ACPS Regular School Board Meeting 10.14.2021

001i'd like to make an amendment to the agenda i guess she made the motion first so we need to there's a second to that procedure unless you want to yeah we got a motion to amend under item under section 13 closed session i'd like to add for the purpose of discussing legal and also a personnel matter to that agenda item you present an end about mr roger do we have a second Second. All in favor? Aye. Any opposed? We then have an agenda with an amendment. Thank you so much. At this point, we're moving into 2.01, where we have public comments concerning school matters. No additional public comments will be available at the end of this meeting. I do have a list here in front of me. We would ask that when you approach the

002podium, and we are having a big agenda tonight ourselves, that you would please keep your comments. Natalia, are you having your little clock over there? Is it two minutes or three? Three minutes. Three minutes. Thank you. And our first person tonight that I have on my list is Jeff Porter. I'll do that. If you could give your name and address, please so. Jeff Porter, 478 Woody's Lake Road, Madison Heights. At the last school board meeting, I spoke to you all about my needing to hear what you're saying. And a lot of you helped me with that, and I'm grateful for that. But I found that as the meeting went on, it was more difficult to hear, partially because I don't know if the microphones were on or not. But if this is a public meeting,

003I think that it's important that the public hear what's being said. And as I've talked with people between the meetings, one of the comments as they were listening online was that they were not able to hear what was going on. It was a strain for them and most of the time they had no idea. So I would really encourage each of you who are going to speak to speak up, to speak clearly. If you find yourself having to make a side comment, And it's appropriate for us to hear that. Please move so that you speak into the mic so I can hear. Secondly, I'd like to speak to the issue of why I'm here. I'm here not only as a resident of Amherst County, a person who is very much interested in and concerned about

004our children and our schools, our teachers. I'm also here as a Christian and as a pastor and want to say that it is important for us for me to be not only in prayer for what's going on here and going on in the midst of all of the craziness but it's also a place where I would just like to say I want to be a person who works for the best of our community just like you do I know that I have certain limitations but whatever I can either to the school board teachers or students or faculty part of my responsibility is to be concerned and actively working for our well-being David Emmerich while he's coming to tell you can you ask Facebook can they hear us good evening members of the board dr arnold

005my fellow citizens my name is david emmert i reside at 820 kenmore road i'm here tonight to briefly speak to you about an issue that has become increasingly concerning to me over the past several months it is an it is an issue of utmost importance and without a clear buy-in from this board and from this administration We will continue to see many problems that we are currently facing in our school system and our children's education will continue to suffer. Teacher morale within our school system is low and it's more than just a pandemic. It's not a secret to most people in this room that I had the honor of working for the school board for 17 years as an educator. Many of my friends and family are still working in that capacity. I know from

006my own personal experience, from my own conversation with these good people, the immense challenges they are facing day in and day out in their professional lives at this moment. Many of them feel helpless and voiceless. This is not an issue that money or bonus will solve. Many have chosen to leave this noble profession and seek other employment or move on to other school systems we have lost or in the danger of losing our most valuable asset to our community highly qualified experienced teachers i leave you with this question members of the board and dr robert dr arnold excuse me what are you now willing to do to improve this situation to ensure the voiceless have a voice at the table the school board currently has a non-voting student representative that sits on the board but

007no teacher representation there needs to be a direct channel from the teacher to the school board excuse me from teachers to the school board it is not it is not excuse me it is not imperative to hear from those is it not imperative to hear from those that are in the classroom every day if we truly believe what we say amherst family Amherst Tribe. Let's begin to really work to make that a reality. The goal of this board is to have classroom success for children. Without thriving teachers, how can we achieve that success? Thank you. Mr. Bill Cox. Cox, 1249 Lexington Turnpike, Amherst. I'm here representing the Amherst County School Bus Drivers Association this evening. I just completed my 20th year driving a bus for Amherst County. surprised to learn that now I for the

008first time am making the national average pay for a bus driver. A colleague in another department put it very well and he told me it's time the school boards across the country, not just this one but everybody, need to realize that driving a school bus is no longer just a part-time job for retirees, farmers, and housewives who want to make a little extra money. It is a profession. You have to be that perfect person with no DUIs, a great driving record, no drug or alcohol problems. You have to have the patience of a police officer or clergy, part of the teacher, and be able to drive a 40-foot vehicle into places designed only for a smart car. You have to interact with school officials, teachers, principals, and parents and children, and still have time to

009tie shoes, mediate potential fights, and occasionally real ones, while driving safely. Oddly, our society deems it appropriate to pay the people who drive their children to school half of what they pay other drivers to deliver their packages and pick up their garbage. While we have received small salary increases each year, it's only because the government agreed that teachers get raises and we were tacked onto that. But with what we make, it barely covers insurance increases or the cost of living. School boards across the country are scrambling this year to find bus drivers that they lost during COVID only to find that few people want to do it and even fewer qualify to do it. Many are offering unusually high incentives, even starting paying the $20 to $35 an hour range. We at the Bus Association

010simply want you to realize the fact that this particular segment of your support staff is more important than you think and needs to be considered each year when you work on the next year's budget. Not only for increases, but increases that will bring bus driver salaries up to a livable wage. Amherst County is already experiencing the same lack of drivers that other systems are. We don't have all of our routes covered. When somebody's out sick and only leaves the mechanics, or then can't do their jobs, we're doubling up routes. Over the years, we've lost some really good bus drivers after going through training that takes at least two months. They finally start driving, get that first paycheck, and then realize there is no way they can do this and make it financially. So they go

011elsewhere. Amherst County needs to bring bus driver salaries into the 20th century now. Thank you. Ms. Gail Martin, I'm going to speak from the heart. I have been driving in this county for 30, 40 years. I just want to emphasize what Mr. Cox has said. But more importantly, we need to think about our future. and the reason I'm saying this to you is 75% of their state is 60 years old or older. What's going to happen to the school system when we retire? That is the problem that I know this county is facing right now. We not as Mr. Cox said we have a tremendous job but also we have to be physically able to do this job. And we have lost some drivers who would still be willing to drive if they could have

012passed the physical order to do so. So we need to attract younger drivers, and we need to maintain the drivers that you still have on board with you right now. As Mr. Cox stated, we are losing drivers due to the income because the cost of living continues to rise, but our salaries are not keeping up with that. Thank you. my name is Lisey Tink I live at 179 Ottaway Drive Madison Heights and I'm also running for an at-large position on the school board in November I'm here tonight to talk about two things that go hand in hand student accountability and support for our teachers in the classrooms both of these are about keeping our kids safe Over the last two weeks in our schools, we have experienced groups of students destroying our school bathrooms, a

013threat of a school shooting at our high school, and many acts of bullying of children that I actually know personally, one in my home. I had already decided to come and speak tonight when I started hearing from parents and staff about a gun at Manellison on Tuesday. A gun. A clip full of bullets. I had been getting calls for weeks about the bullying, the lack of discipline, and the student accountability in our schools. I've heard this is a resounding story in many of our schools but much of the immediate concern is obviously about Manelison. I will say I've received calls this week from parents and teachers in at least four schools where discipline seems to be out of control. Teachers attempt to correct students defiance, lack of respect, cursing, shoving, fighting. I even hear that

014the students walk the halls at Manelison currently, many of them with their hoodies on, the drawstrings so tight with their mask on that you can only see their eyes. They peep out so that if they were tried to identify if they're doing something wrong, they can't be identified. The teachers attempt to correct bad behavior and often are met with a lack of support. The teachers feel like they are on an island when they have an unruly student. Parents will not answer the phone or return calls when teachers call home, referrals sent to the office result in teachers, some of them given a book about the proper classroom management. Some have been told that maybe they chose the wrong profession. Teachers believe that their school principal is trying to look better in the eyes of the

015school administration and to the community by limiting the number of referrals given out. Things are not good and a lower referral rate might look good on paper, but reality is that these rates are a lie. They do not reflect the current climate in some of these schools. Folks, this is not about appearance and discipline data. This is about the safety of our children and our staff. Teachers are not happy, students are not happy, parents are not happy, bus drivers and support staff are not happy. We have to stop worrying about the ifs, ands, and buts of school policy. Instead, we need to focus on the safety of our children and our staff. We have to refocus and otherwise I also fear a mass exodus of teachers. They're irreplaceable. We all know that transitioning so many

016students back into the classroom is going to be challenging. We can't blame all of this on the pandemic. Discipline issues were definitely anticipated. We have discipline policies, alternative education, school resource officers, all of which I do not feel are being utilized appropriately in our school system. It is my understanding that slots in alternative education are not being utilized for students that cannot learn in traditional environments or who limit the ability of others to learn. I'm going to give you each a copy of a compilation of comments from teachers at Manalison. They pulled this together to have for you guys tonight as well as administrators. I'm Sherry. I'm a bus driver and it was a fair week at the high school and I participated in that second. Be a good role model with these kids. I

017was preschooled for 20 years and I left because of the pay. I became a bus driver in this position for the pay. We're out there, we're not just driving a bus like someone just spoke. We're being motherly, fatherly figures, role models for children, interacting with them in a positive way, being inspirational. I had a young man get on my bus today and he was very upset and just letting him know it's going to be okay. You know, tomorrow's a new day. We go above and beyond, teachers, bus drivers, This community has to work together. Teamwork is what's going to make this dream work for our children. No child should be left behind whatsoever. And every child needs to be accepted for who they are and how they are. And Ms. Gale said, you know, about

018the future. Our children are future. And the violence, the behavior, it's like it's not right. What are we going to do about it? We can all sit here and talk and complain, but we've got to do something. We've got to keep changing the world for our kids. And it isn't going to be happening unless somebody really steps in and says, we've got to make a change. It's got to start with everybody as a team. God bless you all. Thank you. Sidney Storzum. 62 Peter's Hollow Road, Monroe. School board's first job is to hire the best personnel we can get, and we do have some great teachers here, and then to make sure they're accountable for what they do. Case in point, two months ago, I shared with this meeting information that Amherst County Public Schools

019may have hired a high school teacher lacking a college degree or provisional licensure, apparently based on her skin color, to the detriment of other well-qualified applicants of the wrong skin color. I asked if it was true and pointed out the potential civil rights law violations that it entailed. Two months later, there has still been no response. In legal proceedings, there is a presumption of that which is not denied is deemed admitted. So your secret is out, and I believe you've got some explaining to do. Besides violating federal and state laws and school board policy, this is a huge blow to generations of racial conciliation. And let me be clear, racial discrimination in hiring is naked racism. In fact, it's even institutional racism, as you like to say, when it involves the governmental body. Now you

020might prefer to give it a pretty name like equity or anti-racism or cultural responsiveness. But as Barack Obama once famously said, you can put lipstick on a pig, but it's still a pig. This pig is racism. By the way, were the parents notified that their kids were being taught by an unqualified teacher? I think not. This flagrant act of racial discrimination was neither negligent nor accidental. Multiple people involved in the hiring process had to either actively push for this, enable it, or know about it and remain silent. And yet this may create a liability problem that your insurance won't cover. Then what? The only response that I'm aware of by the administration is an attempt by the superintendent to censor and limit our speech at these meetings with a proposed regulation to the policy manual

021requiring his pre-approval of any topic we wish to speak on. Are you serious? Did somebody sleep through civics class? What about the Constitution? As for the illegal racial discrimination, it is time for the school board and administration to own this problem and fix it. and to do so in the light of day so that we can all see what is actually happening. Instead of preaching to our kids about racial justice, maybe we should lead by example here. Then, let's show our kids some love by returning our schools to normal standards of excellence in education for all. Thank you. Irene Dean. School Board. My name is Irene Dean, and I live at 419 Ludingham's Landing in Monroe, Virginia. A lot of things have changed quickly since I started attending school board meetings just this year. I

022was here in February as an interested grandparent just to see when our children would go back to school five days a week. Then in April I learned about and spoke out about critical race theory. Now, with that involvement, the National School Board Association might now be considering that I am in a domestic terrorist group. The National School Board Association should be trying to understand how citizens feel the need to speak out so strongly against today's educational issues. Instead, they double down to crush those citizens so critically and harshly as to demand the Justice Department employ the federal law enforcement resources to come after parents to determine if they have committed domestic terrorism. Public schools are being subjected to a well-coordinated scheme from a faction in America who wants total control of our children's education and

023are dividing us as Americans. It comes down through the federal government to the Virginia government to the teachers unions, the departments of education, the National School Boards Association, and the Virginia School Boards Association. It is well hidden in the name of equity, inclusion, social-emotional issues, and caring for our children. It wasn't enough that we were told twice by a gubernatorial candidate recently that parents should have no say in what the schools teach our children, but our own superintendent suggested recently to adopt regulations that would slow off topics raised by the public at our school board meetings. Thank you for rejecting that proposal. Our federal and state taxes fund each level of government, while our local taxes fund Amherst schools and its administration. The federal government has never had the authority to interfere with local school

024board affairs. It does so by offering money with strings attached and in Amherst the administration says yes to every state program initiative whether it is good for our area or not. But the day of blindly following the BDOE and thinking that they have the best interests of our children at heart is at an end. The insinuation of critical race theory and genderism in schools is proving to be quite the troublesome political issue for everyone. Parents want only education taught in our schools, not political agendas or the taking over of our children's lives. And the education of our children should not be held hostage to a political agenda that switches with whatever political party is in office. I have just a few more sentences. The Attorney General of the United States Merrick Garland recently called people

025like me domestic terrorists because we are concerned about the widespread indoctrination in our public schools. This is outrageous and shocking and dangerous. It is profoundly antithetical to the principles of freedom which are codified in the Bill of Rights, the first ten amendments to the Constitution of the United States. But let's be clear about what the Bill of Rights actually is. It does not list the rights given to us by the government. No, the Bill of Rights guarantees that government may not interfere with the free exercise of our God-given rights, which are enumerated in the Constitution, including the right to speak freely and to peaceably assemble. Let me reiterate, our rights do not come from the government, they come from God. They are inalienable, which means they cannot ever be taken away. They are ours forever.

