality fund, what school divisions in Virginia are doing. And then even further above that is what their independent review said this is really what you should be doing. Um >> if we were doing

081a needsbased budget we would use the JAR recommendations. >> Just a thought. >> Um sorry I lost track of where we were. So Dr. Jameson any other questions or inquiries from you? All right. Sorry, Miss Trigg >> question in reference to the reduction in force. How much have we realized that that's going to cost us in doing riffs? Don't we have to provide packages when we release positions? >> We're still working on the exact number in terms of number of positions that we're going through staffing right now. So, we'll have a better um picture in a few weeks once we get through staffing. We also have to once we get through staffing, we then have to get through contracts and then we'll have a true picture of vacancies and riffs and whatnot. But at this

082point, we're not unable to provide that information. But we can have that um shortly. >> Right. But I guess what I'm wanting um everyone to understand, especially the public, that when a riff happens, it's also money involved to pay them out of their position, right? like it does a package have to go with that a severance package or anything? >> Mr. Collins, >> I will verify that, but I don't think so. Since we're a public employee, we're not subject to the Warren Act that private employees are. Is that what you're referring to, Mr. Trigg? >> Yeah. >> There's a federal law known as the the Warren W that requires certain things be made when there comes to reduction in forces. Um, we're not bound by those requirements being a public body, public agency. >> Just

083thank Thank you, Miss Trig. Miss Watkins, >> um, quickly review the timeline between or intent Are those coordinated? Well, >> yes. Our goal is to if we can get contracts out by March 25th through 27th, um, and then we will get the decisions back in by April the 10th. But if we're going to riff someone at the latest, we have to let them know by June 15th. But we're trying to do that as quickly as we can so people can have the opportunity to prepare for other employment opportunities if they need to do so. So you have between April 10th and >> June 15th is the latest. We need to let them know >> make adjustments like you could if if you mapped out which position that's the criteria for elimination. You still have that

084window in case someone says, "Oh, I think I'm going to go ahead and retire. I've had enough." Right. Um then you could swap something out. You have >> Yes. Yes. Our our goal is to have it way before June 15th, but that that is correct. >> Okay. Okay. And then are we approving these in any way or are you are are you making these decisions? >> No, tonight is uh for a work session just for the ultimately >> ultimately personal decisions will um be approved through your personnel list as well as through the overall budget. Uh so again for your um your budget approval this will inform a lot of of moving forward how how we move forward. So for your March 10th meeting uh again this is we we kind of need to feel

085our way forward and see which which way the board would like to go so that we can uh include this in the overall budget. >> Okay. And then that timeline ends. So after June, will we see that list again? That personnel list again before like are we approving it personnel list and and what riffs will happen prior to that window between April and >> Miss Watkins? The goal is to if if we have to riff someone, we have to put them on the personnel report. So you the board would have to approve that personnel report. Then our goal is to do it before uh June 15th. And if there's anyone any any riffs after that, then we'll we'll handle on an individual basis. >> Okay. >> You're welcome. And you were kind of thinking what

086dates would those personnel lists be visible and it would be the first meeting of each month from April May. >> June >> because the June one would happen before June 15th. >> Yes. Yes. >> I presume. Yeah. I was looking at a calendar. >> Thank you. >> I wasn't looking at a calendar. I wanted to get it right in my head. Thank you. >> Um Mr. Carrie. So, we would remain overcrowded. Uh, it would be uh up to the scheduling of by our counselors and our principles and the teams at those schools to address that. Uh, keep in mind that 4.3 million only pays to put them in. >> Correct. there is an ongoing cost up to $3 million uh to maintain that and there is no guarantee that we can meet that obligation. Uh

087that's why is a it is proposed to not do that. >> Um just something to throw out there u because we didn't say the whole picture like you just said that number that 4.3 is to just put it in. Um then I also want to thank um our chair and Dr. White for making those disclaimers before we started this presentation to make the public aware um that first off let me say this is very frustrating and it's very heartbreaking. Um one I think um since I've been on the board we've never had this much discord with our city council. I think every interview I've had, I've always mentioned that uh we've always had good synergy, but my hope is that um through this time that will restore some of the synergy between city council and

088school board. Uh we have a buddy system that has been proven here lately to be ineffective, but I'm hoping that we can restore some of this relationship. the greatest asset you have. We can talk numbers all day, but I firmly believe the greatest assets that anybody can have is your relationships. So, I'm hoping that we can restore some of that because to say that we're pulling on people's heartstrings is not good enough of an answer. Um, to say that we're being resistant is not good enough of an answer for our kids. So, I just wanted to put that out there. But I am extremely uh frustrated and almost at the point of tears um as a parent and as a school board member. The thing about my daughter and I'm very open about that. Um

089I know we're doing a good job with all of the considerations and it's a stressful season, but at the same time we can talk numbers. The core of the issue is, you know, I'm going to call the thing a thing. The core of the issue is we need to figure out a way to restore the relationships. Um I know we're all tense. It's a tense season, but at the end of the day, we are leaders of this city, both school board and Rono City's council. And I'm hoping that through this, we'll come together and figure this out because the answers that I've been seeing and some of the underlining conversations just has been very disheartening. Um, so I just wanted to make sure that the public knows we do have a buddy system and the

090school board. I think we're doing a good job in making sure we keep um transparency at the front of the table. So, Can I >> can I pick it back just one just one thing on Mr. Cherry? I I thank you, Mr. Cherry. You just opened Yes. a floodgate, but let me just say that >> and I don't mean to cut you off. It has to like it has to be said >> like this is this is and I don't mean to be frustrated today. I've been kind of holding it in quiet. Um we can be poised all day, but Dr. White says it best. Um, we are a people business and when you look at everybody in this room, y'all breathing. That means you have a heart. So when we do stuff like this,

091it's because we care and it's because we have hearts. You're going to pull on the heartstrings of people. So, um, I'm really hurt by just this conversation. I've been on this board since I was 28 years old. I'll be 35 this year and I have never seen so much frustration, sadness, discord, disrespect on both sides. And um at what point do we say it's about the children? Not about our titles, not about what we do in the community. It's about our children. And I don't mean to you all know how I am, so I I apologize in advance, but um that's the core of of where my heart is, is we have to restore the relationships. We can figure it out all day long, but we're trying to figure it out and we're hurt. We're

092trying to figure it out. I see staff members heads down. I see kids that came in our schoolboard meeting. All right. Begging us not to take away programs. And we we sat here and boohooed. Let's Let's come together and figure it out. Our sheriff says it the best way. We do it better when we do it together. And I really hope that we can restore that. I didn't mean to cut you all off. So >> that's okay. That's okay. I I did want to add just just one thing. Um when we talk about restoring the relationships, um you mentioned our buddy systems, we we we have been working on those relationships. We have been going to breakfast, to lunch, to coffee. We have been, you know, doing everything short of begging um for our funding

093for our schools. Um if and we've tried to compromise, you know, if if this then that, please don't take our fund balance if you flat fund us. you know, we we've tried to negotiate, but the bottom line is we don't have a negotiation tool. We are appointed by city council and they own our funding and so we operate at their at their will of what they want to to do. Um, we have had that funding formula changed more I would say more times than underwear but we [laughter] we have had that formula changed so many times. I was on the um joint budget committee. Um we you know we have changed out members of the committee for different perspectives. We have done absolutely everything that we can do to be good partners. So the only

094thing and and it's not a disagreement with you. It's just making a point that we have done our part. If you could only be a fly on the wall, people of the conversations that we've had from the the the the questioning wanting to understand to the frustration in our hearts and voices to the you know the the contentious you know um the tense conversations to flat out please begging, right? We've done it all. And the last thing that I will say is this one of the most bes the hurt the most hurtful thing is taking away from the children but the second most hurt hurtful thing is questioning our motives and questioning what we've done with our funds. I think the question should be asked why do you need these funds so bad? What did

095you do with your funds? Yes. >> And I'm going to piggy back on that. Um, I just want to say we do have a body system, but a body system will only function if the other party will be as transparent as we are. And I've told my colleagues here, I come in into this building to check up on the employees once a week. That's what I do. And to see them how they are today, it breaks my heart. To hear the lies, the accusations is just ridiculous. Let's be honest. Let's be honest. The one thing this board has is we are transparent. We say it and we say it in front of you guys and we say it in closed doors. We are not getting that same reciprocation from them. We are not. That is

096not how it's working. I just hope they realize that all of this is going to affect an oldtime American city because when people are looking for a place to move, they are looking at the cost of living. They are looking at the jobs and they are looking at the schools. This is something that is going to affect the city of Ronok for years to come. Way past any one of us in this board is in this board and I'm sorry I just had to say it. Um so I do want to thank um my fellow board members because um they've all alluded to it that we are to a person committed to the success of our students in this division. And um you do not see all the conversations and research that is done throughout

097the city and throughout the division and at the schools to try to make sure that we are representing all 13,000 plus 25 um students 2500 plus employees for the good of our students. And um you know we have parents of you know former students on this board um neighbors of students on this board, friends who are teachers. Five of us have children at all levels in this division and we we live the decisions that we make. you know, I have a child that gets on a bus at 6:40 and then another one that gets on at 901. Um, you know, and navigating all of those things. So, we live those decisions. And I do want to note that education is ongoing. It will continue. There will always be students in Rowan Oak who need to

098be served and who need who should have access to an excellent education. And so that goes beyond just this year's budget. And we will continue to advocate that for that because that's what our job is and that's what we really try to do. And we try to be very responsible and transparent with keeping the main thing the main thing. And it does take that partnership. And I do believe that rising tides lift all boats. And that like I love how VSBA put it, we really are planting education is planting the seed for the success and the ability for the entire city to thrive. Um and so that that's what we're all about. And as the schools go, so does the city. Um so thank you for all that. I do to change gears back to

099where we were. I did have a clarification question regarding the prior slide on personnel. Do we have to hit the entire 3% to be eligible with the raises or can we do partial percent on the raise or like are we tied to the entire percentage amount be able to get any of it from the state? Um while I haven't seen the specifics at this point, typically the state does put um language in the budget bill that says they you can prrate it. So if we were to um to do a 1% or 2%, let's say that the state approves that 3% that we could receive some portion of state funding based on whatever we do. That that has been how it has happened in the past. So I would be surprised if that's not the

100language in the final approved budget. >> Okay. Thank you for that. >> But we we did that. >> Did we make it clear that we stretched that raise across all of our our customary way is to not just give to SOQ positions. We stretched that among all of our employees. And so >> yeah, it would be virtually impossible to identify as we were discussing earlier kind of you know we have you know this number of of counselors let's say only this number are actually receive partial funding from SOQ which ones are the SOQ counselors and which one are not that would be impossible to to determine that so we always do um make a decision about whatever if we can do a raise that it would be the same across all of our positions regardless

101of whether we get partial funding or not from this the state for that. Um so as as long as we would have to certify to the state that we did an a that's usually how it works an average of what have you what 2% 3% whatever it is um to qualify to to receive that portion of the state funds. >> Gotcha. >> Okay. Can can you go back one slide just so we can look at those numbers? So the um with the raises Yes. So the local added cost say for the 2% raise that includes going through all positions and that's the local share. >> That's correct. Yeah. That's a that's an average 2% across all positions >> and we can't we can't we could do a 1% raise over. We aren't required to do

102a 2% to get any of the state funds. We could do a 1% or I just want to be clear on what is within our power to do to be eligible for state funds. So, so it would just be prrated. So, you know what? We would get roughly 800,000 in in that example. Um, if we if if the state approved a 2%, we only did a 1%, we would get half of >> Okay. >> what the state would otherwise fund. >> Okay. And with that, it has to be a raise. It can't be used as like broken into like a bonus or anything. It just has >> that is typically the case. Again, I we'll have to see kind of the language that is in the the ultimate budget, but typically it is specific >>

103to a raise. Yes. >> Okay. >> All right. All right. Very good. Um and thank you for that that discussion. And I know that the board also had questions about uh retention rates and also had questions about um the research and what does the research say when it comes to organizational change or the in in this regard in terms of reduction in force and those kinds of things. So Mr. McKe talk about that. >> Thank you Dr. White. So right here, we just want to remind everybody of our retention rates over the past five years. And if you pay attention to 2425, as you can see, our retention rates have been pretty good. Almost 90% teachers and professionals, uh 87% administrators, 85% classified. We've been trending in the right direction. Now, comparing us to other

104urban school divisions last year, we we were better four to seven% better than other urban school divisions. So, you know, we're doing a great job. So, we put this up there because this these decisions that we have to make in in a couple of weeks will impact our retention rates because when you look at um the class sizes going up, when you look at raises or no raises, when you look at additional work that everybody has to do, this is going to have an impact. We might not see it next year, but we will see it the year after that and year after that. So, so just wanted to make sure everybody knows that that these decisions will impact us and not only the our staff but impact our students because when you have more

105kids in a class and you have our staff that is already stressed out there. Um the anger has moved from being angry to being terrified um it just it it it adds upon what our employees are feeling which means unfortunately it it shows in the classroom. So then our students start to feel that. So it's it impacts um this the the schools, the students and as well as the staff. So we looked at research and how this impacts the reduction of of force or reduction of staff. We broke it down into three different sections. Um how does it impact our employees? Well, we talked a little bit about the increased workload um causes our employees to be burnt out and higher absenteeism rates. So um and and also we talked about our our employees feeling

106anxious right now and plus the ones that stay will feel survivor syndrome in terms of they'll be angry, they'll be anxious, they'll have reduced trust and then we'll also again we talked about the turnover. Looking at the students, it will impact um student behavior. It will impact student achievement. Um again when you have larger class sizes, you're going to have more behavior problems and whatnot. and our teachers and our instructional staff and our administrators are going to have to deal with that. So when you when you zoom out and look at the organizational structure, how that impacts it, um it could possibly impact the the trust and morale um within the buildings. And then we have to also monitor the psychological risk in terms of mental health. We have to make sure that we have

107um EAP available uh to our staff and we might need to look at mental health days and whatnot. So, how can we capture this is one one of the questions. We would have to do a climate and culture survey um at the end of next year with our staff at central office at the school level as well with our students to see how has this year impacted um and we can um look at an outside agency that can come in and develop that climate and culture survey and then help help us interpret it and see what we need to do moving on. But we would do that. We would recommend we do that for the next couple of years because this is going to have a multi-year impact um on how are these um these

108reduction in and and and staff how's this going to impact our staff, how it will impact our students and how it will impact us as an organization. So we we added the reference uh uh references for you if you want to see exactly where we got our research from. Um so I want to pause there. Um, I didn't say as as much as Miss Perkins usually says, but I want to pause there and see if you have any questions. [laughter] >> Just so that the board knows as well, you do have a printed copy of the entire presentation so that you can use it as a resource um beyond the schoolboard meeting tonight. So, I just want to thank our team for creating uh that resource for you. So, again, if you wanted to look

109up these um references, you can take a look for yourselves. Any questions on that part that part in terms of retention rates or any of the >> um I would say on the retention and is there anything else that we as a board can do? Is there anything else? Um again I come on the weekly say hi. Um, I just want to make sure the employees that we have know that we care, they feel supported, and that they're not alone in this. And I want our students to know that we are trying our best to give you the best education we can with what we have right now. Well, I'll just I'll just chime in here just to say that I I think that that's important. I think it's important for for all of us

110to continue to express that. But I also think that there are other ways um for us to um to kind of show appreciation and to make sure that we are demonstrating that, engaging in uh various partnerships. Again, we're we're looking at ways to provide unique opportunities for our students. And then uh also partnering I know that there was a question from the school board about the education foundation and so again the education foundation is rebuilding at this time. Um but I know that that's another way that perhaps if through the foundation uh there could be grant opportunities to schools or scholarship opportunities for students. So, I think we can be creative in um how we're we're showing that type of appreciation, but again, I think words matter and I think that it's important for us

111to express how we feel about our employees and and our our students as well. >> Dr. White, were there any other um Dr. Jameson? >> It's just a it's a not really a question. It's a request. It's preliminary. It's too early to do anything about this. There is and I'll look for it myself too some research out there about best practices post trip because of all of the well articulated repercussions of what we're about to face there are things you can actually do because what we're doing is reshaping a culture right around our core values and around our tenants but the question becomes um how do we address that for our uh employees etc right I mean some we wouldn't be doing any of this if we had choices, but there are some things that

112we should be thinking about organizationally um and may that may even affect policy. >> Thank you. Very good. And thank you Mr. McKe for that. Um there were a number of questions related to operational considerations as well. And so for that I'll turn it to Mr. Perkins. Um we need to advance the slide first. We can advance that slide. Right. So, uh, Mr. Perkins, if you can go over the operational considerations. Do you heard the feedback from the the public, uh, about several of these items. So, we wanted to take time and do our due diligence to go over each of these. >> Thank you, Dr. White. I hope to answer all the questions that we've received. Uh, I I know I won't do answer all of them, but I'll give a an attempt at

113it. Uh I'm in the uni unique position uh in that I've been in budget development on the city side and the school side going back to the recession uh when I was deputy chief at the police department. Um we're not just scrubbing our budget. We're gutting it and I want to be real clear about that. Nobody's ever accused me of being warm or fuzzy. Uh but let let me explain a couple of things. One, what we are proposing we don't want to do. There is nothing in this list that we want to do. Uh, and yes, that may be pulling heartstrings, but when you're in a position like this, we've got to address these things. Uh, so first, uh, I'm going to briefly hit all of these and go into detail for each one. Uh,

114we are proposing to eliminate activity buses. We are proposing to eliminate Plato routes, reduce three-year-old preschool routes for general education, uh, and the reliance on non-school transports. That is individual point-to-point transportation mandated for students with disabilities who have individual education plans or Mcini Vento students. Uh, we have to meet those needs. So uh we have to have buses which means eliminating that reliance on non-school bus transport puts extra pressure on the district or the excuse me the division. Uh we are proposing to defer facility and grounds maintenance along with other operational resources. Uh we are proposing technology equipment cuts and software and equipment. Uh we are proposing reducing funding and materials and supplies for athletics. Uh, and that's uh about 3 point a little over $3 million. Uh, so let's break it down individually. Uh,

115first let's start with activity buses. We don't want to do this. We know our kids depend on those activity buses and we know that staying connected keeps them safe. However, it is a special uh above what is required. Keep in mind that transportation for general education students is a privilege. However, we go above and beyond because our students need more, which is why we spend more per student in this division. Uh our right now, uh we serve on our activity buses anywhere from a daily average of 154 to 173 students. That's about 1.3% of our entire uh enrollment. However, that's 1.3% that we want to continue to do this for, but we have to put this on the proposal. Uh we provide uh our service provides direct transportation to their regular bus stop or to

116their residents because it is after dark in most cases. We serve uh two to three buses at every element every middle and high school in our division and we run two shifts at our high schools. We benchmarked region six and other urban schools uh to include Danville, Newport News, Lynchburg, Portsmith, Richmond uh and then division six schools. Uh some things that I want to point out uh from those uh one school division, an urban school division is just like us. They're proposing to cut that service. Um two school divisions urban uh they provide uh transportation to a central location. Keep in mind a central location as a caveat still costs us money. um uh and the remaining or and excuse me, two urban divisions are going to maintain theirs because they're not facing cuts. Another

117six do not provide this transportation and all of those are around us in the immediate area. Uh we are unique in Rono uh because of the needs of our students. Um there's been questions about can we um meet or work with Valley Metro. Absolutely. For the last three years, we have brought this up several times when it comes to transportation. Valley Metro offers for $28 unlimited student transport over a 31day period. Uh based on our numbers, it would cost us a just over $24,000 to do that. But keep in mind, uh most while most of our schools are served that I have identified, middle and high school, uh with a stop, uh we are limited to the routes that Valley Metro runs. Uh, another suggestion was let's partner with Radar. We contacted the executive director

118at Radar because we got excited. Uh, we were told that, you know, it could be pro bono. That's absolutely not true. >> The executive director said that would be $80 an uh an hour. Uh, and and that's before they have to figure out if uh they could have the equipment to do it. Uh, that would actually be $345,000 to do that. So, we can't do it. A lot of questions have been well can we partner and you know we need a sustainability and yes you know there could be a donation you're absolutely right and there could be volunteers but donations and volunteers Wayne uh and memory spade we need an endowment that's substantial and sustainable if we're going to do this and this proposal is accepted again we don't want to do it uh but

119we're in a position to where we have to because we got to maintain our core services and We got to look at, you know, using a butcher's analogy, uh, you got to cut the fat and you want to accord, you know, avoid cutting the meat and the bone. And unfortunately, we're going to get to the bone on some of these. Uh, let's talk about deferred facilities and maintenance. Um, this one's a tough one. As I've already mentioned, when it comes to our capital maintenance, uh that is a testament to keeping the average age of over 70 years for our buildings going. Um that if you're if you've ever worked in operations, uh you don't know. It's easy to look at operations for cuts, but you don't understand it's the buildings. It's getting the kids there.