026So, Mr. Garland is mistaken when he says that I am a domestic terrorist for speaking out against the anti-white racism which is at the core of critical race theory, and for opposing the historical lies of Nicole Hannah-Jones's fraudulent and discredited 1619 Project, and for opposing the pernicious and unhealthy mask mandates. No, I am not a domestic terrorist, but there are domestic terrorists in this country, and Mr. Garland is one of them, as is every single member of the illegitimate Biden regime. They are the domestic terrorists in this country. They are embedded in the White House, in Congress, and in every government bureaucracy in Washington. They infest Richmond and countless other cities. They seek to destroy the Constitution of the United States. They seek to destroy our economy and replace it with communism. They seek to

027brainwash our children and destroy our families. They are totalitarians who want nothing less than to turn us into slaves of the government. They are the domestic terrorists. Those of us who love freedom and truth and justice must rise up and say no to the tyrants in government. We must resist them and we must throw them out of office. Thank you. That was the last name I had on my list. Are there anyone else in the audience at this time that would like to speak to the board pertaining only to school board matters? Dawn Justice at 125 Garland Avenue in Everest. So I'm here tonight because I have grave concerns regarding the removal of our sex offender policy K-N-A and the evisceration of policy K-N, registered sex offender information. I consider if those changes are done,

028it is a crisis. A good policy defines action in every foreseeable circumstance. K-N put every school employee in a position to protect and supervise children by notification of registered sex offenders who may be in the school area or at school events. If the changes are ratified, the current policy can require that all volunteers, teachers, workers, etc. on school grounds or at school events are not on the registered sex offender registry will be obliterated. I have been told the update is to reflect the Virginia code changes to a three-tier system. However, what I see in reality is that fences protecting our children are being removed until new design can be established. Policy KNA is gone. KN is greatly reduced from five pages to barely a page, according to the agenda that was put up Sunday. The

029title has been changed from violent crimes to certain crimes, whatever that means. I hear about Tier 1 crimes such as child trafficking, child pornography, child prostitution, sodomy against a minor, and the list goes on. According to the Virginia Code, all are sex offenses, not certain offenses. The registry information is no longer required, you read that right, no longer required, according to what was posted Sunday, to be disseminated to employees most likely to observe unauthorized persons on school property, bus drivers, visitor registration, bus duty employees, security staff, coaches, playground supervisors, and maintenance personnel. The use of sex offender registry information protocol is also amended according to what was on the site on Sunday. One registered sex offender cited that policy gone or steps. Two school volunteers and student teachers principled to compare all names to the

030registry was gone on Sunday. Contractor employees, the old policy used to require contractors to check monthly if any of their employees were on the registry. School division employees principled to review employee lists against the registry whenever notification was received from state police. Applicants for employment compared against the list. In the version considered at the September board meeting, K and had procedures defined for most circumstances, but on Sunday when I looked at the agenda and what was posted there, they were gone. That was all replaced by one line, procedures to be developed by the superintendent. Now it says, however, this portion of the proposed revisions is not specifically required by changes to the law. So I say if it's not broke, why fix it? Are there any others in the audience that would like to speak

031to the school board at this time in a public comment? If not, I do have one letter that was sent to me by email that I will read at this time. The person did ask that I do not give the name, and I will do as they ask. Dear school board members, I am an Amherst County school bus driver. I've had the privilege of driving a school bus for 20 years now. I say privilege because working with children is an investment into our future. Everyone that works within the school system has a different role. We all have the same goal in mind to make positive impact in the lives of our precious young people. With that in mind, being a school bus driver is a very challenging occupation. The safety of our students is always

032our number one priority. Operating a big piece of equipment, driving up to 45 miles per hour, staying alert and aware of traffic and your surroundings at all times while managing up to 65 students is not a job to be taken lightly. There are so many things that can go wrong in just a matter of seconds. Professional school bus drivers have to think fast and make quick decisions that result in keeping every single child on board and safe at all times. This type of responsibility should be reflected in our paychecks, but unfortunately it is not. Just for comparison, a person can drive a FedEx making $35,000 a year starting pay at entry level with no experience. They do not have anyone in the vehicle to distract them while en route and they are delivering packages. On

033the other hand, school bus drivers may have many distractions while driving in much bigger vehicles and we are delivering much more than just packages. We are delivering the most precious cargo. A child is much more important than a package. Why doesn't our pay reflect our job responsibilities? Lastly, with this pandemic, there is a new added risk to school bus drivers now, a very serious and sometimes fatal health risk. We all know this to be true with the sad loss of two of our own bus drivers in 2020 to COVID. It is no wonder that there is a nationwide shortage of school bus drivers all across America. The low wages, the daily safety issues, dealing with unruly children, and now there's a serious health risk associated with this job. These are the reasons this career is

034not very appealing to potential drivers. Why drive a school bus when you can make more money doing another job with less stress and lower health risk? Or better yet, why do all of us veteran bus drivers stay? I cannot speak for everyone, but I imagine the answer is the same for most of us. is because we love what we do. We care about each other and every student that rides on our buses and it is our goal to provide them with a safe and positive environment to school and back. We do this job despite the low pay and all the stress associated with the responsibility and we are pushing forward even with the risk of becoming infected with COVID, vaccinated or not. With the cost of living constantly on the rise, it is past time

035to take a serious look at our pay scale. public comment we're moving on to action item 3.01 dr. Wells Madam Chair members of the board I have in front of you 3.01 which are the policy issues for second read and at this point we'll answer any questions you may have regarding that and this is for approval board members do you have questions of dr. Wells before we vote on we're going to vote individually at the request of the board Do we have any questions on policy GAA? Can someone please make a motion to accept that policy? I'm sure I make a motion that we approve policy GAA. Okay, we have a motion from Ms. Thompson. Do we have a second? Second. We have a motion to probably second. Mr. Grimes, all in favor? Aye. Any

036opposed? That particular policy passes. The next policy is policy DFDJL. and some other alphabets there. Do we have any discussion for Dr. Wells on that policy at this time? Madam Chair. Ms. Thompson. At our last meeting, I had asked to determine what policy, our current policy, has violent sex offenses, and which of those are no longer in Tier 3. And I know I received a list of what's in our current policy for violent offenders. What I did not receive was which ones were removed, which ones were moved down. Do you happen to know? We discussed K and N in the first read. Legal did that crossover and determined that tier three was exactly the violent offenders from the past and that tiers one and two were the non-violent. And that's on the document that you

037have. Thank you. that's what I need a second any other questions for dr. Wells or for dr. Arnold on this particular policy D.F. DJF and other applicants if not at this time I'll ask for a vote approval for that policy what's the boys pleasure I just read one after that apologize do we want to break that down or do we want to approve that group what's the problem now i'm sure it's my understanding that they sort of go hand in hand so i would recommend that we look at it as a whole if the board would so please yes ma'am any objections to that board members with that said can we get a vote of approval well then charlie commission that we do not approve these i second you may have understood Ms. Paul, the

038chair can help me out here. I guess wouldn't it be just appropriate not to, if we don't have money at all, the policy would stay the same, correct? Is that what you, or are you just going to strike it from the agenda period? Is that what you're... It doesn't matter to me how we do it. I mean, I just want to make the motion that this does not get approved. If we want to change my motion that we keep it the current policy, that would be fine and I don't mind changing it. Madam Chair, I will take away my last motion. I will put forth the motion that we keep our current policies for KN, KNA, and I assume for KP and KK. Thank you, Chair. You heard the motion by Ms. Thompson. Board members,

039do we have a second to that? Second. All in favor that this policy remains the same with no changes? Aye. All in favor? Aye. Any opposed? Aye. Motion carries. Thank you. We're moving on to 3.02, the communication plan. You were saying an outdated communication plan at our work session. There was no more questions or additions or anything to be added at this time. I would like for you to move the plan. So we have a motion and we have read this a couple of times to approve the communication plan as proposed. Madam Chair I make a motion to approve the communication plan. Properly moved by Mr. Grimes. Do we have a second? Second. All in favor? I'll take it. Ms. Terry all in favor? Aye. Any opposed? Thank you so much. We have a communication

040plan. Going down the line here we on the consent agenda board members if there are no discussion or amendments I would ask that we approve the consent agenda 4.02. i'm turning the motion that we approved tonight's consent agenda uh second okay second by ms thompson mr graham that we approved the uh consent agenda all in favor please uh any opposed um yes in the past when we recognized board members of her excuse me administrators during this this portion and we have three new administrators that because of some of the things that were happening in September we were unable to do so I'd like to at least introduce those folks to you tonight the first is Angela Penn Ms. Penn attended Liberty University where she earned several degrees she earned a bachelor's degree in criminal justice

041master's degree in special education and an education specialist in curriculum and instruction She earned her graduate professional endorsement for supervision and leadership K-12 through Longwood University in August 2020. Ms. Penn began her education as an instructional assistant with Amherst County Public Schools from 2008 to 2011. She then continued her educational career at Prince Edward Elementary, followed by one year at Sandusky. Ms. Penn returned to the ACPS family in 2014 when she accepted the position as a special education teacher at Madison Heights. uh in 2020 miss penn transitioned into her role as the d.o students at manellas and middle and she is a proud graduate miss penn is a proud graduate of amherst county high school and we are thrilled that she has chosen to dedicate her service and leadership to the students and families of

042amherst county as the new assistant principal of madison heights elementary school thank you all so much members dr. Arnold for this incredible opportunity I've said it many times I love Madison Heights Elementary School it's the school that I went to when it first opened and I continue to love it so this is an honor thank you next is Mandy Cassisi She is the virtual program administrator. So Ms. Cassisi attended the University of Virginia where she earned her master's of teaching degree in elementary ed, BA in psychology. She received her endorsement in supervision and administration in 2019 and went on to earn an EBD in educational leadership from the University of Lynchburg in May of 2020. Ms. Cassisi began her educational career as a teacher in Amherst County Public Schools in 2001 when she accepted a

043position at Pleasant View University. she later moved on to teach physical science at Manalison and in the fifth grade at Amelon in 2020 she served as the interim assistant principal at Amelon Elementary she accepted the position of administrative lead for the Amherst remote academy and elementary program for the 2021 school year we are grateful to have Ms. Cassisi on the ACPS team and her new role this year as the virtual Virginia administrator providing valuable oversight communication with our students and families in Amps to have chosen a virtual option last we have Cedar German who is the Dean of Students at the Nelson middle school mr. German attended Bridgewater College where he earned his bachelor's degree in history and political science He later attended the University of Virginia where he earned his master's degree with a

044professional endorsement for supervision and leadership in May of 2020. Mr. Jordan began his career with Amherst County Public Schools in August of 2010 as a social studies teacher, later teaching economics, personal finance, all while continuing his education. He has also been a varsity basketball coach and track and field throughout his time. he taught summer school for several years and served as an amherst remote academy administrative lead for secondary programs throughout 2021 we are happy that mr jordan has decided to continue his educational career with amherst county public schools as the dean of students for manalison middle school we can pause here just to congratulate all of those who have taken on new positions or continuing positions and we're happy to have you as part of the amherst county public school so welcome okay moving on

045to 5.01 Madam Chair, members of the board. Dr. Wells. So we'll start with policy updates. And these policy updates are first read. Again, these are your first reads. Some of these were once you sat back and we had to revise. But these are first reads for you. Thank you for that. So the board has another opportunity to continue to read these. If you have any questions or discussion, if you would email Dr. Wells ahead of the next board meeting. Is that all right with everyone for tonight? Okay. Administrative services. Yes, from under administrative services we want to start with the auditorium, high school renovation process, where we are with that. So we have chosen Crave Street Worldwide Associates to lead us through the conceptualization phase of the projects at the high school. The facilities committee

046met on October 12th with Mr. Josh Bauer of CRA to discuss and develop conceptual concepts for the auditorium. renovations and staying upgrades with the baseball softball field house etc part of that meeting was to get to a conceptual idea as to what the facilities would look like and also to determine some dates to get some public feedback. So tonight we're informing you of the general process of where we have been and on October 12th, again, we met with the committee. Tonight we're meeting with you, updating you. On the 19th, Dr. Arnott will update the Board of Supervisors on those activities, on what we've been doing so far. On October 28th, we're planning a kickoff meeting at the high school, and it can be in person as well as virtual, so people who do not want

047to attend or can't attend the high school can watch it virtually. And it'll be a kickoff meeting for the community to see the concepts and get some general idea of what it's going to look like and get some ideas of, again, making some feedback. On November 3rd, there'll be a town hall meeting at Amherst County High School. November 4th, there'll be a town hall meeting at Van Ellison Middle School. Again, those meetings will be for the community to come in and give feedback as to the concepts and make comments so we can take that information and bring it back to the facilities committee and drive the direction up from the community input. November 8th the committee will eat again to look at all that information and compile it and try to make some recommendations as

048to the general phase of the concept of the operation there and then on the 11th we will update the school board as to what information we were able to gather from those meetings not like we're on a roll he was in all those dates so I'll send you the dates by email you limit where we meet Tuesday evening with the city's committee and have some big conversation and good discussion and really feel that we have some some good concepts as to what we think we can do and how we can move things forward. Are there any questions? What time was that meeting on the 28th? We haven't set times. We're trying to get it for 7 PM. Uh will be our goal. We have some other things we have to do before that. It's a

049very exciting time for Amherst County to be aware of what we're about to dig ourselves into. oh good lord a new auditorium a new look for amethyst all right continue on so long-going projects i'm currently mr rose and he can fill you in on the few products we have ongoing basically the major project we have going on right now is uh we took delivery uh today in the first half of the trailer for the match the mass height hit stock program through wincad The second half of the trailer will be delivered tomorrow and they will be setting those trailers at Madison Heights Elementary tomorrow. So all the old trailers have been removed. Head Start had some grounds work that needed to be done at Central to replant the grass and those type of things. But

050other than that, that project is well underway. We purchased the building at Elon and that is currently being used as an art class and has been upgraded. The power systems have been added to the school and everything like that and they're currently used as an art class now. I knew Elon was in the equation. I couldn't remember if they had been done yet. We were monitoring Central. We were okay there. And we looked at possibly purchasing the other ones but they were in such poor condition that we could not occupy them. Nutrition? So on nutrition, I just want to give you some basic information that the current situation we're in is there are some issues meeting in supply chain. So we're having to revamp our menu on a weekly basis. It's really kind of hard

051to plan out months out. It's typically, Ms. Klein likes to have it planned out month by month by month as to what the menu will be. Currently with supply chain issues with the food and supplies, we are not able to do that. So she's having to kind of revamp menus on a weekly basis or biweekly basis. I just wanted to be aware of that, that there are some supply chain issues taking place with the food service industry. As well as that, so I've had a hard time getting some of the stuff on containers. So Mr. Rhodes had to go over to some of our local vendors and just. take the truck over and bring a load of styrofoam containers back over so you can use those to serve the food so there are some supplies

052some supply chain issues but we are working through them any questions about that i did hear something on my way driving trying to get the government is trying to get the supply chain opened up again or something of that nature hopefully won't affect us negatively here long So we're getting things. We just have to change the menus as we get closer. We're able to. We have enough food to feed. We're getting enough food to feed the students, but if we have a plan for a certain menu item for next week and that item's not there, we're having to revamp the menu because we don't have that particular item. I just want parents to not get the idea of that, that we are short of food yet. We're feeding kids every day. Just have to throw

053that out there. Moving on. So next is a fuel update. This is just for your information. You may have noticed the prices at the pump have gone up quite a bit here recently. A tanker of gas was around $11,000. A tanker of gas this week is around $11,000. Now it's $16,500 per tanker. So as we move forward, and Ms. Krause will probably talk to this when she speaks about finances, it could become a financial issue if the prices continue to increase as they have recently. We look forward to that conversation. So on our COVID update, I just want to give you a basic number of where we are currently. We're averaging two to three, sometimes five cases a day. Yesterday, we didn't have any until I made the announcement at 5 o'clock. We didn't have

054any, and then I had two call the same day. So those are on today's list. So the two today were actually from last evening after 5 o'clock. We had zero reported today. But in general right now, we have 117 students quarantined. We have six staff on quarantine. We have ten positive students that are currently positive and two positive staff. So that's kind of where we are right now. Compared to where we were back in early September, late August, I think we're much better off and we're able to manage. We're getting two or three cases a day we can manage that. When you get to about five cases a day, it's more difficult for us to manage from a contact tracing standpoint. But, you know, we're leveling off a little bit and then moving in a