120It's having a good environment that makes sure that you know we're good at instruction and we reduce class size and we're good at construction to reduce class size. That's what the division's been all about. However, our proposals mean we're increasing class size and we're reducing construction and we may affect instruction. Uh so these cost-saving measures are we're cutting capital emergency funds. For example, uh we have to cut $100,000 in emergency fund for major equipment replacement. Uh we'll have to go for an appropriation if something breaks. Uh we're taking 181,000 as an example. We're cutting that from the capital maintenance budget. uh principles will not get any of their requests unfortunately unless it's uh related to health safety or the building integrity on call and vendor services. We depend on that. As an example, when the

121a sewer or a pipe backs up because we flushed wipes and we have to clean that out. Sometimes that exceeds the capabilities of our plumbers that we have on staff and we need an on call service to do that. Uh we're cutting the on call vendor services. uh painting sometimes we you know these projects are huge and the two painters and carpenters that we have uh that's difficult for them to keep up with it. So we have to cut that um vendor services environmental cleanup emergency cleanup we have to cut those equipment and infrastructure we have to defer projects such as duct work at one of our elementary schools the replacement of hot water heaters at one of our elementary schools various electrical and plumbing upgrades for janitor chemical generators. Keep in mind, we're trying

122to go green and we're doing things that are important, but we have to cut those activities. Uh we're cutting fleet. One of the things that people brag about is they see our cars go through the city and they're electric and that helps us save money. We we lease those because that's a cost-saving effort through an audit from the city auditor. And uh we may have to cut some of those. Not may, we're proposing we cut some of those. uh those the financial impacts on those uh could be as an example $3,000 repair today that we can't get could be $25,000 tomorrow. It creates instability. Uh it our response times are reduced. Uh they you know our compliance and environmental activities and and meeting uh standards of quality for air indoor air quality could be impacted.

123Uh and it's morale a deteriorating facility ladies and gentlemen. uh people lose pride in that and we've got great facilities. Just go around this region and look at other schools and compare them to ours. Keep that in mind. Uh grounds and landscaping. One of the things you can say about Running City Public Schools that when you pull up to our our buildings, our landscaping is great. Our fields look good. Our kids, we have D2 or D1 facilities when you start looking at our sports complexes. Uh however uh we have to push and defer the maintenance uh for a project at one of our middle school fields. Uh we were hoping to reduce the crown, put irrigation and address pooling of water and other things. Uh we've got to push that. Uh we're also looking at

124extending our mowing cycles. I don't know if you remember during the recession the city extended their mowing cycles in the parks. Anybody remember what the parks look like? You had grass up to your knees. We're looking at going from a 14 to 15 day cycle and the frequency reducing it by 30 to 35% to a 22-day cycle. >> Um that's a tremendous impact on us. Um technology uh we're looking at an $800,000 cut. And let me explain what occurred with the uh ESR money and during the pandemic. We went one to one. Our IT team, and this is one of the things that people say, we got too many people in central office. Well, let me explain. Our IT team takes care of over $20,000 devices. They manage nearly $5 million in programs and software.

125We have to cut some of those and we have to give up the leases to maintain adequate devices and we have to look at spending money to maintain that. But let me explain part of that. six or $800,000 cut in technology that we're proposing. 600,000 of that is is going out of the lease and buying those those computers, those devices. What that means is three to four years we've only kicked it down the road. That's $600 $600,000 in savings in the lease and then we got to buy new equipment because they become antiquated. I mean, think of your iPhones. You know, how many in here have the newest and brightest iPhone? Yeah. Okay. I do not have an iPhone 10 and I'm waiting for, you know, iPhone 15 so I can afford it. But that's

126the things that we have to look at. So that's what we're proposing there. Uh we're looking at, you know, efficiency measures for K K through two. Keep in mind, we provide devices for our little ones. >> Yeah. >> And we know screen time's an issue and we we think about all of that. But these are tools that our teachers use for instruction. um safety. Um we're cutting school crossing guards and we're going to backfield them with school security officers is our proposal. That reduces it by 105,000. We're also not buying an additional involved weapons detection. Now I think everybody knows here I am not a fan of these devices. However, we do use them and we use them well. We are not reducing our safety posture. Let me be clear. We are keeping a layered

127approach, but this is an extra that we have to remove from the budget request. Um, there was a question about 4-day work week. Let me be clear, January the 20th, uh, city council voted to to reduce our funding. Uh, we haven't had enough time to investigate 4 day work week, but what I can tell you is we took a chance at looking at it from an operational perspective. as an example. Uh this would probably be better for us in a year or two to really have time to vet it. But right now, if you wanted to save money from a utility perspective, one, we'd need all of our solar panels to come online. That would help tremendously. However, um to do this now, you would have to s do set points in the winter at

12860° on the day we would be out to realize any savings. Keep in mind, our schools are used every day. Our community uses them. Wreck basketball uses them. uh and that all cost and we provide we clean up after that in our agreement with the city for those activities. But we would have to limit the access on the day we chose to be the fourth day. Uh and even and if we did that and we in the win in the summertime we set the set point at 85 degrees, we might realize a half million dollars in savings for transportation. Um we would have to be considered of the contract uh that we have with Zoom. uh for food service while they have their own budget and but we would lose over 500,000 meals on that

129one day and that would be a net loss of approximately $26 while expenditure would go down and revenues would go down also and that's why it would be a net loss of $26,000. So we would request more time to look at this one uh as a cost-saving measure. And before we get to the three-year-old, I'll just uh chime in here also to to talk about >> the fact that again, thank you, Mr. Perkins. Um for that, >> one more thing. >> Um just for um beyond the operational kinds of considerations when it comes to a 4-day week, um we do need to keep in mind the needs of our students, right? And so um particularly students who um depend on school for um structure for meals services for a safe supervision and those kinds of

130things. Uh the impact on our employee contracts, excuse me, the work hours, uh compensation and such. Um the instructional implications of lengthening school days to meet required hours. So all of those things again we need to take into consideration families who need child care. Uh so again we we so as Mr. Perkins said it's probably, you know, operationally uh kind of feasible perhaps, but we need more time, I think, to explore that. Um, and perhaps in in subsequent years, we may be able to look at that a little bit more. But we in the short amount of time that we've had from January 20th until now, you can see we have given this a shot. We've we've t you know taken a look at it but it doesn't seem to be a practical solution for

131this upcoming school year because it's just such a short amount of time for us to look at all of the various implications. So, and you had another point. >> Yeah. And so there was a couple other questions from an operational perspective about the programming involving Plato at Highland Park and uh Fairview. Um right now there's 148 students in the Plato program at those two schools. Um, I want to address it from a transportation and a building capacity uh uh position. First, the proposed elimination of Plato uh would allow us to take the dedicated 10 buses and the combined cannibalized routes to the equivalent of two buses for a total of 12 buses. It would allow us to use that to realize the full elimination of individual point-to-point service uh which would be non buses right

132now that we use to transport children uh with disabilities who have indication or individual uh education plans or McKenna students. We are mandated to do that and unlike Plato uh which is not mandated uh we have to perform that. So to realize a $650,000 proposed reduction for that, we need the 257,000 it takes to run those 12 buses plus the equivalent of 12 mini buses or two full buses for the VPI3 preschool buses to accomplish that. So it's very interrelated when it comes to transportation. I know you hear a lot about transportation, but transportation uh is again a privilege that we provide for general education students, but it is mandated for the students that I'm talking about. And so we need the buses to realize that $650,000. And yes, on a standalone perspective, it's 43,000

133for the buses for BPI3 that we've cannibalized and used, and it's 257,000 uh for the 12 buses that we look at for Plato. um and and we we want to keep our Play-Doh program. We don't want to raise that but that is a reason why it's realizing the larger savings is important from a building capacity or functional capacity for our buildings. Uh we have projected uh the elim the proposed elimination of Plato those 148 students going back to their home schools. It will impact uh three schools uh above their functional capacity. Those schools are Crystal Spring, Grandon Court, and Wasina. Uh we would have to go through a reallocation exercise which would be uh possible and it is feasible. Uh we would be able to accommodate those students at their home school even with the

134occurre over the functional capacity. Uh but keep in mind that those three schools have always been on the list. If you go back in presentations about the boundary study, uh the boundary study while we haven't factored in how that will work for us because remember we phased that out over three to five years. Uh we said we need to address Crystal Spring already. We needed to address Highland. This would help this would fix Highland frankly. Uh but uh and then we would have to address Grandon Court uh and Wasina. That's all part of phase three of that process. uh we would have to look at the reallocation of space in those schools. We would have to consider uh our specials uh and how we use the classrooms that are assigned to specials uh now like

135art and music uh to provide the classroom space. Uh and then it would have to we'd have to work through HR uh under the staffing and the principles to to realize that. Uh so while there is an impact uh we do believe that uh through the reallocation of space uh that we could meet that uh situation where those students are back at their home school. >> And we're going to talk in more detail about Plato and about the VPI3 and and the teaching and learning aspects. But before we we go into teaching and learning, I do want to ask the board if you have any questions about the operational considerations that Mr. Perkins laid out. Anyone on this side at this time? Anyone on this side? Okay. Because you we will talk about those two

136particular programs later. >> We are we're we're going to get right into those right right now. >> So I'll I'll turn to Mr. Freeman and Dr. Williams to start us off with the u teaching and learning aspects of it. We start with uh VPI. >> Okay. >> Good evening madame chair, Mr. Vice Chair, board members, student representatives, and Dr. White. U we want to thank you for the opportunity to share more information about our VPI3 program. We appreciate your questions. Um and I just want to start by reiterating what Mr. Perkins said. These are proposals that we don't want to make. We value early intervention. We know the ear the sooner we can get students in school, getting them ready for kindergarten and then preparing them to be reading at or above grade level in