055more of a downward trend direction for us compared to where we were earlier in the school year. Have there been any more issues related to, like, Governor's School or the STEM Academy related with the... At one time, you know, has that been kind of ironed out as far as... Yeah. I hadn't heard any more. Every other school they have to deal with absences and those kind of things. We're glad to hear that good news that we all have. Yeah. On the community front, you know, the numbers are dropping as well. We we have our central call was last week, we have another one next week, but their numbers in the VDH are so on a downward trend and cases compared to where we were we were spiking very highly up, we're still at a high

056high transmission. But we're not at the point where we were like with 120 cases a day and so forth in the area. So we're trending in a good direction. But we're still a high transmission for the area. So I'm going to speak to you guys about the VISTA program. And so this ties into the federal mandate that any employer who employs over 100 employees is mandated to have their employees vaccinated or submitting to a weekly test. We still have not received any... official guidance from its DOLE, the Department of Labor and OSHA. They're the ones that will provide the guidance in the state of Virginia. And so we don't know what that's going to look like, but we do believe that we're going to have, we're going to be held to that mandate because we

057have well over 100 employees. So as we look at this, we understand that not all of our employees are vaccinated and if they don't get vaccinated, how are we going to deal with the testing process because as you know in central Virginia there are very few tests that are available and so we've been working with the Department of Health to try to figure out how we're going to get those those tests and so what the state of Virginia the DOE has done they have created this program called the VISTA program and the VISTA program they have I guess they have contracted out with test providers And what they would do is provide us with the resources if we joined the program. The one caveat is they want part of the requirement is that we would

058have to do random pool testing of our students. And we're not really comfortable with that. And so we don't know how to kind of get to the point where how are we gonna meet the mandate for our staff. then have the appropriate amount of supplies and so we're not excited about the Vista program at all but it seems like that's where the only resource we have so I'm I'm telling you now so we can so I can bring that back to you as we start to get information we haven't we haven't agreed to the program with Vista and we don't want to we've actually in many school divisions that said look we can join the program if you just give us the the test kits so we can deal with our mandate not not the

059students because you know when you're talking about pool testing of 10 kids a week i don't think that's gonna that's not gonna happen intended it's not gonna it's not gonna make code go away in our school so i just wanted because i i think that is something that could be uh problematic for us and i wanted you guys to to be aware of that and where where we are with that I'm glad to answer any questions. Ms. Patrone is here because she deals with all of that stuff for us as well. I just had one quick question. Has anybody reached out to some of the colleges? Because I know Tech has been testing all their people. In terms of resources? Yes, and where they're getting their supplies. They got enough for them. Everybody is fighting

060for the same resources. And I think it's going to be a real problem in central Virginia when all of these employers, you know, you've got the WXT, they're going to have to go through it. And where are they going to get their tests from? So I think this is going to be, I think there's a lot of unintended consequences from this mandate that we're going to have a real hard time. And I know some of the research universities like Virginia Tech, ODU, and University of Virginia, they have their own medical staff and their own facilities. They can run their own labs. So they're actually doing some of their own lab work themselves versus being sent off to other labs. My brothers at ODU and doing what I'm doing here, and they have their own facilities

061that does all their testing. So they don't have to outsource any of that. I know my son takes his in his own. dorm and then just passes it off to somebody. I can't believe that they would even stipulate that. I'll tell you what happened. To pull students. I'm not saying Floyd's enough that I necessarily agree with those students. Well, the VISTA program wasn't originally. It was developed in like... June of this past year and it was for students like the program was set up for students but when the mandate came down every school division needed the resources for their employees not for their students and so trying to they're trying to fit the needs of schools in with what the program they created and it just is not a fit so we asked and I'll

062tell you I spoke to the director of BDH the state BVH and discuss this with with her about how this is not not not helpful and so they're they're currently in the process of working on seeing if there's a way to to make it work for schools any other questions on that Just not really a question, but I heard that OSHA made a recommendation to Biden just this afternoon. I don't know any details to it. It was right before I came. Based on what I'm understanding is that there's no public information on what that is. Yeah, I haven't heard of it. Nothing's been released yet as far as we're aware. Yeah, that's what I'm hearing is that we don't know anything. It's sort of under the table. well and we've been told that we shouldn't

063expect anything in the near future either not to at least that's what the state superintendent told us a week ago but you know things change rapidly any other questions moving on to the 5.05 yeah so I want to talk about student behavior and this Thompson you brought it I wanted this attitude agenda and character and but I think that what we're trying to talk about here is what you've also heard from some folks tonight it's just student behavior and so before we start this conversation I want to I want to discuss what I believe to be the most important thing that a school system does for students above all else I believe that it is our moral obligation to keep our students safe whether that's physically or emotionally to keep them safe I believe that

064everyone in this room would agree that education cannot happen if our students are not emotionally and physically well. With that said, the agenda has behavior listed, but this discussion needs to go much deeper. Yes, Amherst County is seeing increases in inappropriate student behavior. We are seeing more acting out from students. We are seeing more aggressive behavior from students. Every school system in the United States is seeing the exact same things. So what has happened to our students? Have they just decided that they would no longer be good people? I don't think so. If you understand human development, you know that inappropriate behavior from children is a way of communicating the emotions that they don't have the words to describe or even having the comfort level to confide in someone else about these problems. So if

065our discussion tonight is only about the behavior of our children, I feel like we will miss the opportunity to truly work on the real problem. We feel like the real problem is the deterioration of mental health and emotional health of our students. This deterioration is a direct result of students experiencing trauma, uncertainty, lack of routine, and fear during the last 18 months. I want you to know I'm not here to say that we condone poor behavior. We do not tolerate inappropriate behavior, and I believe that consequences should be given to such behavior. What I am saying, however, is that we must confront and deal with the root of these behaviors if we are truly to address the concerns of our community. I understand that mental and emotional health has been met with resistance by part

066of our community and even part of this board as we've had many discussions about things like social emotional learning over the past year. But we find ourselves in a place where we don't feel like we can proceed in meeting the emotional needs of all of our students. And be clear, this is a real crisis, a crisis that is not only impacting students in the visible ways that y'all are hearing about with the behavior, but it's impacting students who you would never believe are being impacted. So I have a little bit of data for you because I think it's always important to have data. So this is from 2019, August of 2019 to October. I can't use 2020 data because it's just not comparable. counselors had individual student encounters with students for emotional reasons emotional health

067reasons 1,927 times in those two months this year that number is increased to 3,143 threat assessments so those are the things that our schools do when there's there's possibility of harm to themselves or others we do threat assessments and in 2019 we had seven This year we've had 29 already. We had nine CPS reports last week. That is the largest number of CPS reports we've ever had in Amherst County. We have five active FACT cases. Typically we average six for the whole year. This is indicative of global service providers being backlogged to the point of not having case managers available and a wait list for providers. We have day treatment intakes lined up through the end of October because there's not enough licensed staff to keep up with the needs. The Horizon Center here in

068Amherst, there's a waiting list of 50 students for case management. There are 11 children waiting for therapy, and they are currently serving 341 of our students. In all, over 10% of our students are currently receiving or waiting on mental health treatment. And these numbers mind you, are only for Medicaid eligible students. So that's only 55-60% of our students. This problem will not be solved by the reactive measures of disciplining poor behavior. We do believe we need to discipline more poor behavior, but we have to fix the root of the problem. We have to be proactive in our approaches. We have to meet student needs before the inappropriate behavior occurs. So tonight I want to ask that the board provide us permission to move forward to meet the mental and emotional needs of our students. I

069don't understand that question because I mean how how we well every time social worker well no I think it's it's having so when you look at the number that are counselors like the counselors can't keep up with that number. And so this is something that our whole division has to be a part of. And our whole division have to understand what types of practices they can use in their classroom to make those kinds of environments where our kids can feel safe and welcome and they can talk through some of their problems. And forgive me, I just don't see how we've been, I mean, the way the question is, I feel like we haven't given the go-ahead for that to happen. I don't understand that. We just had a conversation two weeks ago about strategies to

070use to make, I mean, we had to validate that for you. We talked about social-emotional learning all last year, and we were asked to stop doing so much of it. And so we don't feel like we should be, we can be doing that. because we feel like there's this feeling that it's not appropriate. And I think we have to work towards meeting our students' mental and emotional health needs because we can't get to the other side. I mean, y'all are seeing the back end of this, but the front end is what we have to try to fix. I want to be clear. I have pushed back on social-emotional learning. Not because I don't value the work that you're doing or that needs to be done with our students. We definitely have students with mental health

071crisis. What I have been pushing back on is just a rote program that's coming from places that probably has things that I have seen that our community may or may not give approval of. So I want us to move carefully in that direction and not just adopt a program that someone brings to us and then we just take it and give it to all our kids. I believe that we have the talent in this division to create a program that can teach our students those type of emotional strategies. The reason I ask for this to be on the agenda is because we have a policy that talks about character education. It teaches respect. It teaches us to be kind. It has those values in it. And when I asked, we have none. We have no

072character education curriculum that I could review when I asked. So I felt two weeks ago when I started hearing about discipline issues in our school, the things started coming slowly. Now they're coming fast. Five today, and I haven't even been able to return the phone calls. So we do have a crisis. I think we can agree on that. I do agree with you that we see based from COVID, we have a mental health issue that we need to be addressing. I want us as a board to address that carefully and not just give Clark lunch to say, hey, you go out there and teach our kids whatever you want to teach. We need to have that vetted. We've talked about curriculum and the vetting. We need to do that. We need to know what's going

073to be taught. So when you say two weeks ago, you had to explain yourself. I think that's good due diligence from us as a board to be able to say, let's stop and see what you're going to teach. Because when I look at the social-emotional learning that's coming from the Virginia Department of Education, there is a great deal in there that's really good. There's some in there that I don't think is so good. I do think we seek some components that lead into what many here today would say critical race theory. So while it's not much in there that's pertaining to that, those elements are there. So as a board member, I want that vetted. So when you come and you say, we as a board have hindered you, I'm insulted by that. We are

074doing our due diligence to make sure that the people in this community have a say in what their children are taught. So let's say, yes, we have a mental health crisis. We have a multi-pronged approach that we need to take. One in which you are supporting with mental health. The other that we need to address in my opinion, in my humble opinion, is the discipline. When I looked at the discipline tonight, I see fighting. I see big events. What I don't see, I don't see any defiance. I don't see any disrespect. I see no discipline for profanity. I'm hearing teachers are being cursed out in the hallway. They're going to ask for a referral to write it. They can't write it. They're told to go back to their classroom. They're told they're going to give

075a book on how to do classroom management. To me, our world of our children has been turned upside down. They have no foundation. It's uncertain. They're being taught in our schools to protest. They're being taught in our schools that everything they have ever known is wrong. How do you expect our children to act? They're going to act like children. We need to give them a foundation to stand on. I call that tough love. I think we need to set discipline. I think we need to stick to it. I think that's one of the problems. It's going to take the citizens of this county. It's going to take the administration. It's going to take this school board. And it's going to take the parents to come together and first say we have a problem. Second, we

076need to approach it from your perspective with mental health. We also need to approach it with discipline. It's not one or the other. I agree. It is multifaceted. I am not said yes you did I'm not talking about that's not talking about that we're not moved up for no I'm not talking about curriculum strategies things that we can do in the that's going to help our teachers get through this and I need I need to be able to have the support to say this is something every teacher in our building needs to be able to do because if not we're not going if we're not consistent those practices we're never going to get our arms around this and I do not believe that we should not discipline students I've never believed that because consequences are

077important but kids have shown up this year with very real issues that they have very little ability to regulate what they're doing and we got to figure out a way to fix that As I dissected, I remember last week you said you had already introduced these concepts that you previewed or showed us on. Right, but nothing we're doing this year is required. Correct. So you're asking us to make it required. Is that what you're asking? Yeah, I need your support to be able to say we need to do these things in our classroom because I think what happens sometimes is that if there's kickback, then we're asked to back up. And, you know, all we're talking about are things like checking in and de-escalation strategies and morning meetings and all the things that we've been

078talking about. But I think we should be able to say this is what we need to do in classrooms every day so we can get our arms around this. Because otherwise, we're going to just be dealing with the back end of the problem. We're going to provide consequences. And they're going to get greater and greater. And ultimately, y'all are going to see a lot of kids. And I don't think that's what you guys want, to see a lot of kids for discipline, for being kicked out of school. If we are providing discipline, how come we're hearing from teachers then that they're not even allowed to write referrals to students? I'm sure being in a disruptive classroom with that student that should be disciplined is causing a lot of stress to our other students, let alone

079our teachers and our bus drivers and everybody else that has to deal with this. Well, it is not my expectation that people don't write referrals or there are not consequences. Dr. Wells deals with discipline. He can chime in. There's never once have we said anything to anybody to say, do not do this. So I don't know why there would be people saying we're told not to do this because Dr. Wells? Yes sir. So we meet with the principals. One thing you have to realize too, all the state codes change. You will not see a defiance code or disrespect code this year. There is no code for defiance. There is no code for disrespect. All the state codes change to behavior codes. So there is no, all the states, they changed all their codes, so there

080is no D5C, D6C for profanity. Those things aren't there. We did not suspend for... There's some of those things. Some of those things get in-school suspension or from suspension center as well. Some of those things would not be there. But we tell all our staff, and I've told everybody, administrators as well, that if a person is not doing what they need to be doing and you get to the point where it cannot be handled in the classroom, yes, they should write a referral. But there also are behaviors of classroom management tasks and skills. The offense we dealt with in the classroom is major offenses and minor. We look at those things. And if it's a minor one, it should be counted in the classroom first. Calling parents, notifying parents, etc. You know, if somebody's down

081there using profanity in the classroom... There's no reason for them not to go to the office for that. There should be a referral written for that. If it's a secondary student, they'll get time at our term suspension center. They won't get suspended, but they'll get time at our term suspension center. That's where we made those changes as far as OCR a few years ago. Are 6th and 7th graders eligible for that, or is it just 8th grade? At our term suspension center, yes, they can go to ASC. 6th and 7th? Yes. They can't be placed at... I can't place them at Amherst Education Center because we don't have a middle school program per se, but they can go into there for AFC purposes. But yes, we do consequences. There were four tonight that y'all met

082with for the board. There will be four in two weeks you'll get to meet with at the board because we're giving consequences for behaviors. The suspension list tonight, you'll see there's 18 students on a suspension list tonight. So students are getting disciplined, and there are consequences for behaviors. But what we're seeing is an increase in these negative behaviors due to some of the issues going on outside of the school. And they bring their baggage back into school, which then in turn causes disruptions in the classroom, which we have to deal with. So the behavior is one thing, but what are we doing on the other side of it to kind of quell these behaviors so we do not have to have these students coming to the school board or getting suspended from school or in-school