137third grade. We know what research tells us. They graduate on time. So these are proposals that we don't want to um to make, but due to the budget constraints, we have to do that. So um if we can kind of look at our current program, we have 23 VPI 4 classrooms. We have nine VPI 3 classrooms and remember our proposal is to decrease that from nine to three and we also have nine self-contained classrooms and one hearing impaired classroom. So you might ask how do we serve our three-year-olds or our our u preschool three-year-olds. So we have different um service models through IDEIDA. We have what we call combo classes. That's the reduction that we're proposing. That's where we have gened and special ed students together. We have itinerate uh service where we have a

138teacher traveling. We have co-eing classrooms. We have homebound and self-contained. So even though we're proposing to reduce our combo classes, we do serve our um our three-year-olds that uh require uh special services. So you might ask what's going to happen for next year? You know, um we have proposed three classrooms, but we may need more. We're going through the screening process and enrollment right now. So that will help us determine exactly how many uh VPI3 classrooms we will need. And one of the questions talked about community partners. Can we reach out to our community to help us with our three-year-olds? And the answer is yes. Um to apply for VPI programming um our parents fill out a smart to start application and that application is connected to 21 community partners. So, it is a coordinated

139enrollment process. So, that is some positive news. So, hopefully if students or three-year-olds can't receive services through our VPI program, they can um participate in one of our other community programs. And also, I just want you to know too that we our division reaches out to our preschool programs, our private programs, the TAP, Head Start to provide uh curriculum materials and um professional development opportunities. So, we really do try to partner to um serve our early learners because we know how important it is. And I just want to give a shout out to our VPI3 teachers because they took time to meet with us last week and we wanted to hear them. We wanted to wanted to get their feedback and you know, they said if you could just come to our classroom and see

140the growth that our kids are making. Um, and it's so special and I was just blessed to be in a um a preschool three classroom last week and uh it's wonderful and we want all of our kids to have that experience. So these do pull at your heartstrings because it it's about kids and um so we have propos proposed reducing our VPI uh program from nine classrooms to three. My 24 year old participated in that three-year-old program and he would he would be in I don't know where he would be but that program turned his learning abilities completely around. He thrived in school because of that three-year-old program. Everything good starts early. I'm a little biased as an early childhood educator, but [laughter] I'll start. >> Thank you, Dr. Williams. And curriculum. >> Okay. >>

141Um, so we receive questions about curriculum um about do we need certain types of curriculum? Is there things that we can eliminate? And I just wanted to revisit um what we've gone through the last couple of years, especially with the Virginia Literacy Act. you know there are certain um laws that require us to adopt curriculum. We know that we had u wit and wisdom which was not on the state list. So we went through adoption process and so we have new curriculum based on the state list. So we do have specific programs that we um have to implement and um and provide for our students. Also, um there is a house bill 2777 that um is has gone into effect and um that requires local school boards to adopt and implement curriculum for the four

142core areas. So now we're going through adoption processes and I have put up um a paper at your desk and it kind of shows our current math curriculum adoption process. We do want voices from our teachers. Actually, last Friday we had uh a PD day and we invited all of our elementary teachers to Patrick Henry. We had a math fair where they could talk with vendors and they could see the materials because we want input from teachers and principles and community members. So, there is a process. I just wanted you to kind of see that u we make sure that we follow the state guidelines and that we use high quality instructional materials. And I know that we talk a lot about Hampton City about the toolkit and the resources that their curriculum has it

143has been submitted to the state as an HQIM also. We're waiting on the approval for that. So um we make sure that our students have access to the best materials. >> So the with the and I'll just uh start there because again when um others are are providing feedback and they've asked us they they've asked us to look at curriculum you've received some of those comments as well. Well, suppose we we don't use this curriculum. Suppose we use another. As you can see from the process, it's not as easy as just removing one and then adopting another. We have a process uh for a reason to make sure that one, it's aligned with the high high quality instructional materials um requirements that we have to meet by the state. Two, there's professional development and learning

144that goes into that. Three, there's uh organizational change and change management. We have to allow our teachers time. Um and again we we want to use resources that are approved and aligned. Remember we were going through this push and pull even with witten wisdom if you recall that. So we had to we we we had to discontinue that. We needed to change over and um we have to be sensitive to the the amount of change that we're um throwing at our teachers uh when it comes to adopting a new curriculum, learning that and then implementing uh the curriculum as well. So, I just want us to be sensitive to that. It's not as as easy as just getting rid of one and adopting another. Um, it needs to be um thoughtful as we as we

145look at how we're meeting standards uh today. So, sorry, Dr. I just wanted to jump in. Thank you. Thank you. That's the example of the the sheet that you have at your desk. Also there was a question about testing and at your seat you have our testing calendar for our division. There's one page is uh for elementary one one page is for secondary and um a majority almost all of these assessments are required by the state. We have some flexibility with benchmarks and snapshots but all the assessments that you see are required for our programming. We have proposed um pulling back on our MAP assessments. Uh MAP stands for measures of academic progress and it's a nationally normed assessment and it measures growth and academic achievement. What's beneficial about MAP and why we've uh loved

146having it is because it shows growth over time. So if I'm a parent, I get my child's report, I can see over two, three, four years the growth that that my child's made. So um we receive reports also because it's nationally normed we're compared to um students across the nation and um it it is also it projects proficiency. So it helps us throughout the year project whether um our students are ready to pass the our so test at the end of the year. So there's so many benefits to MAP. Um but going through a budget crisis, you know, you have to look at your options. So the state requires us to have a growth assessment. Um, and part of that process, we we have alternatives and um, we have three other nocost ways to replace

147map. We have the Virginia growth assessments, which we're not recommending using because it's um, it's really intensive. It triples our testing windows. There's lots of um, test security protocols. The other option we have to meet state requirements is using CIP benchmarks which have been submitted to the state and approved and we currently use those in um all subjects except for um reading and then we have our reading benchmarks which we will submit for approval from the state. So um currently we use CIP and our benchmarks. So that's a nocost way to replace MAP. But just remember when we pull MAP back then we don't have that projected prof proficiency. We don't have that robust um norm reference test. >> Can I ask a question about so and right now we don't have to do the

148Virginia growth assessments because of current legislation at the state level because they have um waved it right now. Right. And it was only just recently waved like about a year ago which is why we were able to take away the Virginia growth assessments and choose that or map >> right and um uh something else of note I just want people to understand too about MAP like it's important that it is predictive for us with our SOS because if you're compared against the nor the national norms but doesn't but we're grade you know we're evaluated as a division or whatever on our you know performance on the Virginia Swells if it wasn't really helping our instructors know how we were doing towards Virginia standards then it wouldn't be as helpful but it is and I remember

149that for all the years that I've been on the board um so but it does cost us I don't recall the dollar amount so maybe is a a pretty reliable measure when it comes to the predictive analysis so there are different kinds of assessments there are periodic assessment assessments and then there are predictive assessments as well. The periodic assessments being kind of your benchmarks. Um and then your your predictive uh assessments like MAP um gives us an idea of how students might perform on SOS, right? So it it helps us to kind of forecast where um how students might perform. It's also normed so that parents can see just like when you, you know, you have a baby and you you go you you take your baby to the the pediatrician and they they they

150they tell you your percentile of, you know, where your child um ranks in terms of height and weight um for the baby. And so then they you're you're able to norm. Well, the same thing is true for a norm referenced uh assessment like MAP and versus criterion reference which is really more of did they master the content right it's more uh did they meet that criteria both are essential right it's important for us to know if kids are mastering the content and it's important for us to know um how they're how they rank u where they where they stand and how they're performing in terms of you know that that's helpful for me as a teacher to know if students are on track in order to to um meet those standards that they'll be tested

151on for SOS. But again, in these tough times, we have to make tough decisions and this is this is one of them. >> Question. >> Sure. >> I thought I saw you say about 80,000. Is that right? Per year. Wouldn't we in these tough times with budgeting and with larger class sizes and and the stress and impact to our students, wouldn't we want to keep this type of assessment? Wouldn't it be critical for us to see if we're backsliding? >> We believe it's critical. [laughter] However, >> we have to have a way to assess what the damage is, right? Where that one teacher, >> excuse me. I think we're in a situation where the MAP tests are one teacher. >> Yeah. The the small amount. >> So, for all of the options that we're we're

152um considering and and we're presenting for your consideration tonight, again, we can keep certain things. We can look at other kinds of things, but the money will need to come from somewhere. And typically, it's going to come from personnel, right? um or we could look at another program. But that is the situation that we're faced with today that if we don't do this cut and we may not as as a school board we may you know you might decide um that this is not the area that that we can cut but then that 80,000 for instance would have to come from someplace else. >> Understood. >> So um and those are that's the reason why we're presenting some uh scenarios before you this evening to to to give you a full picture of where we

153are. >> Would would we ha we would have to use the Virginia growth assessments if we didn't use MAP? Correct. >> No, we have the waiver for CIP benchmarks have been approved. >> Okay. >> And so we could just do CIP benchmarks or just do RCPS benchmarks or like or just or just do MAP or just do Virginia growth assessments. Okay. >> Um Is there a specific one that you guys recommend? >> App going to say is there another thing close to mop but that it doesn't cost >> Second best. Yeah. Okay. >> What is the least worst option? >> That part. >> Yeah. >> Well, it's hard to say because two different sniffs, >> right? >> And we want a full picture of a child. So it's, you know, a child's not one data

154point. It's lots. So it's it's the full picture. So >> I think that I I think that uh our teachers would would say that while they find value in a MAP assessment, I do think that our teachers are looking for ways to um regain more instructional time. >> Yeah. And so I, you know, with it's a trade-off of course not having that data could be uh problematic, but at the same time the the the potential benefit would be having more teaching time back. So um so yes, the we could absolutely use the the CIP benchmarks as well as our own. Those are the periodic assessments. That's not going to forecast out what we are used to. Um but those are the th those are the options before us right now. >> Okay. Um, I do

155want to just throw in as a parent, um, so you know, at progress report time or at parent teacher conferences, you probably saw a map test, you know. Um, I personally like looking at the growth because if you have >> you want to measure both, but you know, if you have say a very high performing student or say a very maybe low performing student, but you're measuring like that growth is also so important. That's something you don't get from the benchmarks. But um but at any point because they're looking at the state level at redoing all assessments if they ever can, but I think it's like a three-year process. But all of this could change and they could require Virginia growth assessments and something else and something else. But um yes, instructional time is always

156paramount. Um I just want to add that considering that the it's a high probability that the classes are going to be larger then we definitely need the extra teach instructional time. >> Okay. >> Thank you Dr. Williams. We'd like to um switch gears right now and and um talk about the gifted and talented uh services that we provide um including Plato. And for that, I'll ask Mr. Freeman if he'll take us through our elementary um and middle and high school programming for gifted and talented. >> Thank you, Dr. White. Uh good evening to the board. Um, once again, I'm going to wait for the power there PowerPoint to come up. Oh, there we go. Thank you. Um, I will just tell you I will be longer than Dominic, but I will try not to be

157as long as Chris Perkins. [laughter] Chris did set the platform for me to finish up and the foundation for for Plato on tonight. But I do want to remind the public and those that may be viewing and those that are here in in person about gifted and talented services that we have K through 12. Um because I know when we hear Plato that's the only thing we think of is gifted but we have other services too. So our K through2 program have we have gifted resource teachers that work with our collaborative with our classroom teachers to ensure that they have pull out services and classroom differentiation through grouping and acceleration strategies. And we'll talk a little bit more about differentiation later because we know that was some of the questions that we did receive uh

158about and hear throughout our communication with the Plato teachers. Um, grades three through five, we have our Plato program which they identified with two locations as stated by Mr. Perkins earlier at Fabio Elementary School and Highland Park Elementary School with the teachers are providing more in-depth learning inside of a classroom with the gifted students aligned with the Virginia standards of learning. Then we have our middle and high school students that are part of the Reach Out and the Rise Up initiative. We have our middle and high school students that are in higher level accomplishment classes that could be in academic advanced courses through sixth through 8th grade that demonstrate high academic ability and they go through an application process could be English and math. Um so they have an opportunity to be accelerated classes. Um

159students have both been identified in both intellectual and specific academic aptitude and monitor. One of our gifted resource teachers do monitor our students at the middle school level also. And then our high school programs, of course, we have advanced placement and dual enrollment classes. And those are not only located at our traditional high schools, we have an opportunity for that through our day and rot courses. Um, so we are able to utilize those through our engineering program also. So they're dual enrollment and advanced placement courses. So we do have a comprehensive K through 12 plan, but I know that a lot of the questions and the feedback we received that you receive dealt with Plato and we did have an opportunity to speak with the Plato teachers on your um what's today? yesterday and my

160days are running close together. Um, so we did have an opportunity to hear from them and to get their input. Um, talk to them about different things they would like to see. Um, and had a lot of questions and concerns. One of the questions that come up with, well, if Plato is phased out, if Plato does not exist, how we still meet the needs of the students that are there. We have our gifted resource teachers that will still meet the needs of those students. Yes, there will be sometimes you have to have some pullout service. Most importantly, there should be differentiation in the classroom as part of effective tier one instruction. So therefore, we're meeting the needs of each student as we say by name name, need, and strength. Therefore, we're going to address it

161in the classroom with activities um enrichment activities as well as remediation activities or intervention strategies. They need to be in place. And you will see an example here from our Hampton City curriculum from Dr. Williams and her team that you will see that there's intervention for one of the activities dealing with science and also reflection in art and science are the combination of enrichment to actually have a critical thinking piece for the students in order to advance them a little bit further through their thinking and you can see what it takes through the objectives of what they should accomplish. So those things are embedded if we're truly looking at differentiated instruction in the classroom. Before I go on a little bit further because I want to talk about and present to you tonight options based

162off the information that we heard. Uh, Miss Jackson is going to share a little bit of information before we go there so you understand why we get to the cost and where we're at based off the salary of a teacher at about 95,500 per teacher, but she's going to ask some additional information. >> Right. So, I mean, you can go ahead and go to the next slide if you would. Um, so kind of I just asked if I could interject here because we've had some questions on the numbers that we've looked at related to um, savings from reducing Plato. So I just wanted to take a second to um try to add a little bit of clarity there. So when we very first uh presented this, we were looking at basically the equivalent of a

163reduction of um two teachers and and on a separate slide, we looked at the savings from school bus um those school buses being available to offset the the external vendor um individualized uh transportation that we've had to add over the years. Um so as Mr. Perkins did a good job explaining earlier. All of that is tied together. So, um, last meeting I was summarizing what had been shared at the previous meeting and I grouped some items together and I grouped those two items together. Um, which I think caused some constrnation for some members of the public who said, "Hey, wait, did how did my Plato cost go from $160,000 to over $800,000?" Well, I I was I summarized a lot of things on that that slide, not just that one, but I know that stood

164out. So, I wanted to explain that that that wasn't just positions, that was also bringing in the transportation. So, now here you're about to be walked through some other numbers. Um, and so this is really looking at the the Plato program as a standalone. So, as Mr. Perkins explained earlier, um, this is just this does include some transportation costs um, just if that was a standalone program. But I think it's important to keep in mind that if we retain Plato in its current form, we are not able to realize the savings from u those outside vendors providing that uh individualized transportation because we wouldn't have the buses to offset that if that makes sense. So um so this is just another way to look at that which is relevant to the options that um Mr.

165Freeman is is going to walk through. So can I pause there and there's any further clarification >> right before we get into the the table >> might be needed >> there are there any questions about the how the cost went >> different numbers yeah >> the the difference in the how it was >> trying to show it a few different ways which I'm sorry added to some confusion >> so do I if I say it this way do I have it let me try Try it this way. The numbers we saw before were somewhat uh parsed between program and transportation. >> Yes. >> The reality is that some of the savings we're talking about only are realized if all of the transportation options are selected as they have been presented, which is the difficulty in

166isolating the cost of Plato. But what we are looking at now, if I'm following this correctly, is as close an estimation as we can get of what the Plato program costs as a budgetary item. But am I, and this is where I'm confused, where it says any transportation at all, we are no longer we are no longer getting the savings that we would get uh elsewhere. The synergistic savings go away. So there's a more cost somewhere else also. Okay. So Plato may only cost $1.1 million as option A, but that also means we've just seen a budget uptick of costs somewhere else in transportation. >> Okay. >> Correct. >> Option B, D, and F may stay about where we see them. >> Yes. And the other line items of costs will also stay about where

167we see them. >> Yes. And uh with the sort of the caveat of some of the options which we'll walk through in a minute um would would be like a phase out. So we'd be reducing. So I think you know maybe the the and step in if I'm misspeaking but um the level of savings that we could see I think our our estimate in the budget right now is about a savings about $650,000. Um I think we would still have savings. It just might be a smaller number than that. Is that fair? Okay. >> Okay. And oh, sorry. >> Oh, I was also going to note, so my understanding also from these numbers is you were presenting the previous number of $160,000 in savings by eliminating Plato is because you still have students that still

168have a ratio of a studenttoteer ratio, but that ratio is a little bit exceed because of the split at Plato. So like um it still costs to teach all these classes of kids. It just costs 160,000 more in like teachers because the classes maybe are >> right. So like that cost is the cost that we would be paying >> for all of those kids to be taught somewhere at some school kind of pretty much. So that's why that's like 1.1 million or or whatnot because you still you still have a cost to teach the kids at Plato. It doesn't go away because they're at their home school. There's still a student in a studenttoteer ratio. You get a savings of 160 on the programming and personnel side if >> that would be the minimum reduction.

169um if we repurpose the the remaining teachers um that that would be kind of the bare minimum of of savings of of a couple of positions um and versus this is showing the the whole program kind of as you as Dr. James very well articulated um kind of the best we could to sort of carve out what is this this program as a standalone um really kind of costing. >> Got it. I think we have to add earlier when I said 955 is base salary with benefits for one teacher then adding your transportation what Mr. Perkins mentioned earlier about 257,000. So when you're looking and and I know Mr. Link you have a question but I know you already looked at the chart. One thing we probably should have done as a good teacher would

170probably do is not put the chart up until after we have explained the chart. So that way I caught that afterwards when you told me to put the chart up. I know, but but you went straight through the answer, but you pretty much set up everything making it easy to explain exactly what we're looking at when we're looking at third, fourth, and fifth grade. We're just looking at the Plato program itself. So, if you look at the first column is option A and option B. I I try to use that as the comparison because basically is option A is as it is right now where we're at with two locations with all nine teachers that are teaching 140, was it eight students? And so then when you look at option B is leaving is still

171in the same locations but only thing different is you're providing your own transportation which we know we want to provide the transportation because now we have equity issues. Some students are not able to do that. So I want to make sure I make that clear on tonight. When you look at option C and D you will see that it's phasing out. So because it's one of the options that people put in writing they wanted us to take a look at if you could to look at that please look at phasing out the program if that was a possibility or not. So if we look at that as a possibility you're phasing out third grade. That means next year it won't be no no students attending third grade program. So you only have six teachers now.

172Again, two locations. You have the transportation and you have the no cost transportation. That's six teachers. There you see the cost difference. >> When you get to ENF, you're looking at one location, one site. That was also mentioned in some of the information we received. So if we look at one location, no, we haven't decided the location. We're just making it as one of the things that was um offered up to us. we look at one location and you got four teachers because now we're looking at collapsing some of those classes because of the class numbers of the 148 students that we believe we can get them down to four teachers. Therefore, you're looking at the cost for transportation and no transportation. Um so again, as we said earlier, we always want to provide the

173transportation because of equity issues. But then we have to talk about G no program at all. It's the best cost savings. But as um Miss Jackson already stated earlier, if we don't go with the option G and what other option we go with, that means we have to look at cost savings somewhere else in our presentations. >> Well, and but to be fair with what Dr. Jameson had said on option G, those nine classes worth of students are going somewhere and we will have to pay the teachers that would teach those 148 students. So that like a personnel cost like somewhere else will go up where it went down for the Plato program. So you you will >> no because we're going to larger class sizes and the personnel shrinkage. >> They already >> they

174possibly go to other teaching positions. >> Exactly. >> Right. I mean we're going to hope they'll be somewhere else but they will be guaranteed to be pulled out for the gifted program. >> There would be some students that would be pulled out for gifted resource. We still have to keep at least five teachers, four for elementary, we're looking at the numbers, and one for middle school in order to address the needs. >> So again, we've received lots of feedback here uh in questions, not only from the school board, but also from the public uh about well, what about this? What if we have two locations versus one? What if we have transportation versus no transportation? What we're trying to, you know, again, do our due diligence is to to show you the various options here.