083suspension or ASC. We have some students, you've got to remember, last year we had seven referrals the whole year because the kids who wanted to come to school were the ones who were in school, and the kids who didn't want to come to school or had several issues, they opted for at-home learning. And now they're all back. We had five kids in the classroom in several classes. This year we have 20 in the classroom in several classes. So classroom management is much different this year than last year. And students were out in school for 18, some schools have been in school for 18 months until we started school this year. They were able to do whatever they wanted to do, when they wanted to do it, get up when they wanted to, go to bed

084when they wanted to, play whatever video games they wanted to, and nobody held them accountable because they were not in school. And now they're in school being held accountable and they're having a difficult time adjusting to that. So we are seeing behavior issues. But we need to make sure we're doing things the right way. And I'll tell any teacher in this building, in this division, if they need to write a referral, write the referral. But make sure it's a justified referral. Make sure you're doing your part with classroom management and you're doing your intervention strategies in the classroom first before you do that. But if it's a major offense, yes, by all means, they better write that referral. But I expect that to go to the office administrator to deal with it. Madam Chair. So

085I just need some clarification because When we had the meeting two weeks ago and we were given the presentation about these things, I don't remember that we were asked to vote or not vote on any of that happening. Did we vote on it? No. We gave you the information. And we were told that these things were already put out to the schools and to the buildings. So I don't know what we're talking about that you need permission to move forward with. I think we're talking... with social-emotional learning. Last year we started off doing that. We were told we were doing too much of it to stop doing it. We needed to get into academics. And so we heard that. Some of the examples you gave were the things we were shown last week about the

086check-in. But we haven't implemented that. They've been shown that, but we haven't implemented any of that. And in fairness, I think last year that was an extreme, it was like two, three weeks and it was hand washing and things like that. And we were trying to get, I mean, in all fairness to that, what we saw last week, I think the word of caution that we had is because there was some stuff on that council site that is concerning. We get a lot of people come talk to us because they see something on Fox News, they see something on the national news and they forget that. We live here in this community. We have a lot of the same values as they do, but we get assimilated with what's going on in Loudoun County and

087things like that, and that's not fair because we are being cautious, and especially after last year with the tensions that occurred from the equity lessons and saying that we didn't know what was going on in school. We're just trying to be cautious about and trying to express that to you. I thought what was on there last week was very helpful. I told you, I think it was a good relationship builder. Well, and to finish what I was saying, I didn't have a problem with any of what was presented last week. And I took away from that that it, I think even asked that it was already put out. And two people did reach out to me after the meeting and said that it was put out to them. But also they were given Castle as

088the resource to pull from. And I've asked Rebecca about that, but I haven't gotten it yet. I mean I'll just reiterate what I said at the June joint meeting here with the Board of Supervisors I believe social learning and emotional learning as it's coming down from Richmond is a Trojan horse and a lot of things we don't want are coming with it so I don't think any of us have a problem with the supports and everything you're saying is We agree with that the discipline I mean coming back from this pandemic kids some kids were left alone the whole time last year that they weren't in school they left to their own devices so a lot of this is coming out of that I totally understand that but I don't want to add insult to

089injury by using a resource that our community doesn't agree with and I don't have a problem with the things that we were shown last week unfortunately my takeaway was we were already implementing it so Well, I'm asking for permission to move forward with making sure that those things happen in our buildings. With the CASEL program or just with the strategy? I never know what we're getting at with this here. That's the problem. We told you two weeks ago that we weren't using the CASEL program. We were using three strategies. From the CASEL program. And CASEL's also involved in that other grant that we received. But I ask you. Were there any problems with the three? The three things, no. I'm concerned what's coming out of the back end of it. What else would we be

090doing? Go to the CASEL site and look. It's full of indoctrination, I think. I don't agree with it at all. We're trying to support children. I have no problem with supporting children. I have problems with indoctrination going through the back door. And that's what I saw on the CASEL website. And I suggest parents go and look at it. So, what's... What's the procedure here? What's their resolution? We approve the three strategies and disapprove or whatever about the CASEL program and the CASEL website? Or however that doesn't, you know, hinder us. He needs permission to do something with something. No, the reason I haven't said anything. I just want to say that I had asked for this to be put on the agenda. And the reason was is because I had concerns about our discipline. based

091on what I was hearing. I asked us to have it on the agenda so that we could talk about character education, something that I think we have had in school for many years, and I think it has a huge impact on our students. I was concerned when I learned we did not do character education. It's required by state code. What I wanted to propose as part of this conversation is that to help our discipline issues, to approach it from a disciplinary perspective, but to also approach it from a character perspective. What are we teaching our students? Now, I know we've talked about social-emotional learning. That's what keeps getting pushed and pushed and pushed. And it is being pushed from the Virginia Department of Education. It's being pushed all over this country. Like I said before,

092there are parts that I think the majority of our citizens would agree with. I think there's parts that our citizens would not agree with. So what I started to say was that I was hoping that we could have a conversation, that we could develop our own program, not a CASEL program, not a Virginia Department of Education program. It's my understanding that social-emotional learning is recommended at this point. It is going to be required by the Virginia Department of Education. Another mandate, another time to tie our hands. If we can develop a program that our community is in agreement with, and you can take out those pieces that are offensive, and you create and merge the two, I think we could have a winner for our kids. So that's what I wanted to bring to the

093table. And I think the character ed, that's what our VTSS, they talk about things like respect and resilience and how to treat others. That's what that work is. That is character ed. That is what, you know, when we brought Mr. Holmes in last year, that is exactly what character education is. And we have that in place. Well, if that is true, I think our policy says that we will have curriculum that will be reviewed every seven years. I have not seen that curriculum. Where do I find what we're teaching our children about character then? We should be transparent. Every school has a VTSST where they sit down and they work with things to make sure that our students learn things like respect. and resilience, we can give you every single plan, VTSS plan for each.

094I think that would meet your need in terms of knowing what it is that they're talking about. So what are your thoughts on merging character education and social emotional learning and making our own program? I mean, that would be fine. I'm just trying to get before we get to the point that we're mandated and then we have a backlash. How can we make this our program? the SEL main thing. Is that what you mean? Yes. In other words, instead of going full force with it, just the way it's written, to take time, make it our own, and look at it and examine it. We have citizens that are concerned about it. What are their concerns? So that's what I wanted to talk about, is how can we take a multifaceted approach? And I think we're

095on the same page from that. But I don't want to just sit here tonight and just say carte blanche, sure, go with social emotional learning. Now, if it's what we saw two weeks ago as a single board member, I have no problem with that. I don't know if we voted what that outcome would be. But I do have trouble just saying let's carte blanche, go with social emotional learning because those standards are coming from the Virginia Department of Education. They're not our local standards. They're not things that we may or may not have buy-in to. And that's why I'm asking you guys to provide me with direction. move forward because we don't feel like you guys to give us direction on how to do that. I mean that's that's the whole intent of this is

096that we all agree something needs to be done but we don't know which direction to go to make everybody feel like we're going in the right direction and we're all in the same thing. Madam Chair. So I don't think I feel comfortable just making a decision because it's a huge decision. Speaking as a parent and having my own child in the school system, I don't know how much of the school I would want involved in my child's social and emotional learning. Parents should also be involved in knowing and deciding what's done for their child on this level. I mean, we have a law in Virginia that says parents should be involved, and I don't even think we need a law. That should be common sense that parents are involved in what's going on with their

097kids in school. So, I mean, I was fine with the three strategies last week, and like I said, I thought we were going at least that far with it. You're wanting something a little more comprehensive, and I kind of agree. It's got to come with a package. It's got to come with some guidelines and some yardstick. And that's what I'm asking. I'm asking, can I bring that? You can bring anything you want. I mean, yeah. Because, I mean, honestly, I don't know what to do. I need to see some information. And these numbers are staggering that you gave us. I mean, I knew just from common sense, but also being on the discipline committee, that it was going to be bad. I knew when the kids came back and it was going to be bad.

098But the numbers are staggering. Yeah, what was the 1927 and the 3143? What was that? I forgot to write it down. Incidents where students met with a counselor. Is there a way to know? Well, that doesn't matter. So there are kids that are reaching out that need help. Yes. A lot of them. Yes. Okay, so I think we need something. Yeah, I don't know if it requires a motion, but I agree. Well, I would like for y'all to, we want to work on this. We want to work and we want to bring something to this group so we can do some more comprehensive things to help our children. Okay. Because even just like three strategies, well, that's just, you know, that's the very basic and minimum. And we're just talking about supporting our children. and

099keeping our children in a safe environment. We're not talking about anything else. There's nobody in this room behind me that works for us. That wants anything but to provide something. I think being able to see that presentation last week, we could see what you were talking about. And I'm fine getting behind those three strategies. I was fine then. So I need to see the next stage. I'd like to be able to bring that down. Can I talk about it? I think there's a national social-emotional learning that everybody's negative about. I think everybody or several people are negative about it. I understand that. But we have to look out for the mental health of our students. And whether we call it social-emotional learning or we do something which I know there's a negative attitude to that,

100which it's fine. There's some things we don't, obviously we don't agree with. I agree with that. But we have to do something to work with some of these students. I'm seeing it now that I'm working with the mental health aspect of our division, all the COVID issues and everything else, and the discipline of it. Let's get away from social-emotional from that negative, but just look at what can we do to support the mental health of our students? I think that's where we need to be focused. Let's forget about social-emotional. Let's focus on how can we support the mental health of our students so they can be successful in school and in life in general. Last time we wanted a student to have an issue and then we have a suicide or a shooting or something

101like that because we did not take care of the mental health needs of our students. Madam Chair, I could get behind that. Well, I think the reason I say anything because he kind of just said what I just said. Everybody's got things twisted. I'm just going to use that word. We are getting things so twisted because of our own thoughts about what is and what isn't. First, it's like we want to do something about the discipline. I think everybody agrees with that. And I wasn't going to discuss it in the open session. We had people come and talk about it. Well, kids might need some help, H-E-L-P, to get through that. So social, emotional, all of that is mental. I have a degree in counseling among other things and that's the health. It doesn't have

102to come from any particular organization that we don't like. And yes, we can grow our own here. We have, Ms. Mutt, we have back here, I pronounced your name wrong. We have people with almost doctorate degrees who come here to help with these sort of things. And last week, two weeks ago, we did kind of insult her by saying, well, I don't like all of this really chunky stuff. I just want academics. I heard it right here. It doesn't matter who said it. So now we're trying to back up and say, well, what are we going to do? If we tell the superintendent, don't do this and don't do that, and then the community is screaming that the kids need help, I don't know. That's why I'm saying that. You can't have it both ways.

103You can't have it. We've always had character education. When I was in the fourth grade, people taught me those four C's. When I was in college, when I was in high school, these things always come up. Right now, not just in Amherst, not just in particular schools, everyone is in need of some extra counseling. Jobs are lost with the parents. The parents are upset. The kids have been quarantined five or six times. They can't play games. They can't play the instrument. We need something in the schools to help them. We can name it anything we want, S-E-L-L-E-C-C-A-D, and we can ask the superintendent to bring it to us. But he had brought some things to us, and you're right. The basic that he brought two weeks ago, if everyone was okay with that, that's good.

104We don't need to tear everything apart to see that it's some type of conspiracy governmental issue when we need to help the children. I have six children in Amherst County Public School System. If I see or if a teacher sees that they need somebody to talk to and I can't get to them, go ahead and talk to them. Counsel them. Keep them from being destructive to themselves. Keep them from tearing up the buildings and what have you. Now some discipline is just discipline, like Dr. Arwell said. And Mr. Terry, myself, Ms. Wright and others take care of that. But then maybe some kids need this other feature that we're trying to get to here. So we're not going to tie the hands of the man or his staff that's trying to help the kids. Yes,

105bring all the information you want to us. Bring every name, brand, counseling agency that we can look at. And at the end of the day, choose somebody that can actually help these kids. We've got teachers. We've got... We've got guidance counselors, we've got psychiatrists, sociologists, we've got harvest, we've got horizon, all of that. And I know people don't like to hear me talk this, but somebody has to get past all of this backward stuff that we're trying to pull up with everything. You can't pull that up in every equation. The conversation tonight is try to get student behavior in this county under control the right way. And this referral thing, I know where that came from. We had said some years ago, Dr. Wells was with me on several of these committees, and I'm going

106to be through, that we were trying not to send every kid to the office. We were trying not to put every kid in harm's way of being suspended and losing their academic future. We said we're going to try our best to control some things, some things in the classroom. Things that cannot be controlled in the classroom will become in referrals. So somebody got confused and said, look, I'm not going to refer anybody. That's not what we said. That's not what we said. We said, can you handle some of the things within the classroom? Do so. If not, send a packet to the office. And if there was a misconception in the school system with that, I believe it's been cleared up now. The superintendent has talked to people that he needs to talk to. Dr.

107Wells has talked to people he needs to talk to. But it's two different things. Discipline and behavior. One might cause the other. So I'm through with it, but perhaps we bring this back whenever we come back. But in the meantime, all of us have said things that we need to say. Perhaps not wanting to deal with particular organizations who endorse social-emotional learning. Well, let's look at our own. As Minister Thompson said, we can work with this, but I'm just going to put that in the hands of people that deal with that sort of thing. We're the board. We got people in the school system that deal with this every single day. They have a better idea of this. Maybe somebody, you know, whatever you want to do, Dr. Hall. You will get it in November.

108Is that the pleasure of the board to get a better understanding of what you want to do to provide supports for our students? In the meantime, what are you going to do in the meantime? We're going to keep working. Our teachers are doing the very best they can. Keep them safe. And you heard us tonight that all inappropriate behavior should be dealt with. That's unequivocal. I'm not giving any other stance to that. I think we need to make sure we hear from the teachers that they're getting the support they need. Yes. And if there is discipline issues... Unfortunately, not all of them are mental health issues. There are some taking advantage of it, knowing that they can. And we just need to make sure that everybody's supported as needed. And I think that's in a

109normal, right? That's a normal. That's who we're used to dealing with. Now it's a lot more kids that we wouldn't have expected to have. Like, you have kids that are acting now that... never seen in an office and so that we have to that kind of builds this this whole kind of everybody's overwhelmed kind of feeling that everybody has and trying to keep up madam chair um i would also like to reiterate here about what um miss thompson said about having some character building in there also i thought that was a great idea we all said yesterday thank you ma'am that's why i was saying within our own organization here as Ms. Thompson. Yes, ma'am. I'd like to say thank you to the board and to Dr. Arnold for working through this. I know it's

110not comfortable sometimes. We do have VTS teams, VTSS teams. We have counselors, we have psychiatrists, we have social workers. As Ms. Ligon pointed out, we have a good team. And I have confidence that that team can help you come up with something that... I think that we can all be in agreement with because we are in agreement that we want to work on the mental health aspect of our children. That's why we have the social workers and the psychiatrists and all of those things that we've brought on board. I agree with Mr. Terry that we need to make sure our teachers feel supported. And you have said tonight that discipline behaviors need to be dealt with. So I hope that our teachers are hearing that. I hope our administrators are hearing that. And that they

111realize that they do have our support. I think it is multifaceted. As I said, I believe in tough love. And I think the social-emotional piece, the mental health piece, that support that you're talking about is the love piece. But when you talk about discipline, there has to be consequences. And it bothers me when I hear about kids with hoodies and they're pulled over their eyes and the masks are up here. Teachers can't even look in the eyes of the students to form relationships that we know are important. So they have to know that we're supporting them, that those hoodies have to come off, that we have to look at our students in the eyes. It's a team effort and I know this will only be the beginning. But I appreciate you bringing the information and

112wanting to work on this. It's a lot of work. I appreciate you supporting the discipline piece. And I look forward to you continuing to do that in our schools with our teachers and our staff. I think this is the work that we have all done. Because I know this is a very difficult and a very uncomfortable time to get through that. Suspension list is next. So 5.0. 06, suspension. I would like to answer any questions I can. any specifics on individual students this includes all-terrain suspension center uh students as well as our school suspension students you'll see both on your spreadsheet i don't think there was attachment on the executive yeah i'll check to make sure i was still logged in no it's not there's no attachment there's nothing out of the ordinary per se

113i have a question um about the baby yes ma'am i'm sure that that has become more prevalent are you seeing more we're seeing it about where it was before we shut down so last year obviously we didn't have any but we didn't no i also didn't have any we didn't i think some of those cases that were last the seven cases were kind of waiting cases but I don't think it's received more of it, but I don't think it's at the point where it was in 2019 when it was really getting harder. Some people, due to COVID and some of the things with some families have realized it's not and some families aren't accepting of it at home right now, that was, but we are seeing it with some of our students. The vaping and

114other tobacco use in school. Anecdotally, Dr. Brown has shared, you know, as he's dealt with students that have been vaping, that a lot of these reported that being at home a year by themselves that they've kind of built some some many of those conversations already this year some of these kids are getting just states versus saving with thc uh if it's a thc ss marijuana offense they come to the board what we do if there's a situation where we think it could be thc involved it will be tested if this field tested and comes back with thc we come to the school board yes ma'am you have a question on this chair yes ma'am I don't have a question on the suspension, but I had COVID questions I forgot. Okay, go back. Yes, ma'am. Sorry

115to take you back. No, you're fine. So, do you track when we have the quarantines because someone in a class has tested positive or whatever and staff and students have to quarantine, do you track of those people who are quarantined if any of them report in positive? Do you track that separately? This reported if they report back at positive that gets reported to the VDH. No, I mean, are you tracking it as they were quarantined and now they have it too? Yes. You do? So you have that information? Yes. Can you send that to me? I have to compile it, but I can get it for you. Yes. So I would like to see of quarantined people. Do you know who's vaxxed versus unvaxxed? Not unless the parents tell us. Not unless the parents tell

116us. And if they tell us they're vaccinated, unless they're displaying symptoms, they would not necessarily be required to quarantine. So that's kind of how we figure that out. They said, well, my daughter's vaccinated and they don't have any symptoms. So that's how we figure some information out when we quarantine people. But we don't have a database from the state that gives us what students are vaccinated and what students are not. So if you need me to email specifically, what I'd like to see is when a quarantined kids and staff, whatever, because of an person who tested positive, how many are testing positive as a result? If it's tracking to that case? Yes. And also, do you think that our policy for quarantine when you're around or you're in the exposed situation is the same as

117or more stringent than CDC guidelines? CDC guidelines recommends 14 days. They did say you can go to 7 and get tested and return. If you're tested negative at day 7, we can do that. But what we found was earlier in the year with students and staff, they were getting tested on day 5. testing negative and on day eight they were testing positive so we went to the 10 days as a result of that so we were then we're kind of in the middle of cdc guidelines there's a low end of seven there's a high end of 14. and we're talking about determining who has to quarantine based on based off of that based off no based off of a person testing positive that person calls in my kids positive so you got to determine now

118who needs to quarantine because of exposure to that person yes Is that policy the same as or do you think it's more stringent than CDC's? I think we follow this guidance, the three feet, six foot guidance is what we look at. Now the issue gets us when we're eating. You don't look at masks for. Yeah, three foot with a mask, six foot. Six foot. Yes. three foot without that so those with the mask guidance if it's within three to six feet but also have to look at um the guidance of if they're eating together and if they're within 60 while eating without a mask and that would put them and is vaccinated and unvaccinated treated differently vaccinated would not need to quarantine as long as they're just not displaying symptoms and only unvaccinated has to

119quarantine yes ma'am regardless of if they were wearing a mask and the person who was there if they're vaccinated By CDC guidance, they're not required to quarantine unless they're displaying symptoms. But if they're unvaccinated? If they're unvaccinated, not wearing a mask within six feet, they quarantine. If they're wearing a mask within three feet, they're quarantined. If they're wearing a mask in six feet, do we care about that? They're outside of the three-foot double. It took a long time to get there, but okay. Thank you. Sorry. Madam Chair, members of the board, you have at your place the budget monitoring reports, the revenue receipts for through the month of September 2021. The only concern, as Dr. Wills commented earlier, is there's a possibility that we may be over in the fuel line. Based on the calculations

120right now, it could be up to $35,000. How do we cover that? Based on calculations for electric currently, we should have enough money in that line to cover the $35,000 overage. I would be glad to answer any questions. Is that if rates stay the same, or is that taking into consideration? That would be based on the rates right now. And our understanding is because of the oil spill in California, that's what's over 70 rates up. We are hoping that as they get... everything taken care of that rates will come back down and stabilize a little bit which will help we also that being said we could go up probably up to fifty to seventy five thousand dollars in the red and still be covered for the savings in the lecture as long as those costs

121stay the same the questions it's good to know we have that cushion if you want you know the question from this madam chair members of the board you have at your place the um School activity fund audit for the 2021 school year. You will note that we did have several notations. Monallison Middle School had a notation of receipts. Amherst Elementary, signature on the checks. There were several at the beginning of the year that was corrected later on. Central Elementary School, the bank statement was not turned in in a timely manner. That was corrected. And Madison Heights Elementary School, they had some receipts and the bank statement. And that's been corrected. The auditors did discuss this with them, and we discussed it with the principals. And we will continue to work with our principals. That being

122said, I would like to thank the secretaries and bookkeepers for all of their hard work in keeping our books great. Absolutely. And the principals for overseeing that. Thank you. Mr. Maddox will be doing that presentation tonight. Madam Chair, members of the board, back in the spring we applied for the Jobs for Virginia Graduates program. It's a grant. This summer we were notified we received the grant. We're one of 53 schools in the state of Virginia to have this grant. It's a $30,000 grant. The JVG program is to assist at-risk and disadvantaged youth graduating from high school and then obtaining and keeping quality jobs. The program features a combination of both in-school and out-of-school services provided by a job specialist in order to foster skills needed to obtain employment and to continue their education upon graduation.

123Miss Becky Boo, that you all met last year, is going to serve as our job specialist for the program because a large part of the program and the skills curriculum aligns with what we're doing in our work baseline. A curriculum outlined through the program includes career planning and decision making, job seeking, job retention, leadership, self-development, and personal skills. Participants in the program have access to meaningful job opportunities with advanced placement potential. Job ready and motivated students involved in the JAG program are matched with highly skilled and high wage careers. Post graduation follow ups are provided to their employers. 12 months of follow up assistance year to facilitate student success with the transition into the labor market and our post-secondary education is made available for those who complete the program. So we're not only going to

124be assisting the students, we're also going to be working with employers for a year after graduation. Grant funding is available to this program. We're going to introduce the students to job opportunities and hopefully, if COVID stays and we can do some field trips to businesses, that's where most of the grant funding is going to be. And right now, we had an advisory meeting this past Tuesday. We have 45 students signed up for the program as of right now. Any questions? thank you thank you madam chair i just want to personally thank you because i'm a product of cte and it was near and dear to my heart when i was vying for the school board and i love that it's coming back to schools period but the hard work that you and amherst put into

125it is just phenomenal and i thank you the folks that put that work in are the folks that my instructors And if you come by and go into some of our CTE labs, we've got the best instructors in the state. So next, the next one, we've got CTE Academy. This year was open to seniors during the 2021-22 school year. Currently, we have 14 students participating in the following programs. Boyd Criminal Justice, Human Health Sciences, Three in information systems technology, one in cyber security, one in EMT paramedic, two in welding, and one in electrical technology. He knows we have a couple welding and we have an EMT which we offer at the high school. But the two students in welding, they're seniors and just now figured out that, hey, I want to be a welder. So

126we had the opportunity where we didn't before because of our classes being so full to send those students to CVCC to Wilming. Same thing with EMT. We have an EMT program but it's year long. This student wants to go EMT to paramedic, which they'll be able to do at the CTE Academy. They'll do EMT first semester and then they'll do the paramedic second. So that's the reason that students there and that's more opportunities. We're also providing transportation for six of the participating students. And your students can obtain a degree or certificate in program designed for specific career pathways needed by local employers. And also at the conclusion or completion of the program, students can either go directly into the workforce or they can continue their education. And right now, the cost is approximately $161 per

127credit hour. And depending on the program you're in, it depends on the number of hours. And whether you're going in to just get your certificate or if you're going to come out with full credits and a degree. Questions? So I want to connect the two things that he was talking about, the regional CTU Academy and the jobs for Virginia graduates. I told you earlier that I've been named chairperson of the education group for the CTU Regional Academy and the work that we've already done this fall. We now have a partnership with the Old Dominion Job Corps, BWXT, and CBCC. and what this program will do since the Old Dominion Job Corps gets federal funding to help at risk youth. The program that we can offer, so our students don't have to go to Old Dominion

128Job Corps, they just have to commit to being a part of this program, is that it's for 18 to 24 year olds. So these are students that will graduate or have already graduated that meet those those poverty criteria to be a part of the program. But what the Old Dominion Job Corps will provide those students if they choose to attend the CTE Regional Academy, they will pay tuition, they'll pay books. they'll pay a twice weekly stipend they will give them clothes to wear to school they'll give them a lunch per diem they will if they graduate with a 3.0 they will be enrolled in the bwxt program the job placement program where jobs in those areas start at 25 27 an hour and so this is this is something that we've connected through jobs for

129virginia graduates the future center at the high schools of those students that are getting ready to leave our schools and are not particularly sure what they want to do this is a great incentive for our students to to find something that they can be passionate about and really the thing is they build themselves a career and so just really good news all around with our our cte program in-house and at the regional cte we're really proud of all the stuff that we've been able to accomplish with that. With that being said, our first field trip for our jobs with junior graduates is going to be to the CTE again. So we can take them over there and show them the skills and the career choices, what they need to do, and get them excited about

130something. So that's going to be our first field trip. We hope to do that sometime in November. Okay, last memo I have is on HB 1491, which is now part of the Code of Virginia, which prior to each public school provides to any enrolled student who is a voter page or otherwise is eligible to register for access to Virginia voter registration information and applications or access the Virginia online voter registration system on a school-owned computing device. opportunity to complete such application during the course of the normal school day. So our students at the high school right now that were born before November 2nd of 2002, we're going to offer this in our government classes because that aligns with our curriculum and we're going to do the NAPCS one group before November the 2nd and then

131we'll probably do it again. at the end of spring at some point parents were provided a letter which you should have attached outlining hb 1491 as well as an opportunity for their student to decline participation and registering to a vote any questions mr maddox yeah um i want to thank you for this right here just because i know um i'm not running for school board this year it's not my year but a couple years ago when i was getting petitioned i was shocked to find out how many people in our county are not registered to vote and it was it was it was it took me aback to find out and so to make it present for our our youth to step up and do the do the american thing patriotic thing let's vote get

132out and vote uh find a candidate and uh also congratulations on the cte stuff this is awesome yeah not every kid's ready to go to college uh give them skills come right out of school Get them to work. It's a great thing. Yes, sir. Yes, ma'am. Senator B, Madam Chair, members of the board. I'd like to place you on a summer impact report from the YMCA, from our summer power scholarly program. Due to staffing concerns, things got a little bit later than we typically do. We wanted you to take a look at this and see some additional data. on our summer program this year. Some of it is in addition to what we had shared previously in regards to gains specifically that students made. What I really wanted to call your attention to was the

133feedback from the staff that worked the program as well as the families that were involved in the program. Overwhelmingly positive about the impact to them personally as well as to the students. It's always great to see that feedback from staff and from families about how these programs are going and how they feel this is going to be beneficial. for students as we move forward. So very, very pleased as always with that Power Scholars program. It's great to get this report from them and kind of see some of that in a more detailed way, but wanted to make sure that you had received a copy of that and were able to review some of that additional data that they pull as a part of their program. I know you're just getting it now, but happy to

134answer any questions you might have now or as you review at Movement 4, can certainly address any questions you might have. It's really great that we had the participation that we had. And the data that you've captured is, I think, really telling to the program. So thank you, staff, for doing that. I think the gains for the students have been official. And we all know we've got that learning gap to close. Absolutely. Thank you for doing that. Yes. Medicaid? Yes, ma'am. I wanted to bring an update on our status moving towards Medicaid reimbursement progress we've been making there. Continue to work with Ms. Crouch on this. And we've also pulled in Ms. Libby Cassini from my office to be a part of our team as well. She's going to be helping us out. I'm happy

135to report that we are in the final stages of paperwork. I thought in my line of work I understood what a lot of paperwork was. I did not, apparently, get to get to this. We have a great partner in PCG. They're kind of walking us through the final stages of what that is. I believe we have two more pieces of paper to file and we have one more agreement with PCG. I think that's where we are at this point. We're very excited. Ms. Cassie and myself are going to be in training the entire week of the 25th this month. Training is being offered through BDOE for new Medicaid coordinators as well as just kind of pointers for those that have been doing it for a while so we're doing everything. Getting our big crash course

136and all this looks like a PCG is also taking us through and just for a modern PCG is the company that runs our online program for all of our documents related to special education. There's a fold in there where we can do Medicaid reimbursement in the same system, which is essential for our workers that are working with those students really streamlines that process. Their administrative training is also that week. So we're going to have a week of training on Medicaid. And Libby is very excited that we work with her on that. In November, we're going to be rolling out training for users, so actually getting our staff that are going to be conducting those services trained on the system and up on that. They've been looking at some links to other resources that have been

137sent previously to prepare for it, but that's really where they're going to get that hands-on time with PCG as an organization, which will put us in a place to actually begin Medicaid reimbursement. So we are hoping that by... before the end of this calendar year we will be up and running all that data will be loaded and we'll be ready to go certainly about the start of the school year will be fully operational with what we aspire to be for this year so glad we are nearing the finish line of the preparatory phases there and glad to be getting into something that's actually going to look like so happy answering questions you might have ms kraft should be happy to have any additional input you might have before but any questions at all I had

138a quick question. With the discussion of SEL and everything tonight and the need for more counseling, would there be a way to... tap into the Medicaid money to possibly bring in some extra counselors to the school to actually help out with some of our issues? So counseling is, and I guess you'd say an allowable expense or reimbursable expense through Medicaid. There are certain requirements in regards to credentials. So looking at school counselors versus those that would have some kind of type of different licensure as it relates to counseling. So there would be some stipulations on that side. we probably have to look at different staff or differently licensed staff would be the way to say it but that is something that's available through medicaid reimbursement all right thank you so much and thank you so