175And as Mr. Freeman said that anything with the exception of option G means that again, we can do it. We just have to make sure that we're finding those funds elsewhere in in the budget. So again, lots of options here. Um, but we we we wanted to just kind of tease it out to see what we could possibly do. >> I'm sorry. Uh, I'm still trying to wrap my head around it. What we saw in the last meeting, what you suggested were potential savings. And what we're looking at here are costs. Those are two different numbers. And if we eliminate, sorry, >> that was me. >> Okay. >> Um, [laughter] >> uh, if we eliminate Plato as is, there is a savings of $160,000 from the instructional part. No, >> At a minimum. a minimum

176depending on >> to to provide the differentiation in the mechanism that we're currently doing it. But then there is also this additional transportation cost of what was the number >> 650,000 um and so if we do option B which is up here what we're looking at right here are costs. If we were to pursue option B, we would see a savings of $650,000 because no transportation, right? >> Yes. >> Okay. >> It would enable the other savings that we are considering in in the outsourced >> kind of individualized transportation that we've had to make use of thus far. >> Okay. Okay. So, which and and I know there are lots of equity questions and and things that we we don't want to be looking at, but um the cost of the transportation is $650,000. The

177cost of providing the differentiation as we're currently doing it is 100. So, if because I mean what what's getting me is if we eliminate the program alto together, option G really isn't zero because we still have to educate these children. And so there is that doesn't go to zero. Uh I can't do my math super fast, but uh it goes to like $700,000, right? Option G is still $700,000 because we realize the 160,000 savings if we anyone following me? >> You're saying in option A it costs 160 plus 650 more than if you didn't have those two if they were in regular. >> Right. So if option B already takes out the transportation, if option B is already the cost of taking out just the transportation, then if we take out the differentiation of 160,

178>> if I've got that right, and I know there's >> transporting them to the >> right, if we transfer the burden of transportation to the parents, then we still have a cost of 700,000 of educating these children. So it's not like if if if I'm sorry, I'll shut up now. Yeah, I I mean you're you're kind of honing in very well on the complexity of how there's very there's several moving parts. Sure. >> Um so, you know, that's part of the decision of um >> you know, how do we how would we attack this issue if we make the change? um would that look like adding gifted resource teachers or would that look like adding classroom teachers or um you know or would we need to add classroom teachers depending on kind of how that

179the the enrollment shakes out that kind of thing. So, we do have several different options um which that kind of breakout slide does make an effort at least to show um kind of the the impacts and and and the changes of those costs if we were to kind of do a some kind of middle-of the road option of phase out and that kind of thing. Um but but you're right that um you know the sort of the bare minimum savings that we first looked at was um about $160,000 related to personnel um depending on enrollments and that sort of thing. I think we we did see through that last slide that there would be the the potential ability to um to reduce staffing further um depending on the enrollment at at the given schools where

180where we would end up like one of the examples that um I think it's important to note if we were to go with an option of um going from two two sites to one um that would reduce the classes that would increase class sizes to some extent but based on the current enrollments that looks feasible. So, so that's another factor to consider um as a possibility. >> Um [clears throat] I I did want to inquire if you know um well, I probably know the answer, but um if there may just not have been time yet, but this may [clears throat] all be a moot conversation if the the as far as the phase out model goes regarding transportation costs. If parents who are currently parents of students in Plato, if 95% of them would opt

181out of Plato if they no longer had transportation, then this is a moot point. the parents will already have chosen for us and we say the gifted services go back to their home schools were you know whereas if 95% say we would opt into Plato without transportation this is also feels like a moot conversation because the parents have chosen they will bear the burden of the transportation if it's 5050 then we talk more about like you know the equity issues and how do we meet those needs and things like that but I feel like on those two ends of the spectrum. It would make my decision on behalf of the entire division on this particular line item a lot easier if that makes makes sense. We may be arguing about something that we might not

182have to be arguing about or or or you know like going through because I do think one of the things that I just want to point out with respect to this and I I in full disclaimer I am the parent of two kids who have gone through Plato. one who is actively in one of these lists right now. So um this like it has been pointed out by a number of people who have contributed that there's appropriate instruction for a lot of these students and we've you know parents have lived through like and I was a teacher too you know I understand appropriate differentiation and things like that but um I really do believe that we and RCPS are trying to meet the needs of all of our students and um don't want to see

183the lights go out on a number of students because they're not getting the appropriate instruction that they need um on any level of the educational spectrum. So >> ask for one additional clarification question on the on the slide that talked about um elementary school differentiation the K through two and then the three through five. Uh we just have Plato up there. Um I am assuming differentiation is actually still happening at those home schools. I think it's important to remember and I say this as someone who was a parent of a child, one child who did go to Plato and one who did not. Both of them quite successful. uh >> is what Dr. they >> not giving her the map. >> And I know at the time the child who did not go did receive

184substantial support um in part because she just had a May birthday, right? I mean there's a lot happening for those little bodies at those ages. And so one of the things I think we're not talking about with all of the and listen um my heart goes out to all the letters received about Plato. brings back lots of memories for me as a parent of somebody who just turned 30 last week. Uh so I remember and it mattered, but I also remember the success of my other child who also learned she was smart at her home school and who also mattered to some teachers and if that matters to to me. um and so hearing more. So I don't want to think that just because on this slide we only see Plato on three through five

185that that's the only thing happening in our schools for those differentiated learners. And granted it's a wonder I I'm going to say it for the 47th time tonight. We've heard it. Nobody wants to do this, >> right? >> Nobody wants to do this. But I also want to speak to what I think your point is to is that we do look for the differentiated learning. >> And to piggyback off of what Dr. Jameson is saying um my youngest was in the gifted program at his elementary school and they offered for him to go to Play-Doh and one of his things were he didn't want to leave where he was because he did feel grounded and unfortunately every kid doesn't feel that way because we heard the children last month and they need that. So I

186I understand that need but as Dr. Jameson is saying he tested highest in every grade level all through elementary school. He's been advanced so testing since, but he did get that nurturing through getting pulled out for gifted. So, it does work and it is a good option and only because I'm saying if we have to make this decision again, we don't want to because listening to those children last month was gut-wrenching to me. And I tried to hold back every tear as I looked to the left and saw everyone else pouring and it just dropped on me. But I do want the public to understand if we have to make that decision, they will be successful. We have one of the strongest school districts in the area and we have a lot of them that

187are going to um division one, division two schools, division three schools because of choice of the matter. We have a lot of children going to college out of Reno City public schools and that's definitely something to be proud of. So if we do have to make this change, we do have great teachers at their home schools that can get them on keep them up to par and nurture them and love them just as those Plato teachers are. But again, I I hate to see that we have to make any of the cuts that we're facing right now because it's so undeserving. And even though we say we're in the people business, we're in the little people business. And that is our future and we have to invest in our future and I'm just going to

188leave it at that. Dr. White, let me just make a statement before we move on and thank you doc Dr. Jameson for mentioning that we have 15 teachers are in the gifted and talented. Nine of those teachers are just play-doh. That's what you're seeing on the chart. So we do have the other five that work in the elementary schools through the K through2 pull outs and then we have the one that's assigned to middle school. I just want to make sure I make that clarity so we all understood that. >> And can I just add too that um I know we talked about K through two but also the three through five children that decided not to not to be in the program they still receive services at their home school. So it's really you

189know a K5 support. Yeah. Yeah. >> Okay. Very good. Any other uh additional questions about Plato? I do want to um address kind of the the transportation opt out piece u because we've seen that um and we saw some questions about that about um parents who who might choose to opt out of transportation not just for Plato but there were questions about whether or not parents could opt out of transportation uh generally speaking and would that be a cost savings for the division. And I would say that that's also very complicated in that um we get requests for route changes every day. And so if uh if for instance um not necessarily with Plato but in a general sense if a parent decides to lives within the zone for transportation tells us that they're opting

190out but then changes their mind um because of could be custody issues, could be child care or whatever, we would still feel obligated to provide that transportation. So that's a it's a moving target. Mr. Mr. Perkins, I know you had a number for me about how many changes we've realized in transportation just recently. Hate to put you on the spotlight. >> No, no problem. As an example, um we've had uh just year to date for uh students with disability transportation that have IEP requiring transportation. 523 changes since the beginning of school. And that's just one category uh that we have about 2,700 students that would fall into that category and we've had 523 changes. >> Say it again. >> Back there. He's done them all. >> Yeah, Mr. Dowy. Mr. Dowy's back there. >> That's

191Walt. Walt does that. Yes. Sorry, I misunderstood what you were saying. >> I thought you were saying, "Are you looking at the wall?" And I'm like, "No." >> How many weeks? >> Probably are. How many weeks of instruction have we had this year? >> 4,768. >> I mean, it's >> you're doing there's 52 weeks in a year. We're what? Halfway through. So, you're doing 20 of these a week. >> Yes. >> I'm not Mr. >> Yeah. Yeah. >> And and I can tell you his blood pressure medicine and mine are about the same what we take. And then just uh on on the I again I I won't um kind of pontificate on the on the gifted and talented piece, but as a parent of of students who were in the gifted and talented program

192um many moons ago, I can you know empathize with parents who again you you want to make sure that your students are seen right and that they are that their talents are um nurtured. Ed and that their teachers understand. I don't know, my kids were a little quirky. And so that you want to make sure that, you know, that teachers understand how to um how to address not only those academic needs, but sometimes the other kinds of nuances that come with gifted learners. I believe that we do have teachers um who understand that and who can meet that need. But I do want to speak on behalf of teachers as well as a teacher. Um, I do think that our teachers would require um some additional professional learning and training if they haven't had experience