139much for all the hard work i really appreciate it absolutely we're almost there you too mrs crouch all right now chair members of the board you have in front of you at your place this month's vacancy report just to show what positions are still open reflects you know we've hired some and have some still open for your review and I would say sadly we have an addition this month in the bottom left corner that's new from last month which is chief financial officer that's something in the near future but if you have any questions regarding any of these positions I'm happy to answer any of those pretty set this plan to open does anyone have any questions on this calendar at this time One question, I apologize. Is there any incentives that we're putting out

140there to help bring in, like for the bus drivers, to help them out? I see for bus drivers, we're in need of four bus drivers. We are, and that has gone up with two individuals, new vacancies. We do not have any hiring incentives, if that's what you're asking. Does that include aides also, or just strictly drivers right now? This is drivers, but I don't know that we have... you know see any significant aid positions open i think those are covered so these are driver positions thank you um mr gallagher um i've been hearing from i think a lot of the teachers at the high school maybe in the secondary world where we're having to pull instructional aids to cover classes and i know in the world of covid and all of that that we are

141short-handed so i get that but I understand that maybe mr. neighbors with you being here that a lot of them are being pulled from the special ed departments and that there's some concern what I'm hearing from the teachers is not a negative thing of oh I'm overworked which I know they are but the times they've approached me and I can say there's been about four or five recently their concerns are for our children and the services that they are receiving So my question is, as a board, if that's happening, are there ways that we can support that? Do we need additional instructional aides to help cover classes so that the special ed aides can continue doing their services? I just know that that's been a concern. The services to those students are most of all

142students are important, of course. But, you know, the special ed students are the subgroup that really struggles. And we need to make sure their services are being met from a legal perspective as well. So talk to me about that and how we as a board can support that to help. I mean, like I said, the teachers that have said it have not approached me and, oh my gosh, you're taking my aid and I have so much work to do, which they admit they have a lot of caseloads and they do have more work, but they're having to cover the aid's jobs plus what they're doing. And they did it without complaining. They're more concerned about our children. multiple facets to that question first and foremost we do have to make sure that we recognize the

143absolute need not to pull anybody from providing special education services so in any situation where we hear individuals and assistants being pulled we do investigate those to make sure that every effort is made one if there are individuals who are not special education in nature as an assistant that that is an individual who gets pulled first of course you know as we continue to populate our substitute we're able to do that less and there are other provisions especially at the high school where teachers can fill in during their planning periods but what we have to do is make sure that people are being proactive and if there's ever a situation where an individual or an assistant who is assigned special education responsibilities is pulled that we are looking at making sure there's not an impact

144in the class they're getting pulled from. And if that were ever to happen and be reported, then we certainly would have an obligation to make that up. But I know that we're very active in any situation where that occurs or has been brought to our attention to ensure that we're not jeopardizing student services in our actions to do that. Now, as far as hiring additional, that's the second part, instructional assistants in the general education realm. We would love to do that. We do still have those positions open where we are. actively attempting to hire those in our primary funded FTE positions which are mostly special education. And so for the high school, for example, we had just hired one and then ultimately came back that that individual was not able to take the position. So

145things happen where we're trying to make efforts and we've had just hired four individuals. in the IA ranks as of yesterday. So those will be dispersed out to different situations and different buildings. But those individuals are there to support students in the classroom. And if there's ever situations where they're asked to be pulled into coverage, we need to be very clear that that can't be done if we're jeopardizing student services. So there have to be other options aside from having them do that. Just to add to what Mr. Gallagher was saying, I would welcome additional staff in reverse to having additional bodies in the building. I know a lot of conversations I've had with administrators, that would be a welcome thing indeed. Ultimately, the conversations that I'm having with them, when we're talking about coverage

146of services and making sure compliance is where it needs to be, it's really, it's there, but it's also the conversation about where we have holes in the building that just have to be filled on a particular day, especially with some of the volume of absences that we've had. and i'll give all credit as you did already to our staff because they are filling in they're making sure our students are getting what they need and it's a lot of work to make sure that's happening but i'll just uh advocate for administrators and staff who are ultimately doing the work but in this ratio we're trying to make some of those puzzles fit together i think any and all support from a positional standpoint we can give them would be so what i'm hearing is that you're

147looking to hire staff but we're struggling to do that and mr neighbors you're saying that you would welcome that if we can find it i would and again mr gallow to point out we are working hard to fill some of those slots that are still open on my side so actual special education staff and there's been a myriad of reasons why we haven't been able to fill quite all of those yet but i think even with those positions filled on most days we're still playing that game to try to figure out where all those positions get slotted and how they recognize the need and you're trying to work on that so I guess the message to the teachers is you're doing the best you can to try to fill those. Yeah, and that is a

148good message, and that we are hearing that, and we are aware, and we're very active in trying to do that. And I would love to be able to hire additional individuals, so we do continue. We do have spots out there that we can fill, and we're really trying hard to do that. Thank you. Madam Chair, if I could please ask another question. Abby just reminded me about some conversations I had earlier on in the month. with some of our teachers and our SPED teachers. And they were talking about students that were coming in, they were being tested, but they were just showing a severe delay because everything had dealt with COVID. So they're not qualifying for IEPs or 501s. Do we have something in place that could help catch these students and help them that

149are suffering right now and lacking, you know? but progressing educationally as it appears? Yeah, absolutely. So our intervention and support teams at each school are looking at those individual situations and it's always an individual student determination. I will tell you, we've had a significant influx and not necessarily our students coming back in, but transfer students that quite frankly just fell off the grid last year. So they have a missing year of education, really trying to get up to speed with where those students are, what access they've actually had. to instruction there's a lot of factors that we look at in regards to eligibility for plans those intervention support teams are tasked with evaluating each individual student and developing an intervention plan for them to make sure we're meeting those needs if the student comes in

150not having had that access and they're showing progress that's good that's what we want to happen if all those interventions are put into place and we're still not seeing the progress we need to that's where we talk about some of those referrals for additional services and supports but That's really what IST is the abbreviation for. That's what they exist to do, is to identify those particular kids and try to put those interventions in place. Thank you so much. For your collaborative and co-teaching support with the vacancy list, I appreciate that very much. If there aren't any other questions, I'll move on to the next piece, which is bringing back the discussion for a potential vote tonight on our proposed. You had asked me in a previous session to bring you some suggestions for how to

151kind of... improve or provide other options with our emergency sick leave policy, our current one. Our current policy does provide 10 days of emergency sick leave that's been approved for individuals who are quarantined due to being considered close contact. with an individual who's positive in the school setting. So to date, that began on October 1st, because September 30th was the last day of the previous emergency sick leave, FFCRA. So from October 1st forward, we currently have only eight individuals impacted by that. Those are individuals who have been out on quarantine. and about 50 days total of sick leave used from personal times. It's about six on average per person having to use their sick leave personally because they didn't meet the criteria of being quarantined due to close contact. They either develop symptoms, they're exposed

152and develop symptoms, something in the community, family, otherwise, or actually had COVID. The question was, do we provide further protection so that individuals do not have to use their own personal sick leave? And that was a discussion that you all were going to have and decide if you wanted to adopt all or part. the areas that were proposed you know two through four or additional pieces that used to be in our FFCRA that no longer exists and of course we did start with the most here so we put 20 days you all could decide you want to give 10 additional days you can add any of these other three areas for protection or you can do none of those and continue with our current policy but I just wanted to revert back to it because

153we provided it previously for your request and if you had time to discuss it you may decide to vote on that in any form, whether you want to modify what's currently there or adopt it as is to provide support to those who may be impacted due to COVID. I'm happy to discuss and take questions. Boyd, we had some conversation about this a couple weeks ago. Where are we on this now? Madam Chair, I'm assuming that from what I've seen personally, my personal experience is a lot of the administrators are trying to work out the whole work from home aspect anyway, right? We don't have anybody in... It varies. It varies on position, for one, and capability. So there have been some who have been approved to do so. And the capability is do you feel

154well enough and are you capable enough to broadcast into that classroom facilitated to provide instruction. And if you're not a teacher, of course, then any other. And of the eight, I think we have six who are teachers and two who are classified. So it does impact others. Do we have a guesstimate on the cost that different programs would be on the school? I think we brought some of that previously. Is that correct, Ms. Crouch? I don't have, I mean, not per school, but I mean just general how much it cost previously when we implemented it under FFCRA. But some of that cost also was the fact that they weren't taking their leave. So it was more so, I don't have those numbers back in front of me again today. I know we discussed those numbers.

155While you're discussing, I'll run to my office. And it's not a, it wasn't a per building, but just basically a general overall numbers and division total. And we tried to get some differentiation and then break those totals down to exactly what they meant, whether that was substitute coverage, which we have to provide anyway, or they're the actual days out and then not taking their leave and basically paying them without having to use leave, which was the most substantial portion of that. very significant portion of that and i wish i don't want to try to guess the numbers because i can't have them back in my head right now um so when when someone is out if it's a teacher or moving on to a teacher that would be out on quarantine or you know whatever

156reason that they could still teach from home is it possible we would also have a sub for that person It's possible and sometimes it is possible to put a sub in there to be the facilitator of that instruction or if they have for example a general education instructional assistant who is hired through COVID funds for example that would be the most ideal situation of that level of an individual they could also facilitate that classroom. Sometimes you have someone who might be there who typically might be supervising ISS for example but they don't have individuals in there and their general education is not jeopardizing supports And they can be a facilitator in there potentially. So not ideal, but yes. Typically, you would have a substitute there. I know the principals have stepped in at times to

157be the facilitator if need be in some schools. And I guess at the end of the day, we won't stop a quarantine. We're not going to stop a contraction. So, I mean, we just need to ensure that the whole purpose is to give safeguards and insurance to the staff to let them know that their income will continue. I forgot what we were talking about the hybrid program and the effect on that with the sick, the short-term disability. Was there any kind of... Was there just, we were talking about doing something with it. I can't remember if there was some follow-up. You think you were talking about the sick bank? Yes. Yeah. I think Mrs. Crouch explained that. Okay. And why we couldn't. Well, it's... It's unequal because of the different VRS plans. And so of

158the individuals who have been impacted, again, this isn't necessarily trying to differentiate between who's vaccinated and unvaccinated because anybody could have COVID and get COVID. I mean, it does cross over, and so it's a blend, and I don't have those numbers, obviously. But the individuals who, because there have been several other individuals on our list, but they are quarantined. I think two individuals since October 1 have been quarantined and met the criteria as close contacts and those would typically be unvaccinated individuals so they wouldn't be quarantined but they had those protections under the ACPS sick leave policy. The thing about the support staff we just heard from the bus drivers tonight and yeah yeah I mean I know the wage issue but you undercut and don't even give them enough sick days to make a

159compounds thing so I mean I'm in favor of how it's presented to approve it. If there's no more discussion, I'll make a motion. My last point is that I just wanted, because we talked about increasing this in two ways, areas that could be covered in a number of days. And so last year, the FFCRA, though it was reauthorized several times, was 10 days total. This is 20, but again, the FFCRA once was reauthorized with a whole new 10-day bank, and that was on April 1st. So, I mean, whether or not you keep it as is, modify it, again, that's in your court. So when I proposed this, it wasn't like I was trying to say you absolutely should do this number of days. You asked me for a couple of different versions, and I'm just

160asking you all, you know, be thoughtful in how you approach it and the determinations you make that that's what's there available for you. Well, in our conversations, I think we arrived at 20 if the other funds were not going to be renewed, and they weren't. September 30th, that was it. So I think we were all comfortable with knowing 20 was the number. I was just making sure. Always good to make sure. And I know that, Mr. Kreiser, I'd be concerned in the financial implication before we did a vote. It would be nice to be able to do all of these. If we could not, the things that I would make as a priority is if the employee is placed on quarantine due to being identified as a close contact, that's number one. That was beyond

161the employee's control. That was part of their hazard of being at work. I think that one, at least I would like to see stay. The other one is if they contract COVID, there could be an association with contracting that at school. And I think that one would be essential to me. The other ones I think are nice, but I don't know that everybody in the workforce has those other ones. so i don't know what kind of financial implications this is going to have if we were to look at 20 days for numbers one through four could you could would it be not perfect to split it up and maybe offer five or ten days from four or three i don't know yeah this makes things kind of murky i i would agree i think one

162and two are still i would be fine with that it's a gesture and three could be narrowed down to the exposure tested positive for exposure in the school right there's no no way to actually no way to absolutely determine that you may trace it back as a probability due exposure but there's really no way to prove sure you actually caught that in that setting that would be debatable in other words so um i should know the answer to this because of what i do but number four i know initially was um part of the covid mandate for sick leave is it not anymore It was part of the FFCRA. It's not part of our policy that we haven't placed since October 1st, but that was part of the Family's First Coronavirus Response Act. Yeah, that's

163right. I believe I walked in when you were talking about the different VRS. Yeah. So if you're in the hybrid program, the hybrid VRS, and you contacted COVID, then that does qualify you after five days. If the doctor takes you out because he has concern that you could possibly be tested positive, that qualifies you after the first five days. But it does not qualify if your child is exposed and you have to take care of your child. It doesn't take you out if you have not tested positive. So those are and it's just for the employee. It doesn't cover if you're having to take care of your family or parents or anything else. Now remember we were talking about that they only pay 60% on the short term and we were talking about using that

164leave to supplement the 40%. Would that create an imbalance for people on VRS plan 1 and VRS plan 2? because if they could stretch that 20 days out even farther if you only use 40% of the time you know saying yeah yeah well that's just for sick back unless you want to cross over my making I have to step that came up as a idea so that's we could make it so they couldn't use this to supplant the the short term stuff, right? Okay. Well, if they met the criteria, could they not use a third of a day, you know, as their day? You know, the offset would be their day if they met the criteria. Would that make sense? I think we're talking about that. If we stick here, I think you need the

165numbers. Y'all need the projections, right? Yeah. Basically, there was 1,383 days missed the last year. 441 days That equated to approximately $112,000. The 942 equated to $158,000. Extra periods for teachers who were at different schools who had to cover, that was approximately $5,000. $274,926. But I guess it is, for point of clarification, to make sure I understand it. These 20 days cannot be, if we approve them, cannot be used to pull to that 40% to make up for the short-term disability, can they? So that's what I was trying to get at. My suggestion would be that if you have that benefit already and say you're out 10 days and you're getting paid two-thirds of that already, that your day, one of your 20 days, counts as the offset of each one. A whole day. That

166would be my recommendation so that it's equitable for everybody. You can't stretch out now for, you know... Exactly. That's what I was asked for the clarification. So your day, your 20 days would be 20 offsets in that regard. So 23rd day is just an offset which you're already getting covered so you're not getting additional coverage to be out what others are receiving. Yes. That's what I would promote. Yes. do you get what i'm saying yeah make the motion like that and all that all that so we all are clear is there any more discussion though are we saying are we saying one or two is that what time is it well is it one or two or one and three i'm sorry until i can have a cold i go to get tested is that

167applied like we can go with three well isn't that kind of like a quarantine where you can't come to school right can i you know if you're getting tested if you're symptomatic and getting tested you can't come to work if you're getting tested with no results to come back therefore you would have to be quarantined waiting those results so All right, and then three would be, and if you're tested positive, if that result comes back positive, then obviously you're positive, you have to be out. But we would quarantine you. If you have no symptoms, the doctor recommends you get tested. Then I would not want you coming to work until I've had those results. You need to provide every opportunity from working from home where available. One, two, and three. And just so I know