193with meeting that um the that that range of academic stretch when it comes to um how to differentiate instruction to that degree. So, uh again, we understand all aspects of it and um are looking to address it in various ways. So, Mr. Mr. Freeman, was there anything else from on your slides or anything else from your Okay, >> we're moving forward now with um live scheduling. >> Oh, that's right. How could I forget? Let me go through my Yes, indeed. >> Get there. >> Okay. Um so, another cost savings, uh we will be restructuring our middle school. As you know, we have five middle schools. Two of our middle schools are already on block schedule that we started two years ago as a pilot in regards to um responding to some concerns and federal identification

194um which we have success seen success not only through a few things we're going to talk about in just a moment. We've seen success because one of our schools is completely out of uh CSI which they've been in for three years. So we know this has proven to be successful for our students. Um so we're going to bring it to make it common across all middle schools. We are moving to having all five middle schools on a block schedule which we want to talk about in just a moment with a preliminary estimated cost savings of $2 million. U before I go on any further I want to stop and pause now and say thank you to Dr. Wimbush and Dr. Poland who is in the back who has actually worked with our principles and our

195counselors um to look at this cost savings and look at it very efficiently with the principles and the counselors as we're moving forward. There's some things we have to do immediately. Um so in making this change you'll see there's a copy of a schedule or what the block schedule will look like based off the time schedule that we have now. Um so in doing so this will offer an additional option of a zero period for more elective opportunities for students. Um this is a divisionwide u benefit for the same structure expectations especially when we have students that are moving from school to school. So now we all on the same schedule. So you'll see there the time frames where has five blocks within the day. Of course, the third block is extended as a 25m

196minute lunch there. Right now, we are on that seven period day. Excuse me. Some of them are on a different period day, which we're looking at 60 minutes. Right now, we're going to increase it to 75. Um, so that's one of the benefits. We have more instructional minutes that will be um within the block that we can address not only just regular differentiated instruction, but also anything we need to do with intervention and remediation and tutoring, we can group it. So it's all happening within the block since we'll be would not be able to have the additional funds for a lot of the afterchool tutoring. So when we're looking at making this change as a benefits here as I've already stated it provides longer instructional blocks. It supports the learning and rel relationships and the

197student engagement. You'll see that it has a 75 additional hours um of instructional time periods which is at 10 additional school days of learning. If you look at the total um students benefit from fewer transitions. Of course, it helps with your school climate, your disruptions, your fights, your class transitions because it limit the time and the movement in the hallways. Um, longer blocks to create more opportunity, as I stated, for enrichment and differentiation and small group. And it also aligns for transition as we move into high school because we know we're going from 75 to a 90-minute block at the high school level. So, we're we're moving forward with this change in order to look at what we can offer to our students. Also looking at how we can save in our cost savings. Like

198I said, the preliminary cost there is $2 million. >> Was that in the original projections for like uh so that this is a new uh so that means we >> we found how how does this save $2 million? >> Yeah. >> What's the ma what what's the math behind that? >> We'll be looking at staffing. Of course, when you're looking at your staffing, you'll be looking at the blocks and your schedule, what we going to be offering, and then it's going to be a cost saving and staffing >> and with the zero period, that would be you'd have to opt in with your own transportation. >> Yes. And that can be some flexibility. Of course, you know, you're probably thinking, well, then that'll extend the staffing's date. No, the perish provides some flexibility in the

199staffing if you're coming in earlier for zero period, not extending the full day. >> And the the risk there is a is an equity. It is well. Um, absolutely. And so again, it's something that we are cons uh constantly having to consider what are some of the the equity issues there. So that is a concern. Um however, when trying to balance the the cost savings and those kinds of things, knowing the success of the block scheduling model that we've seen at the pilot schools, um we believe that this is a viable option for us to bring forward to the board for your consideration. I'll just add another area that is beneficial from a budgetary standpoint with that is at at our three middle schools that are currently in seven period day. Um that's where we

200see the most challenges with um keeping teacher schedules um to the 25 class periods a week. And so we have to pay additional if if folks go over um that number. And so we would anticipate that this shift would allow more flexibility there to keep teacher schedules um within that requirement and and um cut down on the e the additional teaching period uh experience that a lot of our teachers at those other middle schools currently have. So that's one benefit as well. >> And just a quick question, how many people do we share across middle schools as far as staff goes? Because I imagine that would also make it easier for sharing staff across middle schools. Um I don't have the exact number right now but we will have to share some additional I don't

201know if Dr. >> So um thank you Mr. Freeman. And uh we're going to um kind of switch gears a little bit here and uh I'll ask Mrs. Jackson if she'll kind of wrap up the this presentation for us by summarizing the financial resources and then um looking at some of the decision points that are before us. So Mrs. Jackson, back to you. >> Thank you. Um, so yeah, we had a few questions that were um sort of uh related to our overall financial resources or the context um and history that have kind of brought us here. So, one of those related to um just sort of reminding our group and and the public of positions and and other costs that have been funded through grants over the years, particularly in recent years, of course,

202we had such an influx of pandemic relief funding that was temporary. So um you can see here um the positions that we had funded through the pandemic relief or ESSER funds when we had them in in some cases they were positions that already existed. Um we we got temporary relief moving them into those grants while they were available and then moved them back into general fund. That was chiefly class size reduction teachers that you see listed there. And then you see sort of the sort of high level uh big ticket items that we funded um non-personnel related through those grants. All of which has um moved into the general fund at this point. Um and then a couple of other similar situations. We had federal grant the E3 plus uh federal grant that funded teacher

203mentors. We did retain those positions after th that grant ended. Um and then the all-in Virginia funding was a three-year um funding um sort of special project that the the state funded. So um you can see there that we did have both student support specialists and reading specialists that we funded out of those um four of the student support specialist. We um moved into the general fund in the current year and currently have the intent in our next year budget to um retain one student support specialist that for this last year of those all-in funds is is still in those and then the six reading specialists um to retain those. We added those. Um at that same time is when uh the SOQ's changed to require reading specialists at the middle school level as well

204as elementary. Um, so that's what that was related to. Um, we did have a question about debt service and kind of how we can make make our make best use of of those funds. I know we talked about that a little bit earlier in the meeting. Um, that at present uh the city does uh commit 5 million of the bond sale proceeds, the bonds that they sell for capital projects every year. um five million of that is earmarked for school projects and um you heard earlier um our intended use of those funds and how that would um what we would put that towards through our capital improvement plan um that you'll be asked to approve next meeting. Um but I I did want to note that kind of there are rules about what you can

205use um uh government bond funds for and they have to be for long-term capital projects. Um typically the the financing life of those funds is 20 years. So as we noted earlier in the meeting um we are required to pay pay that back. So it's basically like a mortgage, right? And we um have to budget in our operating budget for um the annual cost of paying that off. So of course we would not want to um finance something with a short useful life over a 20-year borrowing. Yes, sir. for the sake of the conversation. I mean, five million is not a we're not building a school for 5 million, >> correct? >> Um, Mr. Perkins, could you give us an example of a project scope that would be a capital project that would have a

206price tag of about $5 million? >> So, uh, some u HVAC uh recondition or replacement could be that high. um largecale renovation uh of a building uh could be that for instance um it cost us about 5 million to add uh the uh addition onto Morningside Elementary. >> Okay. Thank you. >> Okay. And I think the last um kind of question that was sort of generally related to financing and funding um our needs was related to donations and um can you know what can we do? We've talked about that a little bit um already of whether we can accept donations and can the community and we're certainly very appreciative of all the the ongoing support that we always get, but the particular outpouring and the questions we've received in this time of ways um you

207know asking about how can individuals and community groups help. So, um, our schools certainly can and do receive, um, donations and support. And, um, just I think it's important to note that donations over $1,000 are required to be officially accepted by the school board. So, you note that every meeting once a month where you receive those and take um, formal action to accept those. Um, it is important to remember that um, donations that are accepted are required to be used in the way that the donor intended. So, we have to be thoughtful about that and make sure that um if we are accepting donations that they are aligned to student needs and um the priorities of the school division. Um and just as we've noted previously that one consideration is that you you can't necessarily

208rely on and count on um donations for ongoing expenses. So, that's something to just keep in mind um at in terms of planning. Um but that certainly could could go a long way particularly as we're talking about um reductions across the board and things that we might have to do a little bit less often. That might be a way where you know if a community member wants to support field trips out of school or um some instructional resources or something like that that otherwise they might have to wait another year to get. Um those are great ways that the community can certainly help and and already do frankly. Um we're we're certainly very appreciative of um all of the ways that our community supports our students and our schools um already and have offered to

209continue to do so. >> And that goes into I mean again the questions about the education foundation and and how they can help. And I know that they are working with the central council PTA to kind of convene uh a meeting of nonprofit partners and community organizations and uh supporters to explore kind of how the broader community can help. And so we're we're appreciative of those kinds of efforts. >> We know that our business community is looking into ways that they might be able to support us. Um I'd love to see our church friends and our um I know that we do have some church partners that donate all the time, but I'd love to see our full community of churches um participate in some way. And even, you know, I was thinking real estate

210community. They have a stake in this. You know, our real estate partners have a stake in this. I'd love to see I'd love to see the real estate community step up and offer some suggestions or um some feedback. >> Um uh I know Dr. Jameson wanted to say something. >> Have a quick question. I've never really thought about this. When we receive a donation, is that money that has to be appropriated in some way or does it come into us the way the state funds come? Like when that enters, I know it's not large amounts, so we really haven't had to worry about that. But let's say we get over the course of the year, you know, sometimes we have months where it's not insubstantial. >> It it depends on how it it is handled.