168about the financial implications, when we did this last year, did we have all four? We did. These all come from FFCRA. It may have been one additional. And FFCRA, I provided that to you in the past. I don't have it in front of me. They have one additional coverage that we all have here. But these were all included in the FFCRA that we were providing. That's correct. There are no additions that were not provided in the previous policy. Okay. And if the employee is out using their own fund, their own sick leave, or whether we're giving it to them, we're still going to have to hire a substitute. Because that really does not impact our decision here. Correct. So can you narrow down for me the cost from last year without substitutes and give me

169a total? I think your last total was about the substitute coverage whereas the others were just for the exempt date. Because we did this last award meeting I think predominantly. I would put it somewhere around $175,000. And then my next question is do we have funds to cover that? Right now we do. Right now we do. And it also helps. And I believe Mr. Gallagher, you can help me. We have five full-time teachers who assist with subbing. I think right now we have three that are available to rotate. different areas when that happens if someone is out they can take over the classroom and that's not additional pay that we're having to pay them because that's part of their duties. Okay and we would use the CARES Act fund? Well right now we would we

170would start by using our substitute fund. Are you talking about the five people? The five people that teachers... I'm talking about the cover of this proposal. What funds would we be using? We would have to expend the money out of our budget first. So we would have to spend out our substitute loan, which is a little over $300,000. And then once that's been spent, then we could go into the CARES money. But you can't supplant CARES money using budgeted dollars. And that's what everybody's got to be careful doing, is making sure that you're taking care of what's in your budget first before you go to CARES. So if we do this, you think we'll be okay financially? That's why I'm here. At this point in time. At this point in time. Well, and I do

171believe it will make people feel supported and they will appreciate it because I know there are people who are nervous about that. It will be beneficial in that regard as well. One, two, three. We haven't had much conversation about that. If they're quarantined, if the kid is quarantined because they're exposed at school, they're living in the same house, they're all schooled. And they didn't... they're going to be staying home yeah well they wouldn't necessarily be staying home if they're vaccinated that's true that's true right they wouldn't be quarantined in other words they may choose to stay home or have to because of lack of child care but they wouldn't unless they were they were exposed and unvaccinated then yes they also would be yeah but right now we would quarantine one student and they're simply

172not be quarantined i know i ran into that last year that's correct that's right correct it's just on if it's just based on an exposure Then yes, if that sibling was positive, then the other sibling would be quarantined as well. Well, I meant from exposure and during the school. From exposure, yes. All right. So I'll make a motion that we approve the conditions outlined, approve this policy with the conditions outlined in 1, 2, and 3, and that the days for the offset be used for those on the higher grant. one too much uh that the that each is a day for each offset so that it's equal to all uh employees and i can ask them the perfect language too yeah you reflect that the intent would be to make what we discussed with the

173offsets um i'd like to second and probably move to second the next is our students are back or at least one of our students is back cc is playing volleyball tonight and so uh we have Peter Garrison here and he's going to share some information with you. Peter? Good evening everyone. So it's been a bit but I wanted to give a little bit of information on what's been going on in the schools that I've observed that's been, at least for me, kind of cool. First off, everything that I've seen at the high school and the governor's school has been going really well with how everything's been going. I'm really pleased with scheduling how the week-long schedules working out for quarantining and all that stuff. I just wanted to let you guys know, I think it's

174going pretty well. Currently there are quite a few positive STEM-based things going on at schools that I've seen. First off, I had the opportunity through my internship with Mr. Cargill and the tech team to see the robotics and engineering class at Amherst Middle School. I think it's a really great opportunity that they're doing there in school as a class that can really set people up to have that base in physics and potentially even later on some more programming stuff. More personal to me, The Manalas Middle School Robotics team is doing really well this year. We just had a meeting this afternoon. We have the competition on November 20th in Salem. I'll be sending information to you guys if you wish to go, but it's going to be in person, and I'm really excited about it.

175Because last year, it was virtual. It was fine, but it was, as with everything, it was a little bit painful. At the high school, we recently started an eSports team. that will begin competing in the spring. For those that don't know, esports is the virtual competitions. Currently, we are doing that through the Virginia High School League, which means that they're officially recognized sports, get funding, and all those types of things. For a little bit of context on that, only games that do not have guns are recognized for that at this point in time. So any concerns about that are not issues for the time being. There are other programs that are being considered that you support those types of games, but as of right now they are not competing in those games Currently there are

176plans for more clubs at the high school What form that will take is to be determined whether that is after school clubs with a lot more topics or during the school day It looked like a Friday flex period kind of thing. That's to be determined, but there was a student interest survey that went out a few weeks ago that got interest for all the different clubs and see what students want to learn about, which is pretty cool. And currently I'm working on another student survey that can, they'll just get information on what classes they might want to have, what they're thinking about in school year so far, whether they like this new schedule, what they're thinking about, everything along those lines. If there's any questions about anything like that, I can answer them real quick.

177But that's about it for now. A quick question. What are the virtual sports or games? What is that? So, I'm sure, video games? Certain video games are online. Video games. Basically, esports are typical sports in a virtual setting. So different games that support online play and competition are officially organized through the Virginia High School League. And then students at the high school, they are getting computers and stuff at the high school to compete. They will work together just like a sports team would compete together like a sports team just in a virtual setting instead of in person. These events are able to be viewed. Obviously not physically because it's on a computer, but there will be live streams and all that to see it going. So it's like sports, but you're doing it as a

178game or is this just like gaming turned into a sport? Is it more like a fantasy football type deal? The students are playing the game. It's not betting or anything. They are competing themselves and working with their teammates to win. So the VHSL has identified five, I think it was five different programs that they can play, different games they can play. And that's all VHSL noted. So we've been actually, the Ed Foundation received some grants for that. We're looking at funding, helping to buy some of the materials back to the Education Foundation. But VHSL, VHSL recognizes contests, so they actually get to do that from the, and compete against other schools across the state. So they have competitions and playoff and all that type of stuff. But they play the video games that speak against

179each other. There are I think the high school is currently offering three games that a lot of colleges look at and they watch the competitions and everything and offer scholarships and everything like that. It might sound absurd but I believe one of them is League of Legends. I think Smite is the second one and then there's one other one I can't quite remember it off the top of my head and they're considering a few more to add that are like more Nintendo based games as well. There are other programs, like I said, but there's some serious money being made in this. There's one competition a while ago that one person won $2 million from winning a few games. Yeah, I think the value though the real value is that there this is going to capture

180a lot of students that wouldn't normally participate in any of our other extracurriculars and so we know how important that is to keep our students engaged so this is really a good I think it's great and my three older boys are going to be very depressed that they're still not in school Well, I'm what dr. Arnold said Having more clubs like this with all the discussion earlier about you know making the connections that can help with discipline and everything I think it's really important for students to make connections with people whether that's older students who might act as mentors like at GovSchool we last year I had a senior who I worked with throughout the year who really helped in that and I did at the high school as well in ninth grade or a

181teacher or whoever it is and this is just one more way for students who aren't as outgoing for physically active events to get involved with each other and with the school and other schools as well to get more context for their world. How many kids do we have in these little clubs then? The interest meeting, there was actually quite a few. I was pretty impressed with how many decided to come. The games selected for VHSL are not the most popular ones. I don't mean that in any bad way about the games. It's just they're not the most popular ones. I thought that League of Legends was a big one. That one's a pretty big one. The other two are not quite as big. I mean, I'm sure you've all heard of Fortnite. But that one,

182because it has guns, it is not. And then like the Call of Duty and all the other ones. But the ones that are interesting, there are eight slots open, or maybe up to 11 or so, that they're going to have for the spring competition season. and they will do that and then see what the interest is, see how they do, move forward, and go from there. Now, who picks who's going to play in the competition? Since, like, a regular sport, you guys compete for your spot, how is that going to work in your virtual world? I believe that it would work similarly, but, I mean, depending on the interest level for that game, then if they can make a team, they will, and if there's too much interest for a team, then they will narrow

183that down as needed or have a second team. Going to have like a JV in a varsity? Well, it's not quite that big yet, but I'm sure that as it grows and develops, that will definitely become more the norm for esports teams. And is this opened up for a special at ALSA? As far as I'm aware, it is. It was announced and available to the whole school when I was there and heard the announcements and everything. So I can only assume. All right. Thank you so much and good luck with everything. Thank you. Peter, I'd like to compliment you for what you're doing and it sounds very exciting. And I also want to thank you for your forethought of the games and being aware of not having guns in those games. So that's much appreciated.

184Credit where credit is due. That was not my decision. I was not super involved. I don't want to take credit when I don't get it. That's a Virginia decision. A team decision? Virginia as a whole. The Virginia High School League sets the games and they take into consideration colleges that, like I said, look at the games, give scholarships or well, basically just scholarships or admittances based on those eSports. Like I said, same way with sports. And it's kind of crazy to think about, but that is the future. Well, it also made me start to think about how we put Chromebooks into the hands of our students and Are we safe guarding against those type of video games that may have guns? Do we have, I just don't know, so I'm just asking, do we have

185standards in our technology that pivots those on campus? Yeah, there are filters, and I'd have to have Mr. Goldman come give you the technical details. It's very difficult. I think it was worth noting that the Chromebooks do not support most games. They're not powerful. They're not powerful enough and they also don't allow downloads. So it would have to be browser-based games only, which often are not large enough to warrant an esports scene. Also, they do have blocks and stuff for the Google accounts of the students. I just sent you all a link. to the VHSL eSports site so you can actually see the eSports site on the VHSL website. Thank you so much. Last at our work session, I've discussed the superintendent's advisory council. We did, in fact, meet last week. Prior to that, we

186sent out a survey that asked for what are your concerns, what are things that we can do to fix those concerns, and we got back, I'd say, about 125 responses from staff. That was then sent to the committee to look at. When we met, we divided up into four groups, and we kind of... Each of the groups came to consensus on what the biggest concerns were. And what I would ask them to do is to think about it in terms of if we can solve this issue, what's going to have the greatest impact on staff and students? And so as we worked through, there were different things that were themes. A lot of worry about mitigation strategies, specifically how students are... wearing masks, those kinds of things. Mental health was in every group. Staff morale

187was a big one. Lack of resources. So the human resource piece where we've been unable to fill all of these positions. Talking about communication from central office to school or from principal to school or inner grade levels or departments how everybody's communicating with one another so I'm thankful that we have the communication plan in place to get moving forward and then the final one was teachers worried about normal year expectations in a very abnormal year you know that there are still like the state has not given us any waivers, they've not given us any flexibility, and so all of the expectations that are normally there are still there. but our staff is having to work on very different issues. And so each group chose one thing that they thought they were most passionate about that

188they could work on. So this is a working group. They're going to come up with solutions to these issues. And so one group selected the expectation piece surrounding instruction. One group selected communication. One group selected the mitigation strategies. And then the last group selected staff morale. And so they will be meeting virtually, Google Docs, those kinds of things, over the course of the month. We'll meet every month and we'll come together and work towards solutions to these issues. And then we'll go into the next group of problems. Because I think, you know, we have to... can't solve them all at the same time right it's just it's too big of a a pull so but i think it was a very positive i had several staff that were there and it was very positive folks

189understanding what kind of what the what the issues are and what how covet has been really a lot of the driving factors in why you know these other problems exist so I thought it was positive and they seemed to feel like they were involved and so I think it's a good way of getting teacher voice and teacher input on how to deal with our large division-wide issues. I can answer any questions. We're a working group. We're still in the middle of all this, but we will report every time we meet as to what's going on with that. think every school was represented larger schools had a few more people I think we had 16 folks here middle school high school elementary so it was it was good representation we had some counselors as well Second

190thing is a resolution of respect for Mr. Alan Lundweiner. That resolution is there. I have spoken with his wife, who is currently a teacher in Amherst County as well, and she approves of this. I would not do this without her permission. But tonight I'd like to ask that you guys approve us. passing this resolution and presenting it to her and her family at the next meeting. Absolutely. Honestly, I would, I mean, let's see, I was, I know we're framing it within the context of this contribution to the board, but I think there's a lot more impact there to the community than what's just in that document, but at minimum, I would make a motion to approve the resolution as presented. All in favor, of course. Yes. Thank you. And the last one is the updates

191to the MOU for the SRO program. More language in there that talked about the... relationship building from a SRO standpoint. That when SROs are in the building they should be seen as advocates for kids not as somebody that you know is there to police them. There's also language in there that we work with the Sheriff's Department to give the school system a little bit more input in things like evaluations of SROs and those kinds of things because I think in the past it was just There are employees and we'll evaluate them, but they're actually working with our staff. And so our staff should have some input in that. So I know it's a lot to read, so I'm just leaving it as you can read it. We can talk about it at the next meeting,

192but we would like to get it signed here before the new year starts. And that's all the information that I have tonight. Any questions for the superintendent on those matters? Not move by law. Mr. Terry, you want to start us off? Yes, ma'am. Comments? Yes, ma'am. So... I'm sorry. There's one thing that I needed to, because it's pretty important to share. As part of the discussion with the superintendent's advisory, a lot of discussion around time for staff. And so one of the things we're going to do, so you know we have October 22nd, which is a Friday, which is just a teacher planning day. We also had November 2nd, which is election day, which was going to be a division-wide PD day. we're going to take that away and we're just going to give it

193to teachers to do their own planning. And so I've had Mr. Gallagher do some work as well on making sure that if we do any more days like that, like as an add to the calendar, that we can still meet our 990. Because I think one of the things that we have to remember is we've already missed quite a few days. And so we've got to be really careful about how many of those days we start adding to the calendar. But as we... as we feel like we can do it uh we'll we'll bring it to you and say we'd like to do this in say january you know so so to kind of space them out over over the course of the of the year to give give them time to do some planning

194um throughout the month so it's really important to give our staff that time but i'm sorry i'm sorry mr perry i just wanted to announce that So I'll start off with addressing Mr. Porter. We're sorry if you can't hear. We're doing our best. So sometimes we do have a tendency to lean back, so we're trying. I hope we can hear better tonight. And thanks to the other speakers to come to speak tonight. I was particularly interested in hearing from the school bus drivers. I hear a lot from teachers. I hear a lot from parents. I don't often hear from school bus drivers. So thank you for that concern. I really hope we can, as a division, we can look into those issues. Welcome to the new, you know, the new assignments, Ms. Penn, Ms. Cassisi,

195and Ms. Journey. That's a great thing, great promotion for all of them. It's good to hear the COVID numbers are doing better. We have to thank the community for that. The community doing the right thing, hopefully less transmission, less people being out, all those things. So hopefully we're headed in the right direction. Peter, you're very passionate over there. I love it. it's great that's stuff we hadn't even thought about but um we hear about a lot of the other sports we don't always hear about those things so those are those are great things because there's a lot of jobs in those those uh the seat of the um stem field so that's that's a great thing that you got pushing all that um and uh mr gallagher i was sorry to hear about still all

196vacancies especially the most recent one you put on there And I'd like to thank Mr. Carter, Lance Carter, for inviting me to Fields of Faith the other night. That was a really powerful event. If you've never been, I invite you to come next year. It wasn't quite as many people as it was two years ago, but I don't think any of our events have had as many people as we had two years ago. And lastly, I want to say that I don't think there's anybody in this room who doesn't care about the mental health of our students. There are issues with some of the stuff that we've seen and I do believe it's a compromise from everybody. We've got to come to a common ground. They need help. There are issues. We can see that.