211Most uh most of the time when we have those grants, it is handled through our um our school activity funds um which are uh fiduciary funds. So we they they are kind of owned by um the schools and they do carry forward. So um that is not good. That is [laughter] not um funding that is appropriated to us through um the the city in in larger quantities. you would probably see that on our grant report, which we do um forward for appropriation when we get funds of that nature. So, we we do ask for that to be added as we get them. >> So, like because it's in our consent agenda and then like Miss Watkins always reads all the things we got and that's why it's there if it's over $1,000. >> But, so

212let's say it was like somebody's like, I'm going to donate $100,000 and cover the activity buses for Tuesdays. Yep. Uh >> right. >> Then what happens which >> you know we were >> hey just >> Yeah. Yeah. So >> then would they have to >> they choose that? That's an inflow to us and they could choose not to reappropriate it to us. >> No. Well, it says they must be used in the way they were intended. >> That's restricted funds. >> But they could not reappropriate it. >> Oh. if we didn't use it in that year. >> Thus far, our restricted funds we've um been told we don't have to request reappropriation of like multi-year grants for example um capital funds that sort of thing has not been required to be reappropriated annually once it

213is appropriated um by city council. So the donations that we get once we like accept them in the consent agenda then they are going to council to get appropriated. >> Not from the donation report. Um so I I would say if it's something that um we need to appropriate like that that it's not going into school activity funds um to be managed in that way, we would submit it as an appropriation request um like like we do with grants. I mean, I I know if it's an individual donation, it's not necessarily a grant, but we would probably treat it that way. If we got that $100,000 donation, for example, we would definitely request appropriation of that um and and account for that in our restricted fund. >> Okay. So, when we were in the smaller

214groups with um Mr. Freeman, we had I guess a parent state, why do you guys not open a GoFundMe? and we were like, "We can't, you know." Um, is that correct? Like, and if let's say somebody had had that idea, >> can they >> um It's my understanding that school divisions aren't allowed to fund raise. we are allowed to accept donations, but that's a different matter um >> of us opening a fundraiser. Um that may certainly be something that like the found the education foundation could do on our behalf. Um >> or churches or like a booster club or those things can fund raise and then they could donate it. >> Yeah. I mean, I get it, but it's still that's for ongoing cost. That's >> right. Even sustainable Yeah. Are students allowed to fund

215raise or is that like restricted? >> Um, students are allowed to do fundraisers. I mean, we do have processes in place for student groups to um let the the school administration know what they're intending to do. So, we do have an approval process just to make sure that we know what's going on and that we have um appropriate processes for that fundraiser. Um, but that is allowed. Yes. Don's gonna save us. >> Uhhuh. Yeah. Um do we have any other questions here? I did want to um especially about this one in particular because so I think one of the things one of the recurring themes big themes through this process has been how can we help and people want to take action and everything from crowdsourcing or figuring out like uh getting parents together so

216they can sort out car pools and ride shares to providing things and I I did note the, you know, it's publicly accessible on board docs. The um the annual report for capital development, it lists all the the smaller dollar item things that aren't um um like the capital um maintenance um items. A lot of those are like school-based and you know I've taught at schools where there was um like the alumni club that would would like help with the grounds you know on a periodic basis or do various other things you know so there's a lot of things you there's the reactive or after the fact things we can do to try to help compensate for funds we don't have but it is you know the sustainability is the thing so the I think in

217general we're always looking for proactive ive or preventative solutions and measures. And the best answers to that is certainty in funding that supports sustainable programming that meets the needs of our students. So just making a note that that's the most sustainable way is for um the community to get behind those measures as well. >> Okay. So um the last couple of things we're almost to the end um just um kind of to put it in perspective and next steps um so some sort of decision points of course all of it is um difficult decisions and all requires a decision but but some significant levers that I just want to take a moment to to raise to the top is a is raises um no pun intended uh that is something that is obviously a big

218cost driver. So our decision on whether to do raises and if so what level um I is a big factor in what else can stay in or has to come out of the budget. Um I I raised that also because of the timeline as Mr. McKe laid out of our desire to get contracts out and know for sure who is um desiring to stay and who is desiring to retire um or not return um because that factors into our ability to make these decisions and hopefully um minimize the impact on um continuing employees if as we have to do do cuts. So, so I I just commend that to you for thought um as as we'll need to have some some clear guidance when we bring you a budget on the 10th. Um even though

219that is a preliminary budget that's not the final budget, we'll want to make sure that that includes what you are comfortable with from a raise perspective so that that gives the the go-ahhead to our HR team to move forward with contracts. Um so we know what that can include. So, um I will just raise those. Now, as Dr. White said, we wanted to provide just to try to put it in perspective um some some numbers of how uh these different le levers um and decisions affect other levers and decisions. So, um so this is just a couple of kind of highlevel examples of how we could come up with that $16 million deficit. Um, so the first example has no raises, so that cuts the deficit. Um, it it eliminates Plato, so it has kind

220of an estimate there. So you can see that, um, assuming we do we would do all of that and, um, have cut everything we've discussed. Basically, um, we would still have the potential loss of about 158 positions. And I I'll note that in kind of making these estimates, we're using sort of an average cost of salary and benefits for a teacher level position. So obviously um you know if if other positions are in the mix there, that number will change. But just to kind of give you an idea and put that in perspective. Whereas in example B, we have we left the raise in there. Um we still have um eliminating all the other options that we included. So that would raise the the number of positions lost to about 78. Um, couple other ways

221to look at it. If we kept the raise in there, but we phased out Plato, we did one of those kind of middle-of the road options that we looked at, um, that would, um, end up with a potential loss of about 182 positions and then no raise, um, phasing out the the Plato program. So again, that middle of the road would reduce that lo number of lost positions to about 161. So, it's just kind of to give you something to think through and and kind of play with some numbers um around the different impacts of of some of these decisions. >> Um can I just clarify the cost savings for the middle school block scheduling comes from staffing. So, that's why you don't see it as a line item on here. It's rolled into the

222staffing. >> That's correct. Did everybody note that that that $2 million savings for middle school is not it's it's embedded in the staffing difference. >> Thank you for pointing that out. >> Yes, that's correct. Just a sort of a a method for u addressing that issue, but you're right. It is it is embedded in that. >> Yeah. >> So, our next steps would be of course that the next schoolboard meeting in two weeks where we need to bring you a preliminary categorical budget and ask for your approval. Um, and that is because in our schoolboard policy and also the city charter, we are required to provide a budget estimate to the city on or before March 15th. We certainly would not want to provide anything that the school board um cannot get behind. So, that's

223our opportunity at that March 10th meeting to make sure that whatever um preliminary budget we are providing is something that the school board can support. That's not the end of the process. That's not the final budget. uh at that point we won't have final um city or state revenue numbers at that point. So we certainly have the opportunity to continue making adjustments but as I noted particularly in areas of like raises and in order to um be able to move forward with contracts. We would want to make sure at least at that point um that that that we had a clear understanding of of the school board's desire of how we would move forward on some of those key things like that. Um, and >> and Miss Jackson, excuse me, if I may add, I

224just wanted to let you know that city council will be having their approval of the budget. Well, the public hearing rather on April 23rd, which would include the school's budget. >> Okay. Thank you. I if you couldn't hear that, April 23rd is the public hearing at of the city's budget. Is that correct? Okay. Correct. Thank you for sharing that. >> So, that's part of the process. Um, you know, we we have to meet this deadline to have our our estimate provided, but um, you know, just as we're continuing on our process, the city and the state are continuing theirs to finalize their budget. So that is a key step is to have a public hearing on um the city budget which includes the portion for schools at that point um leading up to it's typically

225miday um when the city council approves their final budget and then of course we would bring you the final detailed budget for your approval um in June. >> Right. And madam chair that concludes our report. Okay. Um, thank you very very much. Thank you to the entire team. I know that was a lot of work that went into that, but um, these are the times that the work, you know, it required. So, um, we appreciate you and we appreciate the information to help arm us with the information we need to be able to make the best decisions we can moving forward. Um, Okay. Were there so any further questions for the team in front of Beth? Okay. >> Thank you all very much. >> Yes. >> Uh and thank you to all the others that

226helped contribute to all the information that you all put in. I know it was the team a complete team effort. Um for work of the board and ongoing business. Um we've already we have our retreat that got rescheduled. So it's going to be in early April just after um spring break. And then we know that a lot of our um work the board comes will come into play at that time for future business. Um we'll be looking at the um school board student representatives the next phase. So, Miss Canana or Miss Trigg, do either of you want to speak about um what's upcoming with the school board student representatives? >> Right here. >> Got it. >> Um in accordance with 22.1-86.1 of the Code of Virginia, which permits school boards to appoint student representative in

227a non voting capacity. Board members will visit each high school within Rono City Public Schools to engage with the junior class students and encourage them to apply for the position of student representative to the school boards. The visits will occur at each high school on the following dates. William Fleming this Friday, the 27th at 9:15 and Patrick Henry again this Friday the 27th at 1 pm. This initiative aims to promote students voice and civic engagement by providing an opportunity for juniors to learn about the role of the school board and apply for a position as a student representative. Um, Miss Trigg and I are in charge of our student representative. Um, would you like to add anything else, Miss Trig? >> Okay. Thank you. >> Thank you very much. Um, as far as announcements and

228reminders, we've already mentioned March 10th, um, is the next board meeting. Um, it'll be right here. We have our joint, our spring joint city council, school board meeting on March 16th. That's in city council chambers. Um and then our board workshop right immediately before spring break. It's been a few years since we've had a March workshop because of spring how spring break has fallen. Um and um you can see the rest of our um schedule there. And um I can can I announce it? I wore blue and yellow on purpose. So I guess the William Fleming girls won 67 to 32. Uh yeah, >> play again. >> Allen. >> Okay. >> Glenn Allen. >> A >> I know. That's what I'm saying. Ah, >> I don't even know where >> good things happening at the

229cliff. >> Ah, [laughter] >> all right. So, with all of that said, and congrats to the lady colonels. Um, we have a closed meeting tonight. Mr. Cherry, you make the motion. >> All right. I move that the board convene in a closed meeting pursuant to 2.2-3711A1 of the code of Virginia for the purpose of discussing specific officers, appointees, or employees of the board, including consideration of their assignment, appointment, promotion, performance, demotion, salary, disciplining, or resignation in pursuant to 2.2-3711 2-371183 of the code of Virginia for the purpose of discussing the acquisition or disposition of real property where where discussion in an open meeting would adversely affect the bargaining position or negotiating strategy of the public body. >> Second. >> Thank you. Let's go. >> Any discussion? Miss Tresy, please call the role. >> One last

230thing. Mr. Chair, >> yes. >> Mr. Link, >> yes. Dr. Damson, >> yes. >> Miss Quintana, >> yes. >> Miss Trigg, >> yes. >> Mrs. Watkins, >> yes. >> Mrs. Apo, >> yes. Um, the board will now enter a a closed session to discuss only items within the approved motion. No other board business or decisions will be conducted during this session. Thank you everyone.