197I think everybody can see that. But we also have to support the teachers and the staff. So it's a compromise from everyone. We can get there. We were there. It's just gonna take a long road to get back to where we were. So I don't know how we get there. That's not my profession. I don't know how we get there, but I know we can. So I look forward to having input and helping with that. And hopefully everybody's seeing that, yeah, everybody's got to compromise a little bit to get to the right spot. So that's it. Thank you. Well, I'm still getting down to anything. As far as committee, Dr. Wills already hit on the CIT committee and what's going on with that. As far as remarks of the evening, I thank all those that

198came for public comment. Absolutely, I have some... drivers or history bus drivers in my family. So I can appreciate the flight there and absolutely there's just much of a part of this team and we listen and hear those concerns. Mr. Garrison, actually the more I looked at it, of course it might be my LASIK surgery, but you look like a young Joe Goldman back there with the mask on. It was like you just jumped right into that IT role perfectly. Thank you for your report and it was exciting to hear that the game clean because absolutely that I think that was kind of a segment of students that just went home in the afternoon and sat in front of their computer now they have an option to stay at school there's some engagement with with

199between staff and all that and I think that's very important and it's exciting to hear that. and like mr terry said you know just the issues that's going on we knew there were going to be issues when the school school year started back up because of the absence of students most of the students in the building last year and uh we do care about that absolutely but and likewise i want to make sure that staff is uh supported i want to make sure the students are receiving the services that they need and i mean that's overall it's every child every day and it's not said lightly so um and i'm i'm i'm committed just as much as i know the rest of the board is to find the resolution these problems that we're seeing recently

200so but uh thank you for your time um thank you ma'am i just wanted to thank everybody that came out today i think we had about 10 people actually speak today um it's always interesting you never know what you're going to get when somebody gets up there but um i took a little bit from everybody i just a lot of good ideas um I listened to a lot of, I guess, complaints. Listening to the bus drivers, I do agree. We have to do something for our bus drivers, our bus aides, our teaching assistants, our cafeteria workers, our janitors. But it all comes down to revenue, and we've got to get more revenue for the school. Also for the SEL, you know, I'm not totally against it. I just don't like some of the stuff that

201comes in the back of a lot of the different programs. I think it would be great if we could build one that would actually consist of Amherst County values by Amherst County people. And Peter, I think you're adorable. You were just so enthusiastic about your virtual sports. I'm happy for you. And I can't wait to go home and tell my boys about your virtual sports because they do their games all the time. And you're like, but mom, we can make money doing this. I guess now they can. But thank you so much, Peter. You put a smile on my face tonight. Thank you, everyone. Okay, Governor's School didn't have a meeting this month, so there's no update on that. And I have a lot of thank yous first to go over, which is thank you

202to all the speakers that come and give us feedback or opinions. Thank you to the bus drivers for that information. One of my near and dear friends is a bus driver. So I agree with what was said tonight that it's not just driving a bus anymore. some of these people are almost on the verge being counselors themselves to some of these children and So it's an important job and it should be recognized as such. Thank you to Peter I agree with everything everyone has said you look like Joe and it's my face too But I hear from the student side and you point what's going on there? and as always thank you to all the staff of Amherst County public school systems and the Like Dr. Wells said earlier, the social-emotional learning words are kind

203of a lightning rod. I agree with that. But also, you know, we operate in a state that the downward pressure from Richmond is felt, and the concerns are valid that we have with some of these programs. And I would like to see parental involvement, and I would like to see what it is we want to do as a school. not dismiss valid concerns where something that I wanted to be more for Amherst County. We represent Amherst County and I wanted to be more of what we want for our community and our students coming out of the school than what this administration in this state seems to want. So that's all I have to say. Before I go into my closing thoughts, I wanted to ask a question and to thank you. I noticed in our

204packet, Ms. Mullenkamp, you provided to Dr. Norman the opt-out data for us. And I want to say that I really appreciate that because I value, well, with not a lot of people up to now, I value parents having that option. That gives them some input into their students' education. So I thank you. And my one question is, in preparation for this, when calls were made to make sure parents had really decided to opt out, did you see a difference in the number that you pulled versus what you're reporting here? I'll just come up here. There was a difference. And I think part of it has to do with... The opt-out form itself is part of the registration forms and it can be a little confusing and if someone isn't reading very closely they might click

205things. And then upon further reading, realized, oh, I made a mistake. But you can't unclick once you've clicked those buttons. And so, yes, there were a bunch of parents who had clicked to opt out. But then once they were contacted, they were like, I just had a problem with the form and couldn't unclick it. I'm totally fine with you working with my child. So there was a significant difference. I don't know the exact numbers. I can try to find out. Would you like that? Well, I guess if that's a problem, the way that it's being implemented at the beginning of the year, if the numbers are... right really that's important yeah they want to look at how we're offering yeah so you know that might be something valuable for us correct yeah I value it

206I do want parents to make sure that they know what they're doing exactly yeah I think we need to look at the form itself and see how we can make it clearer I can't remember what it was, but there's one opt-out form that has a list of things that just, to me, we don't do those things in our school. We don't teach those things in our school, so I wondered why that was on the opt-out form. So I may have to share that with you. That might be something if you're looking at... you know how we're implementing the opt out that might be something that needed a little explanation even to parents sure you know was that on the school counseling one or a different opt out i can't remember okay i have more with

207me but it's in my backpack so i can probably pull it afterwards okay um but just you know to walk through that's just something i wanted to share thank you very much for the data i appreciate that thank you And so I just want to say that I'm really proud of Amherst County. I mean, I cannot tell you how many people said we did such a great job last year. Well, you know, this year we were all hoping it was going to be normal. And we found out that while we are going through a lot of the same normal procedures, it's not normal. And we all recognize that. So I thank the administration and the teachers and the board for having some tough conversations when I talked to couple parents today you know and they

208were really frustrated I said one of the first things we have to do is recognize we have a problem and then we got to talk about how to solve it so I think we did that tonight we got a good conversation started we've got a plan moving forward and it takes different points of view and it takes different opinions but that's the that's the value of having a team and so i appreciate everyone on the team and for your input so thank you for that i'm looking forward to closing that learning gap i'm looking forward to restoring and rebuilding amherst to where we were before i think we have great things going on i'm real excited about the cte program and and the grant and i just thank you so much for that teachers, bus

209drivers, cafeteria workers, custodians, administrators, just know that we love you and we support you. And when there are issues and you bring them to our attention, everybody says, I'm so sorry to have to say this to you. You know, that's what we're about. So we're here to hear you and to work with you and to make sure that we're doing the best that we can for our students because you're the ones who are out there working with them. So I want to thank the speakers because I do value citizen and parent input and teacher input. That's what makes us better. So I love the bus drivers that came because I always find that when they do come and speak, they are always so professional and have such good points for me on things that I

210may not have even thought about. So we encourage you to continue to come. But we are, I'm thankful. Homecoming tomorrow night, right? So excited about that and just want you to know that I want to be accountable and I think we're all accountable to our children. And I just want to thank everybody for the work they do. Thank you. I just want to remind everyone that there is a liaison between teachers and us called the AEA. Thanks so much. And I was saying I didn't have what to tell thanks to, but... I think that organization is still active, am I right? And you have a representative here to talk to as well. And we don't mind talking to you also, but you do have a liaison. I want to thank all the speakers. We've learned

211a lot from everyone. I wrote down a couple of notes. Bus drivers had already given me some written material to speak on. We do value the job. You all carry precious cargo. I hope that as we come up on our budget season, for a short amount of time, that will be one of the things that we will be talking about and consider. We want to commend last night. I attended the banquet for the girls' softball team, and they got their beautiful rings. It was an awesome night. I like those happy moments myself. I realize we have some other things we're trying to deal with, but every time I can get a happy moment like that and the great accomplishment of the softball team, so that was a beautiful night. I want to thank everybody for

212that. I have not had a law board meeting yet. We're coming up on that pretty soon. I am still working hard with the SBA as we look at advocacy and rules and regulations as we come down to fight and prepare for our meeting next month. So we are constantly doing what we have to do there. So in conclusion, I just want to say that we are all aware of situations around us in schools. We receive your emails. We receive your telephone calls. We receive your texts. and these things are being handled by the people that we have put in place to do that. We, the board, are here to support you and to refer these situations to those folks who have handled them. So for the principals and administrative staff and even the central office

213and Dr. Arnold, we thank you for addressing these things as best we can. And we're hoping that tonight some of the events that we talked about will be coming to pass. whether it's social-emotionally learning, whether it's character education, whatever it takes to help the students and families. And like someone said earlier, every child and every day, that's the bottom line here. So with that said, we're just going to get on up out of here and keep us posted on anything that you need. I do need for the board members to make a while we're in closed session, and when we come out, to sign up for a SEC meeting, at least through the end of the year, because Dr. Wells needs that. So we can see some children kind of head off these things that's

214going on. That's one of the great things we have in place. We can talk to these young people and keep things up and do things. So I've enjoyed all the sports events that I have attended so far and looking forward to the upcoming homecoming and other things that we have. So Warden, do you have anything else that we need to look at before we go into closed session? Dr. Almey, he was the reason for going to close. Pursuant to section 2.2-3711A2 of the Code of Virginia, I just recommend that the board convene a closed meeting for the following student matters, a religious exemption, a personnel matter, and a legal matter. Motion. So moved. Okay, second? Second. Okay, we are in. All right. We're here with the James River Association of Rivers Edge Park and this

215is part of our NOAA BWEC grant in which we're working with our seventh grade students. And so we have our seventh grade teachers here today and they're paddling across the river right now and we're going to do a macroinvertebrate search in a minute. So we're teaching people how to use the kayaks, then we're going to do the macroinvertebrate search, and I also have a group working looking at the macroinvertebrates learning about the river. So here's part of our education for the James River and stay tuned. with you messing up an assignment or whatever, hey, when you do it, you do it so hard you hurt somebody. Okay? Don't let me see you get out of here ever again. I want to tell you, it starts with mentality. And I've told you this a long time

216ago. You can't think your way into a right way of acting. You just got to act your way, and the feelings will come. The feelings have come. You go out there with great, unbelievable energy and excitement. I've got to tell you this. Fans, that's what they like to see. That's called passion. It's called passion. People love passionate people. This public service announcement is brought to you by Amherst County Public Schools. Hello, I'm Rob Arnold, Superintendent of Amherst County Public Schools. Unfortunately, the positive COVID-19 tests in Central Virginia and Amherst County have dramatically increased in the last two weeks. That is the bad news. The good news is that we can change these outcomes and get our students back to school by committing as a community to follow several health recommendations. So join me in flattening

217the curve in Amherst County. Join me in social distancing. My name is Sandy Jennings-Neblett. I'm the Library Media Specialist at Amherst Elementary School. I'd like to thank the Education Foundation for providing our students with lots of STEM materials to work on in centers while they're in the library. It allows them to use their creativity and their innovation skills, as well as cooperation, to help build their own designs and use their own ideas to create things that they want to see. My name is Julia Simon. I'm a first grade teacher at Amherst Elementary and I use the Amherst Education Foundation mini grant to purchase these lap desks for my students. We take them outside to do our reading work and we use them in the classroom for our school work. Thank you so much for giving

218me the money to purchase these. I'm really thankful for it. My name is Jennifer Fitzgerald and I am the art teacher here at Amherst Middle School. We just wanted to... say a huge thank you to the Education Foundation and the grants that they provided this year for art education here. We were severely impacted by the COVID restrictions this year and not being able to have community sets of art supplies. So we couldn't share our supplies like we usually do when we're working on art projects. So The Education Foundation grant money was used to purchase more supplies, individual art kits to provide individual art kits to our students so that we could use a variety of mediums and use lots of different materials instead of just paper and pencil. So one of the things that we

219have done this year is to use these cubbies. for each individual student. They have their own little basket that contains their supplies. They have non-consumable supplies that were provided so everyone would have their own, like scissors. And they also have consumable supplies like glue sticks, markers, Sharpies, pencils, that sort of thing. And what I would do each project would be to fill up these baskets with what they would need to use for that project. And then they could all keep all of their papers and art projects separated here in the cubbies. We did some really cool stuff this year. One of the things that Education Foundation supplied was these individual watercolor trays. Each student would have their own housing, their own case for their watercolor trays and the Education Foundation money purchased these inserts, refills

220type watercolors and I would pop them in their trays so every student had their own set of paint brushes to use for their class. Hi, my name is Naomi Giles and I'm the school librarian at Temperance Elementary School. I want to say thank you to the Education Foundation for two grants that I received last year that have drastically changed my library and impacted it in a very positive way. So the first grant I received was for these Play Away audiobooks and these are just little battery charged books that are audio format. I did not have any audio format prior to this in my collection, so the kids absolutely love these. I cannot keep them on the shelves. It's primarily for second through fifth graders, and they can take these little books, put their headphones in,

221and listen anywhere they go. On the bus, at home, whether they're on vacation, wherever, they can listen to their audio books, and they absolutely love it. I also received an iPad, and I use this with my green screen. So this is great when I collaborate with teachers. We're able to do some really neat projects with the students. We can also make school-wide videos and the kids love using it and learning about that technology. So thank you to the Education Foundation. Hi, my name is Carla Stinnett and I'm the third grade teacher at Timberlands Elementary School. I would like to say thank you to the Amherst County Education Foundation. They recently accepted my grant for an Echo Show. Since students are required to sit in their seats more than ever as we deal with COVID-19, an

222Echo Show allows a touchless way to access music videos, read alouds, poetry, brain breaks, timers, and even daily jokes. The students are loving the brain breaks throughout the day. We can also ask Alexa questions such as, Alexa, how long is the Amazon River? The Amazon is 4,345 miles long. Great. The Echo Show is a great tool and I thank the Amherst Education Foundation for supporting the teachers and students of Amherst County. Come join us for the Amherst County Fair, October 21st through 24th, presented by Rosie's Gaming Emporium, along with Glad Manufacturing, James River Equipment, and the Amherst County Farm Bureau. Located at the Amherst County Fairgrounds, come enjoy local bands, Carnival Midway, Great Lakes Timber Show, live animals, and local vendors. Find more information on our website at amherstcountyfair.com. The closed meeting was conducted in

223conformity with Virginia law. Now, therefore, it be resolved that the Amherst County School Board hereby certifies that to the best of each member's knowledge, only public business matters lawfully exempted from open meeting requirements by Virginia law were discussed in the closed meeting to which the certification applies, and only such public business matters as were identified in the motion convening the closed meeting were heard, discussed, or considered. Motion to certify? I make a motion to certify. Second. Ms. Ligon? Yes. Ms. Thompson? Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes.

224Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes.