ACPS Regular School Board Meeting 9.9.2021

001Madam Chair, first I would like for Ernie Wink and Ernie Will to join me at the podium. These gentlemen are very close friends with Dr. Nichols and so we wanted to present this resolution to them. We are today comforted in the knowledge that Dr. Stephen Nichols lived a life. in service of others for the sake of not only his family, but to the many children across the state of Virginia that he served throughout his career as an educator. Whereas Dr. Stephen Nichols, former Amherst County Public Schools Superintendent, passed from this life on Saturday, May 8, 2021. And whereas the wisdom, the guidance, and direction he provided the Amherst County School Board during his tenure is to be acknowledged and applauded. And whereas Dr. Stephen Nichols performed his duties as superintendent for five years, and whereas

002the fruits of his labor as principled, authentic, and respected leader for Amherst County Public Schools are appreciated. And whereas Dr. Stephen Nichols instilled in the youth of this community a sense of responsibility to see the importance of education. And whereas the Amherst County community has been blessed by the presence of Dr. Stephen Nichols from his impact on the lives of its children. Therefore, be it resolved on this ninth day of September in the year 2021 that we embrace this community in their bereavement and remembrance of beloved educator Dr. Stephen Nichols. Steve absolutely, I don't have any prepared remarks, but I just wanted to tell you that Steve absolutely loved educating the youth. Virginia, West Virginia, and spent his entire 40 to 50 years trying to make an impact on kids to absolutely their fullest, to

003encourage them to excel where they were, to move them beyond where they were into higher education, and was a huge proponent of trying to have people come back and also educate. I was a an example of that and Many other friends of mine were as well. I had to laugh because throughout planning and organizing his funeral, nearly everyone was of the same accord, which was the only reason they got into college was because of Steve Nichols, through his letters of recommendation. But he thoroughly loved Amherst. And I loved and enjoyed watching him thrive down here. And I commend you guys for leadership that you have down here and also for the respect that you've paid to him. He would be thoroughly honored and lovely for Dr. Arnold to have this idea and to present it

004to him. So I wish you guys the very best. I would also say that as part of this, a... perpetual scholarship is going to be established at UVA for only for an Amherst student for undergraduate or graduate school so I applaud you guys and very much wish you the best of success in the school year thank you we appreciate those beautiful remarks and we thank you ahead of time for that scholarship announcement and in honor of Dr. Nichols we more than overjoyed to accept that thank you so much So my comments for that are, before I forget, is that we enjoyed working with Dr. Nichols, and I know that I can hear him saying, give me that plaque, and he'll add it to all the other good, beautiful plaques that he has. So thank you

005for all of that. Okay, moving on to now our public comment concerning school matters. No additional public comments will be available at the end of this meeting. And we will remind those making comments that we have a lot on the agenda. We are excited that you're here. We want to hear from you. And we will be timing it. Is that correct? Parliamentarian will be directing the word concern that we do not use by language or we do not put any kind of any comments against any individuals by name. With that said, we should move on to our first name that I have here, Ms. Gloria Whit. Good evening everyone chairperson liggin and the board and the staff administration My name is Gloria wit 432 Browntown Road Amherst, Virginia and I'm speaking on in my role

006as in a ACP president tonight and I just want to say a couple of things the first thing is that All of your fully aware that in a ACP was opposed against the parental choice of optional mass wearing when the decision was made last month to allow children for parents to make the decision as to whether or not they should wear masks in schools. And it was noted that the board voted against the recommendations of the superintendent and the staff. And so here we are 10 days into the school year and we've got 3000 plus kids chilling at home because of a massive COVID spread and the Virginia Health Department saw fit to recommend shut it down. So I say that to say that definitely a lost moment for our leadership by the board. and

007that you overrode the recommendations, and now we've got 3,000-plus kids out. There is a rumor going around that we know of two young people who had COVID and willingly went into school without masks. I don't know if it's true or not. I read the Commonwealth's attorney's letter in the newspaper cautioning the citizens not to believe everything you hear, but just in case. There's some truth behind it. And there were two students knowingly going into the school and spreading this COVID virus. This directs, ties directly into the disciplinary policy. I think if a child brings a gun or a knife on school grounds, it's automatic 365. I surely hope that as you're disciplining these youth, if it's true, I fully expect them to get 365 days. If you walk into a public place normally spreading a

008virus and all you get is a standard eight days off, probably while you're in quarantine, that is not acceptable, nor is it social justice. So what do I want this board to consider going forward? If that rumor is true, it's no less than 365. They don't have, they should not have an opportunity to come back into the Amherst County Public Schools. Number two, I expect a resolution out of this board tonight on behalf of NAACP and all of our citizens that you do a resolution mandating masks. And third, if you can't find it in your heart to do so, consider resigning. You have failed in your leadership. Thank you. Ms. Dawn Justice. Dear School Board Committee, I really, really appreciate your service and your thoughts and considerations in this time of... divided opinion on how

009to respond my name is Dawn Justice I live at 125 Garland Avenue in Amherst and I'm running for school board district number two I come here tonight on two different things one is I want to say thank you so much for supporting parental rights last month when you allowed parents to decide what was best for their children. I understand that we have 189 positive COVID tests out of 4,100 students, and that is concerning, but there are so many other factors involved as well. So I just really appreciate you standing. for parents and that. Two, it's my understanding that tonight you may be considering placing a few more restrictions on public comment. I may be wrong, but I've heard that you might be considering requiring those who are going to speak to register a day before.

010That concerns me in that I know you want public comment, and sometimes people don't find out about what's happening until an hour before. or they might come to a meeting and then discover there's a topic there that is very concerning to them. So I would urge you not to add restrictions to our public involvement and engagement. The last thing I want to talk to you about tonight is the removing of policy KNA, which is reducing, I'm just going to read the policy. This is how it was before. All sex offenders were prohibited from being on campus or at school events unless they got permission from court and they got permission from the principal of the school. At the beginning of each school year, the school division shall notify parents and employees of this policy and

011will also annually notify the superintendent. So the superintendent notifies the parent of each student enrolled in the school division of the availability of information in the registry. They remove sex offender and crimes against minors registry. and the location. So it's removed the responsibility of the superintendent to send out this information or make it available and has put it on the parents to research that. Sex offender registry information should be provided to employees who are most likely to observe unauthorized persons on or near school property, including but not limited to school bus drivers, employees responsible for visitor registration, employees responsible for bus duty, security staff, coaches, playgrounds, supervisors and maintenance personnel. That has been completely removed. If you go on to page two, the use of sex offender registry information has been completely removed, the protocol.

012So no longer is a notified employee who sees a registered sex offender on or near the school property or around any school division student or attending any school division activity, the superintendent or his designated... My time's already up. Okay. Thank you very much for telling me. I don't believe this is keeping the students safe. Thank you so much for listening to me. Mr. Daniel Thompson. Thank you. My name is Daniel Thompson, 251 Crescent Lane, Monroe. I'm a teacher and a parent here at Amherst County Public Schools. It has come to my attention that a new policy is forthcoming in this school year, which could include the taping, recording, and webcasting of students throughout Amherst County Public Schools. While the intent of such an action is to provide opportunities for students in quarantine, I feel that

013the creation of and implementation of such a policy has left me in a moral and ethical dilemma for the following two reasons. One, parents have the responsibility to make informed decisions regarding the education of their child. Not only is this a personal religious stance that is paramount to my educational philosophy, we can see evidence of this in the fabric of current educational policy. Parents of students with special needs are required to provide informed consent if the school's plan so much as to stop providing physical copies of notes. How much more responsibility should parents have when a school begins videotaping children? The fact that this new policy has been approved not only without parental consent but without notice to parents even being provided violates my religious convictions on the educational responsibility of parents. When I reached

014out to central office on this issue, I was informed that parents signed an acceptable use form for students to use Chromebooks and that that covered any legal requirements the district had to provide information on forthcoming policies. While I can't argue what the courts might determine, I can say that as a parent of a student in Amherst County Public Schools, I find it abhorrent. that anyone would consider implementing such a seismic shift in educational policy and hiding parental consent behind a foreign parent sign before this policy was even made aware to teachers, much less to the community at large. My second issue is that student educational private... privacy concerns have never been higher. The division has chosen a method of communication that while efficient, raises serious questions about how teachers are expected to protect their students'

015educational privacy rights. Little to no support has been provided. While the assistant superintendent did send an email on Thursday, 8-20, the advice and guidelines offered in a three-page slideshow do not begin to cover the complexities and legal ramifications of our failure to protect students' educational privacy rights in this new endeavor. From my own personal research, I believe that at least three state or federal privacy laws have been violated that I am aware of. None of these potential violations were done in malice, but simply because the district has implemented a new policy without adequately training teachers. I love Amherst County, but as a parent and as an educator, these last three weeks have stretched me beyond reasonable limits. I believe this needs to be rectified with all due haste before teachers continue to violate privacy laws

016and the county faces a lawsuit we cannot afford. First, I believe the district needs to provide a written policy complete with a list of safeguards and actions taken to protect student privacy and this policy needs to be shared with teachers, parents, and the community at large for a vigorous public debate and discourse. Second, all teachers and support staff receive extensive training on what federal and state privacy laws are and a detailed list of actions that cannot take place to prevent any further violations of student privacy. Finally, students are made aware of their constitutional and FERPA guaranteed rights so that they can maintain their faith in the school system that oversees so much of their everyday lives. I hear that if I may close very quickly. I recognize central office staff and administrators feel overwhelmed in

017a desperately trying season of our lives, but I would submit that removing student privacy and pushing the bounds of parental consent laws is not the best way to navigate this crisis. I had a pastor once say that we should never sacrifice what's important just to finish something urgent, and that is exactly what Amherst County Public Schools is doing if they do not take immediate steps to rectify this burgeoning crisis. Thank you for your time. Is there anyone else in the audience that would like to make public comment to the school board? Yes, sir. If you would come forth and give your name and address. I am Jeff Porter. I live at 478 Woody's Lake Road in Madison Heights. In respect to this meeting, it would be real helpful, as you notice I have hearing aids,

018even if you have masks, if you could speak more slowly. and clearly, then I can hear what's going on. I want to be involved. I want to be able to hear what's going on. It's really difficult when all I hear is muddled talk. So if you could please speak more slowly and clearly, whether you have a mask or not, that would be really helpful. Thank you. Do we have any way of turning the volume up, Joe? But I will do that. I will try to speak. Can you hear me now? Yes, I can. Okay, I'll try to keep that tone if we would, ladies and gentlemen of the board. But if Ms. Goldman can help us out, we can do that as well. At this time, we're looking at 4.01, 0.02, and 0.03, the consent

019agenda. If the board has had time to review those items and have no amendments or conversation, we will ask for a vote of approval. Madam Chair. Yes, ma'am. I have some conversations. I'd like to move the personnel action off of the consent agenda. Okay. Ms. Thompson has made a motion to remove. Is that 4.02? Yes, ma'am. Off of the agenda. Do we have a second for that? Second. All in favor? Aye. Any opposed? We shall remove 4.02. Ms. Palminteri, can we vote on the others or should we have the discussion in private? Is this on personnel, Ms. Thompson? It's on positions, not personnel per se. Is that a closed meeting occasion? It's not. And not if we don't talk about people. Not if you don't talk about people. Okay. So do we want to have

020that discussion now and then vote on all of them as a whole or vote on two and come back? Madam Chair, what I would recommend is that you vote on the two that are still on the consent agenda. Okay. And then, Ms. Thompson, you can ask the questions concerning the positions, as long as it doesn't talk about people. All right, I got you. Thank you so much, Ms. Paul and Terry. So this time, Board, if we could get a vote of approval on 4.01 and 4.03. Madam Chair, I make a motion that we approve 4.01 and 4.03. Okay, do we have a second on that after Ms. Thompson's motion? Second. All in favor, please? Aye. Any opposed to 4.01 and 4.03? Motion carries. Ms. Thompson? I had some questions when I was reviewing it just

021based on the positions. Mr. Porter, can you hear me? Just a couple of questions so that I can understand how many positions did we not fill from last year? I'd have to confirm. I believe it was six, but I have to verify that the position is held over from last year. It did not need to be filled due to the situation. I need to confirm that with you. Okay, but approximately six. I believe that is correct, but again, I need to do some research. Was that reflected in our budget as far as a reduction of force, reduction of positions? We did not reduce positions and have a reduction in force last year. So if we had six positions that were not filled, was that not reflected in our budget this past year? It cares as

022far as. The positions that were not filled last year, I do not believe where Kara's at positions. You can help me that. Miss Thompson, the positions that were not filled last year were carried forward and we did hire for this year. The way it's reflected was in the balance remaining in the salary line. When we gave you the object code at the last board meeting, it was approximately $600,000 left in the salary line. That was part of the reflection of not hiring positions. And when you say not hired last year, I'm talking about not hired for this term, this year. Oh, no, ma'am. I believe every position has been filled or intended to be filled this current year. So was there a science or history positions at Manalison Middle School not filled? Last year? Positions

023that were not filled last year for Manalison Middle School, a couple of them were hired at Manalison Middle School, and then the other two positions were transferred to other locations based on the need. Okay, maybe I can get some more follow up on that then just so I understand. It sounds like there was a position that was not filled, but then others were transferred because it was not needed. Yeah, if I can clarify on that, please. In your packet, you have a memo regarding it's behind your class size information because we were working on reducing the class sizes for our teachers. There was a science, one science position and two history positions at Manellison Middle School last year. They have been redistributed in that school, focused on reading and math, and then we have provided

024instructional support for the classes right now. But I've had Ms. Gray, the administrator there, provide you the details of all of that. as well as Dr. Brown. We've done some shuffling based on numbers at that school, and he has provided you a memo in your packet regarding the numbers and how he's lowering class sizes as well. Can you explain what you mean by it was redistributed in that school? Yes, ma'am. So in regards to Manellison Middle School, they took their master schedule. And based on recommendations from the Virginia Department of Education and learning loss and our COVID slide, they took for reading and for math. And they have a 90-minute block. And students in all of their grades actually have their reading and math every single day of the week. To do that, they needed

025to be able to shift over a teacher. So they had two history teachers resign last year and a science, and they repositioned those into an English position so they could divvy out. They also took science and history is on an A day, B day. And they have those 90-minute blocks as well. But one of the biggest concerns that we had there is the cohorting of students. And Dr. Wells will talk about this. But in order to cohort students so they don't cross-contaminate due to COVID and health mitigations, this was one of the schedule items that they did to make sure that they were keeping kids safe in their building. But if teachers were moved to cover reading and math when they When the history to history positions opened up they did not fill it as

026a history position They feel what happens they hire class what happens with that class if we there is a teacher So last year they had classes that were anywhere from six, seven to 12 students. This year they have classes anywhere from one class is 13, another class is 29. So they're balancing those classes. But they have taken that position that was open and they have made it an English. so they can redistribute and spend more time in English and in math. So we didn't lose a position at that school. We just redistributed it to English and math rather than history and science. History and science is being taught by history and science teachers? Yes, ma'am. So it sounds like... Your reading and your math numbers are probably going to be going down as far as

027class sizes. They are probably around 18, 19. Yes, ma'am. Okay. And then the science and history numbers may be larger. Yes, ma'am. So I heard you say that class size could be up towards 29. Right. Any of them over 30? At this time, based on what we calculated. I don't have any over 30 because we had not taken off kids that had dropped. So we started taking that out today. Ms. Gray and Mr. Harrison and Mr. Juergen are working tomorrow to balance the remaining of those students. So hopefully the redistribution is easier. We're trying to get a class of 28, 29 redistributed to the class that's sitting there with 13 or 14 kids in it. So schedule changes. Yes, ma'am. And because my concern there is that if the class sizes are 28, 29, 30,

028social distancing is almost going to be impossible. And then if we have somebody go out and get in quarantine, you're going to have a large number quarantined. So we need to be looking for ways to mitigate. So it sounds like you're doing that. And looking at the average number of class sizes, maybe we could get something like a range of those after you finish the balance. That would be helpful. Yes, ma'am. Also, just to continue my questions on personnel, I noticed that we are approving staff that's already started working. That's many, many years. So my question to you is, if by chance the board were not to approve a teacher, how would we handle that? I would think we would have to because the language, the tell them the language. Does the contract permit that?

029Yes. Okay. That's what I want to know. That is correct. All right. we would have to reconsider that at that time. Okay, thank you. That's what I want to know. And then I noticed we had some positions called contracted substitute. Correct. And is it my understanding? I'm just assuming that that means you're hiring a qualified teacher to work as a substitute because I understand we have teachers out for COVID and they're filling in. So my question is, is Are they paid as a teacher or are they paid as a substitute? They're paid on the base, the first year of a teacher's salary. Experience, these are some of the positions that you all approved to help us with supplemental stuff. Very valuable, and of course, all five from last year, four got hired on full-time this

030year and one moved, so we've had to rehire, which we have now done. Several of those folks... have been in long-term positions to start. One actually got fully hired already to start this year. But they are paid on the zero year, basically. Okay. And if they're being paid as a teacher, I'm assuming they are having job duties such as our teachers that we hire. So are they creating lesson plans? Are they calling parents? Are they doing those same duties as our teachers? They're doing every appropriate duty as teachers, which several began the year in. Then they went into lesson planning to continue in that. position. If there are being on a daily basis, there should likely be lesson plans developed for them. Okay. Um, my concern is maybe more so with the title that if

031we say they're contracted substitutes and just the morale in our buildings. We have a teacher who says, hey, I have a substitute that you've hired and you're paying them the same that you're paying me. I understand that that could cause some morale issues. So, you know, maybe there's another thing we can call them besides a substitute. If they're teachers, they're teachers. Well, yes, ma'am. I would hope that they're contracted substitute teachers. But if that language isn't on there, then that's I apologize. It should be contracted substitute teacher. Well, I guess the point I'm trying to make, if they are contracted substitute teacher, they should be getting substitute pay. Well, I mean, I believe they should be getting teacher pay because they're fully contracted on a daily basis and performing the duties and responsibilities of a

032teacher. plannings there that lesson plans that doesn't mean that that's less rigorous or less difficult to jump into that situation and we do expect them to provide continuity of instruction and be capable because they're licensed teachers to be able to carry that on right i understand that yes ma'am and so i guess i don't know if you are missing my point maybe i'm not making myself clear um the point i'm trying to make is if they're a teacher maybe we can call them a teacher and not a substitute it's it's neither here that's not a problem I mean, it's neither here nor there, but I'm just talking about the morale and expectations. If we call them a substitute, we have a set of expectations for a substitute. If we call them a teacher, we pay

033them as a teacher. We have expectations as a teacher. So I'm just talking about for continuity. I'm talking about the morale of the teachers in the school. It's probably like a small thing, but I think sometimes to teachers it can make a big difference. We can do that. For something for you all to consider. Then I also wanted to ask about the position for support specialist, CTE support specialist and coordinator of CTE programs. Those are new positions. Those are new CARES Act funded positions. Okay. So they're CARES Act funded. Okay. Do we have job descriptions for those? We do. Great. Okay. If you can get those to us, that would be wonderful. Certainly. For the CARES Act funded positions, how long do we anticipate those to last? And then when they end, will those positions

034be continued? If they are continued, brought to the board and not just subsumed into our budget. Well, so there are two year. budget to be carried on beyond those two years and once the CARES funds are gone. So if we are able, if there's a need and we're able to find a way to support that and it is board approved, then we would integrate that into the full budget. Okay. Thank you. I appreciate your patience with me. I know that was a lot. I appreciate the question. Thank you. Anything else, Ms. Thompson, or any other board members on that? Abby covered everything for me. Excuse me? It's all good. No, ma'am. Oh, okay. With that being said, we shall now entertain a motion to approve 4.02 after discussion. Madam Chair, I make a motion to

035approve 4.02. Okay, we have a proper motion. Do we have a second? Second. All in favor? Aye. Any opposed? Consent agenda has been totally approved. Let us go on to 5.01. Is that you, Dr. Wells, back there? Yes, ma'am. Okay. Madam Chair, ladies and gentlemen of the board, 5.01 deals with policies. Some of these policies you asked us to revise, we're back to you this month. So all these policies are considered first reads. Again, these are considered to be a first read policy, so these are at your leisure to review. And then next month we can ask, and if approved, and if you wish so, we can approve at that time. But this is a first read tonight. Board understands this is a first read. Yes, ma'am. Okay. We shall bring that back for discussion

036after your reading. Or do you have questions for Dr. Wells at this time? I have a question. Yes, ma'am. Dr. Wells, on educational philosophy AD, I know that we sent it back trying to keep in the word maximum, and I see where that's been retained, and I appreciate that very much. But I'm also seeing some changes in the code that's listed at the bottom. I'm seeing where... 22.1-78 has been removed. It's my understanding, just generally when I scanned it, that it looked like it was referencing the state giving local school boards some authority. But it's been replaced with 22.1-23.2, which is the transgender policy. been replaced with 22.1-78, which is talking about school board alignment. Alignment of school board adopted bylaws and regulations are not inconsistent with state and state regs. So it looks to

037me like we're removing some of our local authority, and we are placing that into the hands of Virginia Department of Education, and we're also including a transgender policy in this. So I'm a little concerned about that board. I feel like if we could own our own educational philosophy, I'm outraged to think our parents should be. So I don't understand those changes. Maybe you can explain that. I would have to review it. Dr. Arnold? They're legal references. I understand they're legal references, but they've been added and changed. Well, and you don't have to adopt it. I know. We're having a discussion. So I'm asking for explanation as to why it's there. The state changed the legal code requiring them to be in these documentations. Therefore, the school board association put them in there. So it's a

038change of the legislative area. It changed legal code, which requires them to be in consideration. That's my understanding. Okay, board. My recommendation is that we take the codes and take it back to the way our original educational philosophy policy was. Again, this is a first read, so we can have plenty of time to discuss. I understand. I think we will be advised to look at that again. Like he said, it's the first read. And if we have a meeting, a second meeting this month, we'll put that on the agenda for discussion. Is that okay with the board? Yes, ma'am. Rather than making too many thoughts on it right now. Even though we've read it, we can have a full discussion if we have a second meeting. Bring back all your ideas. Is that okay, Ms.

039Thompson? Certainly. Thank you. Going on before we move on, any other thoughts for discussion to come back, even though it's his first read? Anything else for Dr. Wells on 5.01? We encourage you to read it and write down and perhaps email your questions to him ahead of time, and we will be prepared to discuss that. Is that all right? Yes. 5.02. Yes, ma'am. 5.02. Hold on just a minute. Can we find out what's going on with the mics just for the purpose of the audience? They're jumping in and out. Okay. I'm sorry. Go ahead. So 5.02 is administrative services, so we'll update you on that. So we have interviewed the firms for the facilities improvements at Amherst County High School. It's good, the auditorium and the other upgrade. and we are now in contract negotiations

040with those firms and can't discuss any further at this time, but we're in contract negotiations, and once those negotiations finalize, I will update you at that time. And also, Mr. Rokes is going to discuss the improvements in some of our construction. Thank you. I'm sorry. I apologize. My fault. Yes, ma'am. Would it be appropriate if we make a request to work with Dr. Wells on contract negotiations and have an idea of where we're headed? in closed session. Do we have a committee? Isn't there a committee for that? There is. I'm wondering, what are you asking? Because we haven't started the negotiations yet. Are you wanting to know prices and those kinds of things? Well, we had had some conversation about what we wanted to possibly do, talk with the public about that. We've got a

041committee in place. Some of the things that I'm hearing from the committee is not exactly what... My particular thoughts were, and I'm only one person, I understand that, but I'm not clear as to what the board's pleasure is as to how we head. So when you start talking about contract negotiations, it concerns me that we are being contracting, we are actually moving forward with the contract. And when you move forward with the contract, it's in place. Well, the contract is for them to do the study to determine all those things you just mentioned, to talk to the board and talk to the community and get feedback from those individuals to develop the plan. So right now we're in the plan, if approved, we'll have this contract for them to develop their architectural plan by interviewing

042the community and the board. So this is not negotiation to start construction. This is negotiation to develop the plan so we can start to have a plan in place and develop an architectural plan to do construction. Okay, so that conversation will take place. Thank you. Part of the RFP has those things in it, and so they don't get the contract if they don't do that. Okay, thank you. How many people put in for that position to do the research? How many people applied? Different firms, yes. There were approximately seven different firms. We interviewed four. And how did we come down to the one that we are negotiating with right now? Based on the interview. All right. Thank you. Well, I'm sorry. Any further questions for Dr. Will? Thank you so much. Okay, regarding the projects,

043some of our projects are pretty much complete. Amherst Middle School, the exterior brickwork should be complete this week. All the other grading and everything in Amherst Middle School has been completed. The drain work is done. Madison Heights Elementary, that project is complete. The classrooms are prepared. And when the students return on Monday, they should be back in those classrooms. So that is complete as well. The other things we have going on, the two head start buildings at Madison Heights Elementary Central Elementary that belong to Link Act the organization that heads up the head start program they're scheduled to be removed we found out yesterday on September the 26th and the head start building at Elan is of course what you purchased and that building has been converted into a classroom for Elan Elementary School and

044when the process this week of reworking the fire alarm system and things like that tying it back into our school system And the last thing that we've been working on in the last week or so, particularly when the students were in class the first week of school, is reference to the amount of... Trash we've been generating due to the way that we're feeding students in class with the styrofoam and feeding them in the classrooms We're generating a lot more trash Which created some issues at a couple schools because we didn't have the dumpster capacity and or the frequency of dumps So I've got that all situated out increased dumpsters at a couple schools increased the frequency of dumps per week and To eliminate their proper disposal trash. We did not have that laying around at

045schools outside and the other dumpsters areas as well Any questions for Mr. Rooks? Thank you for all that you're doing thus far. I never thought about the styrofoam situation. Yeah, we greatly increased the quantity of trash that we're generating based upon feeding that for the COVID, you know, responsible for the COVID. Yes, ma'am. Second thought question. I know styrofoam versus just paper products. Why are we not using paper products? Are they not more environmentally sound? It has to do with the availability first and then also the ability of the students to carry that tray back to the classroom because they're pre-packaged. All the meals are pre-packed. Have to take those back to class and the Star family is what our food service has been getting. But there also is a shortage of other types of

046containers at this time as well. Thank you. Any other questions for Mr. Ruggs? Yes, ma'am. I have one quick question. Did we lose any of the food that we purchased for the students because we shut the school down? No, ma'am. Thank you. We were able to halt all fresh produce. Okay. Anything else for either? Just one more question. Yes, ma'am. Are we having any trouble getting food at all or food shortage? Is the supply good, the supply chain? It's my understanding, talking to Ms. Klein, that we haven't had any issues getting foods. We're having to use maybe some different channels through our local vendors, but there's been no issue with food through the USDA or otherwise. Okay. Thank you. 5.03. All right, 5.03, the moment we've been waiting for tonight. COVID update. So just start

047with this. Last year, we had 100 cases in the whole school year. There were 100 positive cases in our schools throughout the whole school year. From the middle of September until the middle of June, we had 100 cases. So far this year, we've had 202. We currently have 111 active cases. And on September 13th, we anticipate having 14 active cases based on today's data. Now, if I have cases reported tonight, tomorrow, this weekend, that active case for Monday will go up. Right now, we anticipate having 14 active cases for Monday. We've had 159 students test positive. We have 90 active. And on the 13th, we should have five active. Again, this is updated information throughout the weekend. Staff, we've had 43 staff test positive. We have 21 staff that are active cases and we anticipate

048having nine active staff cases on Monday. We currently have one staff member in the hospital and one of our therapeutic day treatment for individuals in the hospital. We have quarantine prior to the shutdown. We had quarantine over 800. Our forecast for Monday is to have 75 students on quarantine. So from this data, you can see the shutdown has allowed us to get these numbers reduced greatly. And we anticipate being back at a normal range or operational range where we can handle 75 cases or the five folks out and five students out and so forth. So we feel the shutdown has allowed us to get a handle on the cases. Now, one issue we do have is we're not sure if all of our parents are reporting cases at home. So we've asked our parents with

049best Pants to teach principles to send out school messengers reminding parents to please notify the schools if there's an active case or if there's a case where we've had contacted at home So any questions on our student data at this so far Community data on Tuesday Center had reported 15 deaths so far in September 78 individuals were hospitalized as of Tuesday. 11 of the 78 were vaccinated. 13 were in ICU and 10 room ventilators. The VDH reported 2862 cases in August for the Central Virginia Health District. 598 of those cases were pediatric. As of Tuesday, the VDH reported 1,549 for the first seven days of September, and 429 of those were pediatric cases. VDH data for Amherst County, on the first day of school, which was August 18th, there were 18 new cases reported. Seven-day

050average for 100,000 was 34.3, and the seven-day average of new cases in the county was 11. Yesterday, The seven-day average for 100,000 was 95.6. The seven-day average for new cases in the county was 30, and there were 85 new cases reported yesterday in Amherst County. A little update on it. January 7th was the highest date we had in the county. On that date, we had 93 new cases, and again, yesterday we had 85. So you can see we're almost at the peak of where we were at the peak of the original strain back in January. The seven-day average on January 7th was 31. Our seven-day average yesterday was 30. The seven-day average per 100,000 was 97.4. Again, our seven-day average per 100,000 yesterday was 95.6. So it's here. The Delta variant is much more contagious,

051and that's one of our issues. It's much more contagious. Most people in the hospital now being treated are between the ages of 40 and 60 with very few comorbidities, which means they have very other underlying health issues. Any questions on the BDH data? Okay. I'm going to go through our timeline of what we have been doing since school started, and there's a graphic up here. I'll get to that in a second, and I'll explain that graphic to you shortly. So the first day of school, we had zero cases. I was feeling really good the first day of school. After that, it went downhill. We started having cases for it on day two. Central Elementary had our first had our first case on the 19th. But even the 19th into the 20th, we had six cases

052reported across multiple schools and division. And by Monday, August 23, we were kind of in a full COVID crisis response, with cases being reported numbers well above the daily averages from last year. Last year, a bad day was four cases. I haven't had a day, except for yesterday, under four cases since the third day of school. On Monday, August 23rd, we dealt with multiple cases during the day and were notified of additional cases at Amherst County High School around 5 p.m. Again, this is what led to the closure of the high school on the second, on that Tuesday. We worked to contact trace those cases, and as we got those kind of close to being wrapped up, we were called with another parent saying they had another positive case. And we didn't have time to

053contact trace due to the number of, it takes two hours to do a case. And about eight, nine o'clock at night, we were pushing midnight and we had to call Dr. Arnold and tell him there's no way we can get it done. So we went ahead and closed school at the high school that next day. So we mobilized our entire central office and instructional support staff to assist with contact tracing in our schools with the primary focus being the high school. On the 25th, the high school reopened. and we continue with contact tracing. During this time, we are averaging 14 cases a day in the division. On the morning of August 25th, we were notified by the health department of their concerns with our numbers, and later that day, they recommended that our secondary schools

054operate remotely from August 26th to September 1st due to the amount of cases in our schools. The VDH also recommended that we conduct a testing clinic and require all secondary and transportation staff as well as secondary students be tested in order to return on September 2nd. During this time, we contacted Brim's to conduct a vaccine clinic in conjunction with our testing clinics. And we did do 140 vaccines during our testing clinic for people in the community. The VDH, in conjunction with our staff, conducted the testing clinics on the 31st. And we were told they'd have results by 2 o'clock on the 1st. We didn't start getting results until around 6 p.m. and that was 50 of the 1,850 tests we gave. When that information was announced, we had to make a decision about school on

055the 2nd because we didn't have enough data to open schools safely. So a decision was made for schools to be closed on September 2nd. During the event, again, we tested 1,850 people. Again, we began getting results late in the day, but not enough to really make a decision, and we still have some tests we don't have results back from. We were getting results through Saturday. My last set of data came in Saturday morning and I was up here Saturday making phone calls to parents about the test results. During this time, we also began to analyze the data in more detail and consulted with the VDH about our positivity numbers. And on Thursday, September 2nd, it was recommended by the VDH that we close all schools in the division from September 3rd through September 10th with

056schools reopening on September 13th. So I think it's good to have an understanding of how our case has spread so quickly through our students and staff. So at your place, you'll see this graph. The graph is up here on this board, but you also have a copy of it at your place. I'm going to explain this to you. And I'll start by saying this is just one example, and I'll discuss other things. Inside, you'll see the red A. That red A is an individual who came into our schools, and that individual resulted in that next line. of individuals testing positive. So those other 10 had direct contact with the first person. Those 10 didn't realize they'd been exposed. We didn't know they had been exposed because we were not aware that A was positive. Therefore,

057A had contact with those 10. Those 10 were still in school because we didn't realize they had been exposed and were not symptomatic at that time. And they had direct contact with the next line. And you can see where one of those had six contact with actually eight people. One of those had contact, had direct exposure with two. One of those had four. And the other one had six. So from one, we've now gone to ten plus that group. And then. We got down to the third level, which was that group having contact with other people before we realized on the 23rd that person A had been in a building. We were able to trace it back and get those people out of school before they spread it to other people. Now, I'm sure if

058we continue, we stopped this about the time we closed school. We didn't have time to continue connecting the dots. But if we connected dots, I'm sure we'd find more people that were a direct result of person A coming into our school. This is one example. We've had these at multiple schools where people are coming to school, whether student or staff, either not realizing they're positive, having symptoms but not thinking anything about it, or knowing they're positive and coming to school anyway. I think all three things have happened. But when somebody does that and we're not aware, when they're not aware, we don't know to contact trace, we can't start the process. When we know they're there and they tell us, hey, I'm sick, and I send them home, and I can contact trace, I can

059stop it at that second level. But beyond that, it's hard to stop if I don't know about it. So that's kind of how one person can impact 30-some people, almost 40 people, just one person coming to a building when they're knowingly sick or not knowing they're sick but coming to school anyway thinking they're just going to be okay. Questions? Dr. Wells, did this lead to all positives? Those are all positives. Those are all positives, okay. Yeah, that's not the quarantines. That's not the 600 people we had to quarantine because of that. You can also see that some of those aren't high school students. This was an example from the high school. Some of those are not high school students or high school staff. You'll see there are some people going down to elementary and middle

060schools off of that. because of contacts with siblings or other relatives who have tested positive as a result. And therefore, it went to the middle school or went to elementary school and it started at that level. And then we had to start putting people out of those schools because of this one case. Is there any way to know the number that were quarantined on top of these just from this case? I can find it. I know it's into the hundreds, into the high hundreds. Okay. Top of my head, I don't have it right now. Okay, that's fine. That's fine. Madam Chair. So we know this person, but I mean, we know this person was positive. Yes. Did you say that there are other that you know? Well, I know of a case at one of

061the other schools that I was exactly who had a sibling who was being tested, that the sibling, that one person came to school knowing their sibling was being tested. Their sibling tested positive that day. They called the school, said so-and-so's tested positive. We got the other student out of school. Two days later, that student tested positive, and I had four people in that same class test positive. Okay. So this is happening because people think it's just a sore throat. They think it's just a cold. It's just seasonal allergies. But sometimes it starts like that. It starts with a scratchy throat and blisters on the throat. dual headache, you have those symptoms, you think it's nothing, and then you come to school and it's something, and then it gets progressively worse. But by that time, you've

062already, two days prior to showing symptoms, you're contagious. So if I start feeling sick today, I have to contact trace two days prior to that. So I have to go back in time. That's what takes us so long to contact trace because of the time frame involved. Right. Other questions for Dr. Wells on this particular breath? Okay. Okay, I'll continue. Sorry. I have some information for you. So mitigation strategies. So Vanessa, what are we doing? So our mitigation strategies, you know, at the beginning, back in late July, early August, I gave you a list of what we're doing. And we are requiring face coverings for all students and staff in schools. So that is required. That's by Code of Virginia now, 1303. And the governor's interpreted that to mean we have to have face coverings

063in schools. So face coverings are required for students and staff. We are still doing home health screenings for staff and students. We're asking parents to do that. We're having teachers screen in the classroom when students come to school. I think sometimes with that, a student may have a cough or a sneeze and the teacher doesn't think it's anything, but now we know that the cough or the sneeze. could be indicators. So we're having student teachers send those students to the nurse for evaluation. We're having hand sanitizers in classrooms, wiping down desks, we're sanitizing buildings. We're doing everything we did last year with the exception of taking temperatures. Our data indicated and data, national data is indicating that temperature checks are not. Really tell us a whole lot. We had one out of it. You know,

064we had one pot one student with temperature check We caught last year, but it's really not showing us anything there There's more the symptoms of the throat the sinus and the body ache type things that we're finding We have additional strategies such as cohorting students as Arthur Norman mentioned earlier We're trying to separate students out and cohort them elementary school is really easy because I can have a second grade class, they have a second grade teacher and she can teach them everything and I can easily keep them contained. At the secondary level it's more difficult because different students take in different courses. You may all be taking English but then one may go into an algebra class and one may go into a math 8 class or one may go into a regular science and

065one may go into earth science. Or at the high school you have multiple classes you're taking every day. One thing at the high school we were doing was taking a classes one day and B level classes the next day We've changed that now to do an a week and be weak so It helps us with contact tracing but also limits the amount of contact students have in the building per week And so they went all their a day classes Starting next week will be one week and be a class Let's be the other week as opposed to doing a day and B day back and forth for now Until we can go over the for this year right now. We just made that change We're also looking at traffic patterns in the schools and sending

066students directional versus having mixing everywhere We're doing limitations on small group instruction And we're also looking at how we can change lunches a little bit. The lunches are still difficult. We're eating lunch in the classrooms And that's where we're having some issues with some of the contact tracing and some of the quarantines because in order to eat, you can't have a face covering on. And this virus has spread through your air droplets, through aspiration, not so much from contact surfaces. So when your face covering comes down and you're talking and you're laughing and... Sneezing and coughing at the same time all the kind of things that's how it spreads. It's not so much from contact on surfaces There's not enough not saying it won't happen, but the science is showing that you really don't pick

067up enough virus on touching the surface to catch it as you would to Through the air and that's where it's coming from another Mitigation strategy or and so forth we're looking at is just this afternoon You may or may or may not be aware of this, but we were we were notified that President Biden has put a mandate in place that anybody who employs over 100 people will be required to test weekly anyone who is not vaccinated. We don't know the details yet. It was just announced. We employ more than 100 people. Therefore, we anticipate that being a requirement for us, but we have not gotten any details on that yet. Once we get those details, we will pass them on to the board, but we will be required to do some type of testing

068weekly on anyone who is not vaccinated. That's the end of my comments. I'll be glad to answer any questions We don't know I would I would assume our nurses would probably be doing the testing or the VDH I know cannot do it because we couldn't get our other stuff figured out the other day So I don't think that they don't have a staff for it. So I'd imagine it would be our nurses We have we don't know the details yet. He said they will provide tests and this in this press release They'll provide test kits and stuff. We'd probably do a rapid test. I would imagine But I don't know if he's mandating rapid test or PCR test. PCR test takes about 12 to 24 hours for results to come back. The rapid test is

069a 15-minute turnaround. So we don't know what that's going to look like yet. The PCR test is most accurate. The antigen test may give you false negatives, but it rarely gives a false positive. Again, I'll have more information on those once we get more information from the state and federal government how we're supposed to implement. Thank you. So piggybacking off of what Dr. Wells was talking about, you all know that we opened Virtual Virginia early summer. They closed their registration in mid-July, I believe. And so we currently had 60, well, 76 students on a wait list. this was happening at the beginning of the year we put out information for parents if they if they wanted to try to seek that option and so we we had a wait list i was able to work

070with virtual virginia this week and they are letting us enroll those folks on the wait list so these parents that have had real fears about sending their children to to school and not having able to get those students into virtual Virginia. It is important to note too that spring registration is currently open. So if they want the option in the spring, second semester, it's open until December 15th. And so, but I think what I really wanted to talk about, because I want, why do we give you all of this? I think. You know, we were looking so forward to school year, you know, and to a school year that looked like school again. We really relished the opportunity to help students with their learning loss from the previous 18 months. Unfortunately, that's not the case,

071as you've heard. This year is more difficult. Our staff is exhausted. And it's just September. During the timeline that Dr. Wells presented, 17 of our office staff were not in this building. We were in schools helping schools contact trace. Our administrators are working well into the nights and all weekend. Our teachers are juggling instruction for students in person and synchronous online. The effort given so far is not sustainable. And what makes matters worse is that the environment that we're in right now has not been as supportive of public education as it was last year. People loudly complain about what we are not doing. But as I said earlier, we are doing everything humanly possible just to get the doors open of our schools. We were applauded last year for our efforts. I don't think there's

072the same appreciation out there for our educators. So I want to say publicly that all ACPS employees are appreciated and I know what job they're doing every single day. What I ask this board is to provide support and grace to a group of people who are doing everything in their power to educate children. There's been a lot of discussion in this community about the number of teachers leaving Anglers. You need to understand that teachers everywhere are leaving in record numbers because their jobs are miserable right now. We stick with it because we love children. And I just felt like I needed our public to hear this and our board to hear this because our people are doing everything they can do to make this year work. And we've been put in a tough spot. And

073I just need there to be some realization of that. And if y'all have any more questions about the COVID. Madam Chair, I don't have any questions, but I want to piggyback on what you just said. First of all, I do hear you and appreciate everything everyone is doing. And I just want to frame up for anyone listening to the, or will hear this. We're dealing with a different animal too. Last year, we had a majority of our students online. We have over, what, 1,200 kids in the high school alone. You know, so you're trying to wrap your arms around something that's much bigger than it was last year. And that presents a unique challenge. How many positive cases did we have in the high school? Do you know that number? Just at the high school

074this year? We're in the 55, 60, 55 to 65 range. I don't have a total number. I can pull it up, but I don't have it off the top of my head. Well, let's just say it's 65. Yeah. On this sheet you gave us from one person, it's 37 cases of positive, and they are positive cases on this sheet. Those are all positives, yes, ma'am. And we may have had a total of 65. So I agree with your statement that the onus cannot all be on the school. I get emails and calls, well, mainly emails, about why aren't we checking temperatures? And like you said, the temperatures are not really a big indicator, especially this new variant, supposedly. Also, how can you check the temperature of 1,200 students? We'd never get through the school day.

075They would never get into school. The onus cannot be solely on the school system. Parents have got to check symptoms. Check your temperature. If you think that's a key element, check the child's temperature before they leave for school. I've said this word before, I know. It's a heavy lift. It's a huge burden to be able to be in this position and wrap your arms around this animal, and everybody is doing the best they can. You're right. Last year, everybody was applauded. I think we were referred to as the light on the hill. I guess the light has dimmed some, but it is different this year, and everybody has to play on the same team. Just my words. Anything else about mitigation for Dr. Wells? Um, Madam Chair, I would just like to say thank you

076to Dr. Wells and all his hard work and instead of counting sheep at night, you're counting COVID cases. That's awful. Thank you, sir. And I'll add, you know, this Delta variant again is three times more contagious than the initial variant we worked with last year. So we're three times more contagious virus in a building with. three times as many students in it because we don't have the remote and other aspects of it. So that's kind of one reason you're seeing what you're seeing. What are we going to do when the students are back in class then for any type of social distancing? Is there anything else we could do? Well, we're working on, again, cohorting the students. So like in a class, you may have... let's say 15 students in a class, let's just say

077that. And some classes, we're just able to spread them out because the class is large enough. Some teachers are actually putting students in groups of three. And that group of three can be here. Another group of three can be six feet apart. So if something does happen, I can just detail that group of three versus maybe the other 12 around that group. So we're doing some things like that, just trying to figure out ways to space them, but also cohort them inside the classrooms as well. When we're doing pullout, we're not pulling out group students from different classes. So if there's like TAG and enrichment or special education pullout, we're trying to push in as opposed to pulling out. But also if we're pulling out, we're pulling out students just from that class. The only

078people that will be together will be the people that are together anyway, as opposed to mixing from two or three different classes. So if there is a contact, I'm not exposing people from different classes. Okay, and also I would just like to state to everyone, these kids were masked, correct? Correct. So I know we had a little comment earlier, but even with masks, this happens. The only time masks go down is while they're eating. The PE class when they're exerting themselves or the weightlifting class at the high school because they're exerting themselves and having to breathe heavily. And so the VDH, you know, in those situations, we allow them to, with their running back and forth, we don't want their mask on just for the CO2 and other things. So other than that, their masks

079are on. All right. Again, thank you so much, sir. Thank you. I'd just like to reiterate, just thank you for your hard work, all the staff in the late hours. Thank you to the teachers. I know you are doing a fantastic job, and I know that with the way the laws are, we don't have a whole lot of options this year like we did last year. So you're doing the best you can with what we have been given, and so I appreciate that very much. And also what was the first day that our students wore masks to school that were required on day one? Mask were required on day one. Yes, ma'am. Thank you. Anything else at this time? We have more comments later. I'll do my comments later. Okay. Dr. Wells, you all finished

080with that? I believe I have the suspension report. We have had a couple students since we're all back in school, not behaving, making some bad decisions. So that's on there. But other than that, that's all I have for you. We're moving on to this crowd. Madam Chairman, members of the board, you have at your place the receipts for July and August, the revenue budget monitoring reports for July and August, both for the school operational budget and the cafeteria account. And you have enrollment information. Next in September, we will bring the object codes back with all of the encumbrances on it to give you an idea of how we stand. I'll be glad to answer any questions. Board has any financial questions for Ms. Crouch? Not. Thank you. Thank you. Dr. Norman accountability measures. Thank you,

081Madam Chair and members of the board. I have a couple of things at your place that I just would like to bring your attention to. The first one is based on a board member's request. You have this packet that's got little tabs on it, and each tab is basically where we provide opt out. consent information to parents during our registration process or enrollment process. And so this was just for you to review. It is our standard opt out information. The second part, last week we had a information come out in regards from the that provided us virtual education in Virginia. It's this nice, wonderful little packet of information. I don't think it's the mics. Try that. And what it does is just lays out the requirements and things that we can and cannot do in

082regards to virtual learning in virtual education in the state of Virginia. Along with that, I provided you a memo that goes through many of the pieces of information that regards training that has taken place regarding our virtual learning process both last year as well as this current year for not just teachers in the classroom but entire staff so that you would have that. Along with that, I've put in the behind the memo. our privacy and virtual learning environment information that went out to all staff. And it specifically talks and this was done when the board requested us to improve on our synchronous learning last year and how much learning was taking place synchronously. and what that looked like. And so that we wanted to make sure that guidelines were put into place and that we

083were able to provide some support. So that was sent out. We also have the FERPA guidelines that were because we use sometimes we use Zoom with our adults. So we have that in place. And then we also have. for you in your packet to review what came out from the United States Department of Education March 30th, 2020, that we provided to all of our staff and our leadership teams regarding FERPA, freedom of and virtual learning during COVID-19, those specific guidelines. At this time Amherst County Public Schools is in compliance with all of the regulations and laws that are implemented in regarding to our virtual learning. Madam Chair, Dr. Norman, does this relate at all to what the teacher spoke with us about earlier today? Because I heard what he was saying, but I did not

084understand it. Can you explain to me his concern with relation and with regard to this content? Yes, I met with his building administrator Tuesday just to make sure that I was understanding what some of those concerns were. The The basis that I that I understand is that they're requesting training in regards to how to teach synchronously and provide privacy to themselves as well as students. One of the things that we had requested or that we had offered for teachers to be able to do because the United States Department of Education allows for it is that they can if they choose record their lessons while they're teaching direct instruction and then edit through to provide that and put that on their canvas or their learning platform and the reason that they can do that is because

085those platforms are private so a student cannot get into a canvas course or anybody can't get into that Canvas course or that Google Classroom unless you are a student rostered in that class. And so it falls under FERPA. and those privacy restrictions there. So what we wanted to do, what this building administrator asked us to do was to provide that information to him again and to then go ahead and provide information to the community. So we've put that out there on our website as well as information in our leadership folder for building administrators, our instructional team, and then for the building administrators to be able to give that to their teachers again. Thank you. Okay. I'm still trying to absorb it, but thank you for what you've given me so far. It is a lot

086of information. And once you review it, I'll be more than happy to to answer anything for you. The next item on the agenda under accountability is our S.O.L. data presentation. This is data from the 2020 2021 school year. Please remember that it is a it was a very difficult year So I'm going to kind of go through what that reality looks like for you. You should have this presentation printed off at your place. And I'm going to go through the first portion of it. And then the second portion of it is school specific. And that is just for your information. So our reality last year was this year we are fully accredited from last year's and that is based on the fact that accreditation was waived once again. So two years in a row the

087state has waived accreditation based on COVID-19. Last year all our remote tests did not factor into any of our overall pass rates, but they were still required to be implemented. So all of the standards of learning that were required, we had to still provide that to every student, whether they were remote, an ARA student last year, a virtual Virginia student last year, or where they were in person. We also had opt-outs. We had an over 264 parents opted their children out of taking any of the SOL tests. That did not go against any of the students unless it was a requirement for graduation. But it did impact our overall pass rate for the division and for each school. We were definitely in a unique position last year with our schedule because, of course, you know,

088we had every student in the division. learned remotely at least one day out of the week at our elementaries and then of course two times a week and sometimes three times a week for our secondary. Our ARA students last year we had 1,400 students around first semester and 1,300 second semester which was the enormous amount of students that were trying to learn 100% remotely. And we know the best instruction is in-person instruction. Quarantine students last year, we quarantined 1,585 students during the 2020-21 school year. And then our Virginia Department of Education, they only provided us one waiver in regards to testing, and that was for us to provide local alternative assessments. And they gave that in the areas of history and writing, and we took advantage of both of those in history and in writing.

089Sorry. So a summary of just of the results, we did see a decrease from the 1819 school year. And if you remember in our 18 and 19 school year, we were fully accredited under all the S.O.L. tests and everything that we took that year. This year we are for last year's testing over our reading. The scores for the division were similar to those across the state. However, our overall math scores were below those across the state in the division. Division results in the area of reading. And if you notice, we've broken it down by the subgroups. So we averaged anywhere from 60% down to our lowest, which was 40%. And that, again, was with our students with disabilities. When you compare this in our reading comprehension to our scores from 2018-19, you can definitely see

090the impact that COVID-19 and our learning loss in 18 months' worth of a different form of instruction took place on us. We saw a drop, as you well can see, some of it only by 10 points or so, but some of it drastically, 15 or 20 points. When you look at our math results, and I will say that we did not meet the state average across the board, but we were in line with many, many people across the region and Central Virginia in regards to our math scores. Our lowest, of course, again, our students with disability at 23, and all students across the board was a 40% press rate. And if you look at the comparisons, when we have students face-to-face and we're able to teach them and go back and do some spiral reviews

091and do manipulatives and hands-on, our math scores, we saw where hybrid learning as well as virtual learning and those manipulatives not being a hands-on tactile thing really impacted. our comparisons from 2018-19 to last year. In regards to science, science we had, we were across the, right at with the state. We showed our lowest score, of course, 21% pass rate with students with disabilities. All students, again, 47%, which was pretty average across the state. And again, if you look at this, science is another hands-on, lab learning, learned by practice. And so we saw that drastic drop between 2018 scores to last year's scores. When we look at our history and our local alternatives that we took in the area of, we did realize that students did much, much better. when we provided them that performance-based assessment.

092That assessment where across the entire year they were able to provide documentation that they had learned the standard and that they had put in effort and that we did a collection of material for them and that was what our performance-based assessment was rather than the standardized multiple choice. So when you look at what our local alternative for history was, we showed some significant supports there. In Virginia Studies, 81, Civics was 79. So we want to continue to do local assessments, local alternative assessments in the area of history as well. This is the scores for our grade eight and end of course writing for our local alternative. Again, we took advantage of the state waiver and we did a local assessment in the area of writing, which was a compilation of writing items such as expository

093or analytical writing narrative. And we did, we saw our grade eight. 78% and our end of course writing at 94%. When we look at the division comparisons, this is something that the board has asked us to do for several years now, but we are in line with what is going on throughout the region. We did see math and science below and both of those in... all of our neighboring counties. Reading, of course, was across the board, much higher scores. Our on-time graduation rate, this is just preliminary data. This will not actually be... until end of September. But we in 2019 were at 85.9 in our graduation rate. Last year, 95.2. That's because we had so many of the waivers for graduation requirements. And then 94.3 for the 2021 for our on-time graduation rate. Our dropout

094rate, we again saw 2019, 6.9, 2020, that two point dropout rate, and then last year, 4.3. So we rose a little bit, but not back to where we were in 2019. So we have seen improvements on our graduation rate and our dropout rate over a three year time period. Our action plan, well first we... We just want to teach, okay? We want to be able to have our teachers in the classrooms, working with students, and then not be quarantined. Our action plan is really to use the data that we have available for us. And that is our map data. So thanks again to Dr. Arnold putting in place our map assessment data for math and reading. We have that information that's drilled down for each student that will help us meet the students where they

095are once we get them in the building. Differentiated instruction. We're working on tiering supports. We have already conducted professional development with our 6 through 12 teachers in analyzing work samples from students and then how do they scaffold support in the areas of reading and math, history, and in science. And so that has already been taking place, and we're putting that. into the classroom. PLCs, of course, you know that when they're able to meet together to talk about the data that they have in front of them and what action steps they can take for tiering of skills that allows us to help students specifically with some content. Providing opportunities, we're going to expand learning and creating those life-ready students. So the more we saw that our... PBAs are performance-based assessments. The students did really, really well

096with that because they were able to show on their own and be creative with that. We want to provide them more opportunities with that. And so the specifics for math, of course, under the ESSA funds, we have asked for an elementary math support person as well as a secondary mathematics support personnel. We've already established a spiral reviews for grades two through five and are currently working on the ones for six through eight. We will have tracking logs for our mathematics. The Virginia Department of Education is completing a bridging document. for K through five and then the quick checks for K through five. So that is out and we are disseminating that and working with our math leads. Our math leads are providing professional development by grade level into the schools. And then we have already

097been attending all of the Virginia Department of Webinars. I'm very tired of webinars dealing with math, unfinished learning and how to scaffold that back in, as well as our growth assessments and how to read the data from what our new growth assessments will tell us. We have digital textbooks resources this year that we have not had in the past. We have IXL that will identify specific strengths and weaknesses in all students K through 12. We added that. And then tiering instruction, which we are providing PD support on how to analyze your data. that you get and then how to tier the skills that students need. Instead of tiering students, we want to make sure we tier the skills and put the students in that group or in that content specific that they need that support

098for. Very, very similar items that we're doing in reading. Of course, an elementary and a secondary reading support through ESSER funds. We have spiral reviews. We've never done this with reading and English, and we're starting that this year. We have also started training for letters. It's a phonemic awareness, and our elementary reading specialists are taking on that, as well as the phonics scope and sequence. that is very explicit with their instruction. Tiering instruction, again, that already took place on analyzing data and planning for that. We have English tracking laws from the Virginia Department of Education. Our growth assessments that are happening next week when students return. And then we're doing a secondary English book study. I don't think many people realize that even though you teach secondary English class, you as a secondary teacher you

099may not have gone through a class on learning how to teach kids to read so Our middle and high school teachers are doing a book study on when kids can't read, what can teachers do, which talks to them about how do I identify that, how can I actually support some specific elementary reading skills into the secondary classroom. And then we have implemented the qualitative reading inventory for all of our secondary to really determine what those deficiencies are in reading. And I will take any questions that you have. Or I'll try to answer them. Let me put it to you that way. Board members, Dr. Norman, all this great information. Yeah. Ms. Ligon. Yes, sir. Go right ahead. So, Dr. Norman, you were talking about the math this year being lower than the state. I'm just

100curious, in non-COVID years, the years prior, where do we normally fall in relation to the state average when we have normal? The last two years, the 2018 as well as 2017, we were above the state average. Once we fulfilled that, once we got all of our schools fully accredited and we saw that, our math scores significantly jumped, and so we were well above the state average on that, both in reading and in math. Okay, that was my next question. Okay, great. And as you process it, if you want to just call me and ask any questions, I'll be more than happy. You also have in the back of that packet all the school specifics for reading and math. Quick question, really quick. The reading support, what is all going to be included in that reading

101support with use of the ESSER funds? The two for, we have asked for two positions. One as a secondary reading specialist. Currently right now we do not have, our reading specialists are only at the elementary level. So we requested for two secondary reading specialists to help support our middle school and our high school. in the area of reading. Would that be for pull out special reading support or somebody right in the classroom assisting? It would be in the classroom assisting as well as it would be working with the teachers to help them identify students that are struggling in different like decoding or comprehension or they may be reading on a third grade level and they're sitting at a in an eighth grade or ninth grade classroom unable to read the textbook so it's going to

102help more than just in the English classes because in every single class that you attend you have to read so they may be sitting in a chemistry class being able to do wonderful work in chemistry, but have difficulty reading that text. And that's what we're trying to do. We're trying to support kids across the content level in regards to reading. And are these positions we would be funding in addition to what we just had today in our in our board docs with the big list of the new hires? Would these positions be in addition to that? Yes, they would. And these are two-year positions. When ESSER funds runs out, the position runs out. Okay, thank you. Dr. Norman, first I want to say thank you for all the data and breaking it down by the

103subgroups. I think that's really important. And I really like the way you were comparing it just to the overall because it's really difficult. with the inconsistencies that we've had to compare third grade to third grade. I mean, I know that and I get that's an unusual year. So I just want to make sure that everyone understands when they look at the data, if I'm correct, that we're not looking at cohorts. We're looking at just the overall rate for reading and math by subgroup. So we're not talking about the same students. Correct. You are, thank you for pointing that out. Yes, ma'am. This is not a growth measure. It is, it is, uh, in 2018, we had students at a fourth grade or, and these are different students that were tested last year. Right. And I,

104I see this as giving us sort of a baseline. Yes, ma'am. Of just where we've been through all this. And maybe at the end of this year, we'll see some. hopefully some upticks. And I know you're doing the map with showing growth. So I'm assuming you'll show us some of that maybe in the middle of the year. Yes, ma'am. We can see more how individual students are doing. Yes, we, if you remember, the state has the growth assessment that we have to give at the beginning of the year and the end of the year in order we can make accreditation by showing growth or by our just. regular SOL test. Dr. Arnold allowed us to stay and continue with MAP assessments because we can show from last year what our students were doing and then

105be able to take that information, give those assessments again this year. So it seems like a lot of assessments, but I think the way that we're going to use that MAP assessment is going to be so beneficial to our teachers. getting that push for kids and. closing the achievement gap and the learning loss that they've had over the last 18 months. Right. And going to Dr. Arnold's point about how difficult last year was and how difficult this year is, when you look at this data and you think about a teacher in a classroom, you're normally having to get your students through that whole new year, but you look at this and you can see they've got a big gap to fill. So there are challenges there that we can't even imagine. So thank you to

106the teachers that are working on it diligently every day. Yes, ma'am. We've got an awesome group of teachers. Could I ask one more quick question, please? When it comes to the ESSER funds, do you know when we're going to be reviewing the ESSER program again and the use of the CASEL? Yeah, we were going to do that in our work session. Okay. Thank you. Anything else on the accountability questions? Thank you, Dr. Norman. Thank you. The next part is regarding an update on class size. And what I just wanted to be able to provide you was an overview of the average class size that we have, but to also provide for you, there are two schools that we've seen some significant issues. where we needed to balance out those classes and make sure that we

107were getting some support in for those teachers because it is difficult. It is difficult going from six kids in a classroom back up to 20 kids in a classroom. And so behind that, you have a document from Manelison Middle School Principal Miss Gray outlining how she readjusted her schedule and why those parameters are in place and what that looks like. in regards to her school. And then, of course, as I commented earlier, Dr. Brown, who we've done some significant things to lighten the load and build more sections in that master schedule as well. And I will we are average. Of course, it's difficult for any classroom instructor to go from a very small classroom. During a pandemic to having every kid back in the classroom five days a week, face to face, like we're required

108by Senate bill 1303 to then move to 20 kids in a classroom. So we understand that there's difficulties and we're trying to do as much support for those teachers as we possibly can. We're still tweaking it every single day. Let me, and I do understand fully, when you say difficulties, what are we really speaking of? Because pre-COVID, we were having about 20 to 24 kids in the classroom. Yes, ma'am. So what difficulties, and it's not negative, what difficulties are we speaking about? Right. During the pandemic, one of the major difficulties is the fact that when we cohorts, when we quarantine students, last year we could put them into ARA. We do not have that option this year because Virtual Virginia does not accept any students. He got in. I was surprised that that was allowed.

109He did a great job in doing that. So now that teacher in the classroom is working, doing direct instruction, working synchronously with those that are at home, quarantined, and being able to Google Meet into the classroom as well as the kids that she has right there or he has right there in the classroom. So it's not. Ideal. They still have the same. It's not ideal for our teachers. Oh, I know. That's what I'm saying. But I ask these questions not because I don't know, but for parents and teachers who are listening. We'd like for them to know really what's going on, not teachers. But, you know, that's the only reason I brought it up. I'm much aware of the big difference in that. That's a lot going on, two groups of classes, situations going on.

110But just for parents and teachers to have that coming from you as to what is being presented as an obstacle. But we're still doing great with it. You see what I'm saying? Yes, ma'am. That's what I'm going to applaud in my comments later. But I just wanted people out there to understand this class average size situation. Thank you. I know that these are class averages. And so there's a range and we have some classes that maybe are very small to those that are very large. So when I'm looking at numbers that are in the 20s, I'm assuming that there's probably some really large classes and those schools are in that grade level that maybe this document is not showing. Yeah, I will tell you that after, you know, because we have to fall within the

111SOQs. So we are within the limits currently at every school within the SOQs. So we are in compliance with that. Now, is that ideal? Absolutely not. So that's why we're trying. to work with the building administrators to lighten the load for those teachers because we know even though it fits under virginia's guidelines and the code the administrative code it doesn't really doesn't fit within what we normally do in amherst county so miss thompson and if you look at the elementary that's pretty much what's in every class because they they divide out their asset you know so that's pretty consistent you're very right about the idea in the secondary schools when you have some wild fluctuations because of scheduling issues. And Dr. Norman has been working with those schools to adjust, hand schedule some kids. That

112way we can kind of start to even that out and make those look like averages, you know, make it more consistent. Right. Ms. Thompson. Sure. Some things I think we need to realize, too, is since it's the second day of school through that first week and through the end of that first week when we put people out, I was having administrators dealing with contact tracing and trying to figure out who's positive and who's not as opposed to really being able to get into their master schedule more when students were at it and be able to balance those things a little better because we were so focused on our high COVID numbers. administrators to do some of those other things we would normally do that first week of school. So I hear you. I hear that

113you're starting to balance these out and I appreciate that. I do. I get it. I appreciate all the contact tracing. I guess the point I want to make is when I'm looking at this at Manelison we have quite a lot of classes that are in the range of 20 even up to 24. So I'm sure there's going to be a lot of balancing that's going on there. My question is, are there classrooms that are available if we had additional teachers that we could relieve some of that if the balancing is not helping? Don't have to have an answer today. I'm just thinking outside the box. Yeah, I think they have space. I think the biggest issue finding. We're trying to think outside the box and put some things out there in case we need that.

114Be thinking about here at the board as well as you guys. Thank you for looking at those numbers. The last item that I have on the agenda is an update on early college information that was requested from a board member. What you have in your packet, I believe, too, and it is now up on the screen. is just a cost analysis for the early college enrollment from 2018 all the way to 2021. One of the things I would like to remind the board is that in 2016, we had paid for early college previously for our students, but we capped the number of students that could attend early college. The board made the decision to open up the cap and not eliminate any child from attending early college and allow them to, if parents wanted them

115to go, for them to pay the tuition for that. So we opened that up. And then the following year, then we picked up all of the cost of textbooks for all of our early college students, just as we would with any other program that we have. So this was just information for you that was requested in regards to how much that would cost when we looked at what it would take to fund early college students and their tuition and textbooks. I think I was the one that I had several emails from different people inquiring. The question was, quote, unquote, if we are paying for STEM and governor's school, why can't we do early college? So I said I would bring that to the board and also to the meeting. Because the STEM and Governor's School

116are regional programs, we're actually required to do that. But I think we can hear that if everybody gets that understanding, which maybe they did not know at first. Yes, ma'am. And I will tell you, as a parent, paying out-of-state tuition right now are worth every penny. What we try to make sure folks understand that, too, is the amount of money they can save with those much cheaper credit hours. And that is all that I have for you. Anything else for Dr. Norman on all her numbers? Madam Chair, Madam Vice Chair, and members of the board, I have several things for you this evening. First of all, you have an updated vacancy memo in front of you. If you've had a chance to take a look at that, I'm certainly willing to take any. Questions on

117that? Those secondary positions, none of those, just a note, are uncovered. They are continuing to be posted, but they're not unfilled. In other words, the English position we've just been able to move a licensed English teacher into cover that. Currently, as we have placed one of our contracted subs recently hired into our Lancer Academy to free her up to do that, we're still posting to try to fill that. as a need. The art position, we still have posted, but we do have a licensed art teacher who is, again, in one of our contracted teaching positions. And the CTE position, that is being posted because the coordinator for CTE position that we posted and interviewed for, an offer had been made. Is this not working? I think it's the system. I don't think it's the mics.

118So we're trying to get that filled so we can make that shift to put that person into the coordinator position. Where we have the greatest needs really of unmet needs are in our classified positions probably. We are likely going to fill that secretary position shortly. We have three positions in instructional assistance as of today actually rather than four, and we have interviews set up with three candidates this week, tomorrow I believe, so we can hopefully find qualified candidates. The driver position remains at two. Custodian continues to be a very difficult position to fill right now in this market. We did have an individual who began in that position and then left after one day. So we continue to try and put, I think, outside the box to make sure we're trying to meet the needs

119of our schools. I don't know that the CMP maintenance position is going to be posted. That's a position that remains open. I guess that might fall under one of those unfilled from last year that has not been determined in need yet by Ms. Klein. So we will see. The elementary position is there. It is not unfilled. We actually have a library media position at one of our elementaries that was vacated that we currently have a substitute teacher in, and we have already held interviews for that, and they're looking to move one of our current elementary teachers into that position. That's why we posted the elementary position. We can't do that until it's filled. And the other two are additional positions that are unfilled as far as the support positions. So any questions you have, I'm

120happy to reflect on those. I think it's valuable to look at that bus driver number because if you look around the state, we're doing really, really well with that, even locally. In Chesterfield County, they have 270 vacancies per bus. Even if you look locally, and I would just say I'd like to be at 100%, quite honestly, and we're continuing to work toward that, but we are certainly... in better shape than some others in that realm. But we want to be better than that and fill it completely. Madam Chair. Yes, ma'am. So I'm trying to wrap my head around some of this position stuff. So the CTE teacher that's under secondary, that's high school? It is. So how do we need one teacher? What are these five teachers who have agreed to teach four classes? Is

121that CTE in addition to? A class they're already teaching? The five teachers agreeing to teach four classes? If I get clear, I'm happy to answer it if I get clear. Let me get the C. Okay. So the five teachers, are they covering? Who are these five teachers? Not who are they? The five teachers, this is at the high school, the five teachers who have agreed to teach four classes are teaching other classes. Yes. Okay, so let me see if I can explain it. I'm going to use some examples. So right now we have a building trades, and our building trades teacher, and the reason this is so apparent in CTE more than in any other course at the high school is because those 1,400 kids that were students last year, they were not able to

122participate in any of the CTE programs. And the reason is it's because they chose to go virtual. When you chose to go virtual, you could not come into the school and participate in welding or in building trades. So it put a double load, what we would normally have in our CTE programs. who would normally fit into those slots that we've always had for CTE, were now competing with the kids that were in ARA last year who didn't get the opportunity but still needed the opportunity. So you had double the load of students trying to get into the CTE program. So we ask building trades to pick up, cybersecurity to pick up, welding. imaging technology to pick up, economics and personal finance to pick up. We did a math because we were still down a math

123position. And those were positions that the teachers who want to build their programs freely said, let me just teach another block. Am I able to do this? And we said, absolutely. And then there were some that I asked. because kids need this. And so that's why we have those extra sections for CTE specifically. So hiring a CTE teacher on secondary doesn't alleviate this. No, ma'am. But we knew that going into it. So do we need another CTE teacher? Because I'm trying to figure this out. We would have known going into school about the double load. Not really until they actually came back to us and enrolled and filled out their registration and signed up for their courses. Because remember, those kids were ARA at home. And so filling out that information over the summer when

124we're trying to build the master schedule was the difficulty there. And every room and location used. Okay. And I would say that utilizing individuals for an additional section was probably easier and quicker to do than trying to hire another CTE teacher. That doesn't seem to be a very fast process. And if I can add one more thing, because it's very easy to hire, not easy, but it's very difficult to hire a second cover. A section of welding, a section of building trades, a section of culinary arts, you know, because they have to have that licensing. And so the teachers that are taking those on, you said they did that willingly. They're not overloaded now. We're not overloading those teachers because they took this on. They're doing it willingly. They've all agreed to it. Anyone who

125did not choose to choose not to do it. Yes. Kids. He said, sign me up and I'll teach four classes every day. So he has no break and he said, I want to do this because that's what's right for these students. That's what we need to do for these kids to get them through. They need this. And so our teachers are willing. That's what our kids need. And they're happily doing the job. I know we've had a conversation before about when a teacher takes an extra block. And we've talked about the pay that we give them. Are we giving that teacher, like if they teach four classes, are we paying them one-fourth for that extra class? Because I was thinking when we had that conversation. We fixed the problem that you and I talked about.

126So if they took on an extra block, they got an extra. And if they took on two extras, they got that additional. Okay, good. And we only have one teacher right now that. that happened with. Okay. I'll leave it there. Thank you, because I just want to make sure, you know, those teachers did that willingly. They need to be, to me, getting the percentage that they would have if they were teaching that class. So thank you for adjusting that. So the next item that you have in front of you is the draft proposal for ACPS COVID-19 emergency sick leave benefit. This is... The first read, I think, was last board meeting. So this would be up for vote. And the reason I say that is. that, as I indicated previously, the Families First Coronavirus Response

127Act leave that they currently have will expire September 30th. I don't anticipate or haven't heard word that that would be extended. I don't know what this new information from the Biden administration and Doley regarding what they're looking at, if they're going to require it. They did indicate in that article today that there may be some requirement for employers to provide paid sick leave. for certain situations regarding vaccinations. So we don't know what will come of it. Currently, there is not anything in place beyond September 30th. Now, again, in this policy, you have the opportunity that should something else be mandated or put into place that we are looking to employ, that we could terminate this policy. So that one would actually supersede it. I put also before you... the form that individuals use to request

128emergency sick leave through FFCRA. The reason for that is, and I think, Ms. Ligon, you may have gotten someone who made comment regarding can we extend what we're covering in our policy. And I've had about two conversations, not a ton, asking situations like having to be home for child care purposes related to COVID or other situations beyond what we've indicated. I just put that there so you understood what the current policy provides that we're utilizing, not to say that you have to change anything. This is very similar to what was proposed and agreed upon by the board last year in this current iteration, and it covers what people have exhausted there. other sick leave like FFCRA which they will have as of the 30th, they will have opportunities for leave if they are quarantined due

129to being considered close contacts while at work. It's a bit more specific. But any questions that you have regarding this, happy to answer. I think it would be important to have some type of leave in place looking at the trends once the FFCRA expires on the 30th. Mr. Gallagher, I'm in support of extending the leave, but I just want to make sure I'm understanding it right. The emergency leave is getting ready to run out, and what we're offering is an additional 10 days. That is correct. So if I'm a teacher and I have to quarantine for 10 days because student A in my room had COVID, and then a month later I had to quarantine another 10 days because another student got COVID, Two months later down the road, I had to quarantine another 10

130days. That teacher, in essence, will be using 20 days of their own personal leave. That is correct. Even though we're requiring them to quarantine. But they're not sick. Correct. I'm struggling with that. Well, but also, but they also can teach from home and they would not be. So, and I can explain some of those options. So, um, two different points, um, it will affect some more than others. Obviously, if you're vaccinated and you're a close contact, you do not have to quarantine unless you develop symptoms. You're, you're asked to monitor your symptoms. You're encouraged to get tested after five days from the exposure. And that's the practice that's been suggested through CDC, VDH, and ACPS throughout. So that hasn't changed. So it might impact some more than others in this situation. And there are situations

131where we're either, and we do this, we're able to broadcast back into the classroom, utilizing Canvas or otherwise, and maybe have a facilitated classroom. instruction if a person is quarantined but not experiencing significant symptoms that are limiting them their capacity to teach and that's a case-by-case basis on whether we have the capacity for that teacher to do so this isn't only teachers however this is really for all positions and that's where it gets interesting because not all positions had the capability to work from home and actually do that and if you have newer employees especially you know they kind of exhaust their leave they're sick leave pretty quickly because if they're starting off, they only, you know, have 10 days to begin with during the course of the year if they're a 10-month employee. So

132there are definitely limitations. Some of those limitations were questioned last year. There were only a handful of individuals that began to get stretched due to numerous quarantines, but it did happen. And there were times when a few personal sick leave days did have to be utilized by some individuals. I don't know that that number got tremendous, but it's always unfortunate. And you run the risk in a year like this that that's going to happen. So I just don't know the answer to that. I proposed it similar to what we had done last year when we were trying to be relatively restrictive because at that time we were thinking. People need to be careful in their behaviors, and therefore, if they just contract COVID at home, I'm not going to be able to provide you emergency

133sick leave for those opportunities. This really has to do with being quarantined due to being considered close contact, which now is a more limited population of individuals. But again, there are a lot of things that can happen related to COVID that are going to put you out of school. Not all of them fall under this policy. Exactly. Board, I was just wondering, you know, if there's anything that we can do extra, especially since this year is. you know panning out not to be quite like like like last year um i don't know i'm just thinking off the top of my head maybe they can come up with something that would be something that we can do to help those teachers if they're having to be quarantined for things reasons beyond their control they're coming to

134work every day they're doing their best and then they're told to stay home and we're not paying them so you know even if it's some supplemental pay or something i don't know i'm just wondering if there were things and options that we can look at i think the teachers could could essentially be concerned they have a child they may have to use those 10 days if that's all they've got because their child's sick and that's why they have those 10 days but now we're asking them to stay home another 10 or another 20 for things beyond their control so i don't know what we can do yeah i don't disagree i would suggest that we we get a policy in place so we can take care of our people right now and then i think

135we can what that might I think that would probably be our best course of action tonight. And like I said at the beginning, I'm in support of doing this, but then I have that residual concern as well. If I could interject, I was going to say something along those lines. So if we have a second meeting this month, it'll be closer to the end of the month when this expires. There may be some indication from the higher-ups about more emergency leave. We can make it contingent on that, too, at the next board meeting. We can do something tonight about this and do more, if necessary, at the next board meeting because we may have more information. because I struggle with the same thing. And I know we use teachers as a general term, but I

136think we mean everybody because you could have someone working in the school because of exposure, but because of a kid at home too, that they have to quarantine. So we're not limiting it, of course, just to teachers, even though that may be the general term we're saying. But I think, like you said, we can put something together for tonight and just maybe nail down anything extra at the next meeting. Well, then I would propose if you do vote on this and agree to this, the two things that you can modify or change are the amount of days and what it covers, the different areas. So I can put a couple of proposals together that stretches a few of those different areas if there is not some other emergency protection that's provided or mandated before then.

137Mr. Gallagher. Yes. If a teacher goes out on quarantine, they are still able to teach virtually, remotely, whatever, and still get paid. Is that correct? Yes. Well, absolutely. That's dependent, so that's a decision that the administrators have to make to make sure they're capable of doing that. In most cases, there is a way to do that, that we can have them still teach their class. Sometimes we have their class at home, so they can teach their class virtually, and they're all at home. Other times, they may be broadcast into the classroom and have a facilitator there to help support the class with instruction, so that can happen. And when that occurs, they don't take any leave, so they continue to be paid as if they were. They were in school on a regular day. So

138we send a teacher home on Monday because she was exposed to someone who tested positive. They're sent home on quarantine. Two or three days later, they come down with symptoms, and now they are sick. And so they are not out for quarantine. They are out for COVID and probably won't be. healthy enough or strong enough to actually do a class or have a class. That has happened. And then we look at a substitute situation and that individual uses leave, either emergency leave or if that's exhausted personal leave. Personal sick leave, I apologize. Well, I think you say you needed something now. Well, I think the suggestion was made to take a vote here to have something in place and then to bring other suggestions to the work session and also if in fact... we have

139some new FFCRA regulations come through. This has language to indicate that those who would supersede this would be voided anyway. You have the discretion to terminate this program. I'm trying to make a motion that we approve the emergency sick leave tonight. A second. All in favor? Aye. The next item that we have is the revision to Procedures for adjusting grievances associated with board policy GBM professional staff grievances. You had asked that we presented this for initial read at the last board meeting, and then you had asked that we make some additional changes to Section 2, which I have done per your request and per our discussions. I have also, as we talked about, sought counsel on that, and you do have comments available to you in the administrative. section of board docs those comments from

140council for your review as well just related to implications of the policy changes but you've had an opportunity to review those but I'm happy to take any questions that you might have and I suppose we consider this a first read with the changes if that's what you wish so okay is that the wish of the board to continue to grab a hold of this a little bit more as the first reading come back I would, and if we do the work session, then we can bring questions to you then. Absolutely. That would be great. And thank you for taking the language into consideration. I think it's good. Absolutely. And if there are any other questions, that's all I have this evening. Okay. Anything else for Mr. Gallagher? Dr. Arnold? Yes, ma'am. So unfortunately, we couldn't

141have our student representatives here. And so we'll skip straight to my part. I've put some things on here that give you opportunity to discuss at our work session. And so I brought them back. But we did add one last at our last meeting. There was a lot of conversation amongst you guys about the decorum in our public comment section. We asked our attorney as well as Appomattox County and Campbell County who were experiencing similar issues and if you look across the state it's even worse. And so he put together this document. This is a... document so you can see what the things that you can do are and you certainly can pull things out. I actually got, and I think you guys did too, an email from a parent looking at some language which I

142think was a good suggestion. We don't intend to stifle public comment. We just want to have some control over this room and allow us to prepare ourselves. And that's really what this is about. It gives you guys more control over the proceedings and it allows us to make sure that we can have things prepared. Well, you guys, when you hear public comment, we can give you things like tonight. We knew what public comment was going to be, and we were able to give you some documents that help you with those kinds of questions. And so that's really the intent of it. Like I say, this is pretty similar across the area. I don't think... this out of thin air. These are the things that are out there. So we certainly can talk about it now

143or you can spend time with it and we can talk about it at the next meeting. But I just wanted to put it out there because I just think we want to make sure that we can have a meeting that is you guys can do your job. And I just want to make sure the environment where that can happen. Any questions now or do you want to? Talk about it later. I don't have questions, but I have a couple of comments. First, I want to say that I appreciate the public comment, and it is very helpful to me to do this job. Sometimes I agree with it. Sometimes I don't. with that person's viewpoint, but sometimes they make points that really speak to me and might change my opinion and my thoughts. I don't want

144to do anything to stifle that. When we have, if we put a policy in place that's requiring them to submit to you what they're going to talk about and get approval ahead of time, I think that we are leaving out the public that might be looking at our agenda at the last minute before they come. have a smartphone in their hand coming home from work checking the agenda and they see something on it that they want to speak to. I don't want to stifle that. I also don't want to have what people are going to speak about being approved. I think they need the freedom to speak to us. We are here to serve them. It's their children. It's their community. And I don't want to stifle that. I also don't want to limit what

145they need to speak about by giving them a time limit. You can't speak about something again. for another three months. I did like, like you said, the suggestion by the teacher parent that said if it's on the agenda, they should be able to speak about it. I agree with that. But I also think that that is being restrictive. I would prefer not to even have it. But if the board's pleasure was to have it, I at least like the teachers or the parent suggestion policy period or just certain statements about them. I'm not sure I understand your question. I'd rather not have it. Are you talking about the whole policy or just. I was talking about making them they couldn't speak on something for three months. But if the board's pleasure was to keep something

146like that, then I would definitely go with the parent's suggestion. I do think there's some good points in this that we could I mean, we already have a policy. there may be some good points we can take from this and move it into our policy to set better expectations. But I know we've had some times that some people have been outspoken, but Madam Chair, I think you've done a great job. You know, you know what's allowed and what's not. I think you have done a good job to keep things under control. But yes, sometimes you have to pull it back. But I think. I mean, I guess I'm struggling to see why we need to go to this extreme. I do think there's good points. I do think that the safety concerns of an issue

147and maybe pull some of that out. So just with a first read, just an initial glance, I would not go for it in the format that it's in. I would be more in favor of updating our current policy with maybe some of the things that we would agree upon on here. So BD DH. the public participation at school board meetings. That's so the, the, the thing that you would like to see some elements of this in this actual policy. Is that what you're saying to me? Well, I'm gonna look. Yeah. This one is pretty general. It's very, the one that we currently have in place. Mm-hmm but it does set expectations for our meeting. Does it not like, does it give a time limit? It does. BH, no, no. I mean, I'm not looking at

148the old one. Oh, you're looking at regulation. Ms. Thompson, when you say time limit, are you talking about the three-minute time limit? The three-month thing, right? Time limit. You're talking about the three month thing. I know we have a three minute time limit. Okay. I'm talking about a limitation. Gotcha. That a person can't come back and speak. Right. That's just. Right. That was what council put in there. So I'm just, I'm just giving it to you for ideas that are out there and what you have the authority to do. But we, what I think I need is to know which parts of these things. are interesting to you and then that way I can adjust our actual policy to meet those those needs. Does that make sense? Okay. Yeah, that's what I was saying. I

149think there are some good things in here if we could pull them out. So we help our policy. So I would suggest at the 23rd because it sounds like we're going to be coming back on the 23rd. Come prepared to say here are the things I want in there. And then I think that that can meet our needs. Because I think the main thing is safety and treating people with respect and those kinds of things. That's what I'm really looking for. Is that our expectations? Yes. Okay. So that one's good. Thank you. All right. So the curriculum policy based on our last conversation has been updated to reflect many of the things that were requested. So at this point, I just need to know, is that what you want, or do we need to revise

150it more? And they were your suggestions. And I do think that a lot of the suggestions I made have been put in there. And I feel like from my expectation, we're getting there. A couple of things that I noted on this draft is in the first paragraph, I think it's next to the last sentence, it says a list, I guess a list of the committee would be submitted to the board for review and approval. I would recommend adding prior to any meeting of the committee. So in other words, you're not going to, we won't form a committee and start the process. You're not saying every time we have a meeting, you're just saying before we go. Right. Yeah, I understand what you're saying. Then. I saw a little bit of inconsistency in terminology between review

151team and curriculum development committee. So like in the first paragraph, the sixth sentence, every attempt to be made to include the following member on each review team. So is this a team that's reviewing or is this a team who's developing curriculum? See what I'm saying? I think the first page refers the short part refers to curriculum development teams. That's what it should say. I think so. So maybe just scan the document to make sure for medical changes, what you're saying. And as long as we it's grammatical, but as long as we know the intent as well. I even think it would have value if we had rationale, like, you know, before the committee list was formed, that there would be some rationale as to what we need, maybe some public input. If we're talking about

152facts, I think curriculum development is simple enough. If we're talking about values, we may need to say, what are the values? I don't want somebody to come and develop a curriculum and take months to do that, and then it's something the public's not going to support. So if we know there's a need, what's the public feel, and what are some of those shared things, and then start the work. So maybe just something about some initial groundwork on it. Then at the very end, the last sentence, it says, it shall, if the school board denies the curriculum committee's recommendation, it shall provide to the community its reasons in writing for such decision. It shall post such reasons on the website. I might suggest that the last shall is a may, in case we may not be

153able to anticipate future, to just give some latitude for board, you know. Don't want to, I mean, if it was a personnel issue, you couldn't talk about that. So instead of it being so final, you know, you may want to consider May. And then I also wanted to see in that last paragraph, it talks about, you know, what's going to happen if it's approved, but if it's denied, then what happens? So if it's denied, is it going to go back and we're starting all over? It just sort of cuts it off. Let me see if I can. You just wanted to have a repeat. I would think so. It says that if it's approved, it would reoccur every seven years, but if the school board denies, then it just doesn't say what's going to happen

154after that. I just made it. A different board might make the assumption instead. So those were my thoughts. But to me, I think it's getting some good meat. The communication plan has also been updated. We added an overview to get some of the elements of what the goal of this whole plan was, to talk about the principles of communication throughout the document to better, so for example, in objective one, there's one that says, cultivate and strengthen relationships with the school community to engage them in the district's vision, help them understand district police and values, and ultimately engage in the mission by considering challenges and developing solutions to those challenges. and the tactics would be ongoing update of the issues collected and discussed with the following groups, exchange information for use in communications for the following

155community members. So your teacher councils, your PTAs, your student council, your faith community leaders, chamber of commerce, school board meetings, communication tool for residents with and without. So those ways to engage our community in conversations that we've been talking about. And once again, it can serve the exact same purpose. We can do it exactly the way we just talked about the curriculum policy. I know Dr. Arnold, you said you made some changes to it. I know I reviewed the first one. Since the change, I don't see them like in red or anything. They're not. We can get you a document like that. So I can't just see them. So it's going to take me a while to compare them unless you do have something that's got that red. That would help me to be able

156to compare that. The last thing was VTEC, and that's the Virginia Tribal Education Consortium. There was an MOU that we gave you at the last meeting and just wanted to know if there were questions, what they were, and do you need time to, again, talk about it the first time because we did not have that work session. I think we talked about it a little bit. Yeah, we did. I didn't see anything. I know someone else saw, so I didn't see anything standing out to speak about. It's providing support to students that are Native American, this consortium. They want to be able to help themselves have resources, and they have resources. Who will be the monthly remote video conferencing with? Partnership agreement requirements? Any concerns there? That's all I have in this book. Okay. Short

157for you, huh? I lost my thing here just for a minute. So we are at Mr. Terry. Yes, ma'am. What are you bringing to the board here? So the STEM Academy has not had any meetings since our last meeting. We don't have another one for another couple months. But I would like to, for my comments, start with thanking every teacher, staff, and personnel in Amherst County Public Schools. I live with a person who works in Amherst County Public Schools. I hear the struggles. Those who don't walk in your shoes don't understand. Unfortunately, some choose to do the absolute wrong thing. And we had a plan in place. We were planning to get the kids back in five days a week with a good plan, be it with mask or be it without mask. But in

158the long run, we have masks on all the students. If the right thing had been done. I don't think we would be in the situation that we're in right now. So I'm embarrassed for people to stand back and say that Amherst County is not doing what they need to do for the students because I think you're doing 100% of what you need to do for the students. Every child, every day, we are doing what's best for the students. I would hate to see it come down to schools having to be closed again. But if that's what it takes, that's what it's going to have to take. And the way to not have to do that is for everybody to do what has to be done. Again, I commend you guys for stepping up to this

159struggle. This is not every year. Last year we said this is going to be a tough year. Here we are again. I think I said it last month. This is going to be another tough year. It's different than it was last year. But you guys are stepping up to the challenge. I know we looked at the progress of students earlier. We saw there was some struggles. There's some things we've got to get through. But we can't get there if we don't have the students in school. And it's not the people in this room or the people who are running the schools who can keep them in schools. It's the parents. and the students doing the right thing. So again, I commend you guys. And thanks for all the data that we do get. I mean,

160it's not always what we want to see, but it's what we need to see. And you don't know if you make progress unless you know where you came from. And thanks for the information, guys, on all the upgrades to the schools. the items going on it's a continuous battle it's always something to be done i know you guys are always busy so uh thank you for staying on top of things um it's like i said it's it's a never-ending job but um i just can't say it enough thank you for everything um yes i just wanted to say thank you to all our speakers we had tonight uh a thank you to everybody who's been sending us emails um phone calls during our trying times right now with covid and also a big special thank

161you and again we cannot thank you guys enough for everything you have to deal with during this time especially you dr. Wells I know you have you know extra things on your plate at this time and we are truly grateful to have you on our team also you know last year our big concern was we wanted all our kids in school you know five days a week and get them you know educated in class and now we have kids home and they're not even getting educated and we need to come up with a plan, you know, B, C, D, and E on how we're gonna make sure our kids, if they're not in school, if they're home, that they're still gonna be able to have their schooling. I'm very concerned over that after the drop

162we've seen last year in education and the learning ability with all our students. We're far behind right now and I only see us getting further behind. I hate to be negative Nellie, but I'm very concerned. My daughter is in school and... I can tell she's struggling with everything going on emotionally and educationally-wise. That should be it. But, again, thank you guys for everything you do. It is greatly appreciated, and thanks again. I don't have a board report or a committee report, sorry. I do want to... Thank the staff in the school for everything that you're doing again. And also, I'd like to just highlight the notifications that we receive. And I'm a parent, too, so I really appreciate the effort that each school takes to keep the parents involved, engaged, and informed. I mean, other

163than carrier pigeon, I don't know. We're sending notifications through a lot of methods, so I think we're doing a good job there. I want to echo what Mr. Terry said about the one issue we had at the high school, and I don't think I could say it enough, the amount of resource that was shifted. away from other things because of that. The ripple effect into the communities and families being affected because of that, it's staggering. So we're returning to school on the 13th. I think there's been some questions about that, but we're returning to school on the 13th. All schools are reopening on the 13th. Buses are running, everything hopefully back to somewhat normal. So I'm looking forward to that. Thank you. Well, I just want to reiterate and say thank you to all the

164staff. Done a phenomenal job. I was talking to someone today and they said, you know, well, their bucket's a little empty. And I said, well, just make sure there's no hole in it. We need to keep filling it up. So we do understand. what your challenges are and the data shows us the challenges that you have. I mean, our business is education and I know that it's been hard for you to even get to that. So I want to say thank you for what you're doing behind the scenes so that the teachers can teach. We don't take you or them for granted. And the folks that are driving the buses and doing the lunches and. just making our schools look nice. The nurses, everybody is just stretched. So I just want to say thank you.

165We are here to support you and do what we can to make your life easier, to make our year successful so that we will be a shining light on that hill again. I want to just make a plea to the parents, as you've heard tonight, to monitor your children. If they're showing those symptoms, keep them home, contact the school and let them know. It's vitally important. If we want to keep our schools open, we need to have a team effort. We don't have options this year like we did last year, just based on the laws. So just want to encourage parents and say we need your help desperately. Looking forward to having those kids back in the classroom next week. That's a good thing. Dr. Arnold, I think that you and your team were wise

166to take a step back and a pause. And it just happened to fall that we could. spread out 10 days, but we only missed five instructional. So a good call, and I appreciate that. Looking at the numbers, I think it was a very good thing to do. So thank you. And just say welcome back next week. Some schools are actually starting next week, so we'll just call this a fresh beginning. Well, I was just thinking about that. It was a good way to end there because I'll just start right there. First of all, we want to, first of all, throw that thank you out there. I didn't have a lot of comments when we were having comments because I have been talking to Dr. Arnold every other day or maybe every two days. I've talked

167to Dr. Wells and others, so I've been aware that we all have of what's been going on. I do just want to say, as Ms. Thompson just alluded to, that, you know, we don't want to come back on Monday. with this assumption that we are way behind. We want to come back Monday saying we're just going to pick up where we left off. We don't want kids stressed out thinking that we were on Chapter 1 and now we've got to be on Chapter 10. That's not for parents, teachers, or anybody to be thinking. We had a setback. And let me be clear. This setback is because we're in a pandemic. I said this last year. I'm saying it now. This is not a joke that we're dealing with out here. We had to come out

168of school temporarily. We had to do it. We didn't want to do it. My grandchildren wanted to go to school. I wanted them to go to school. We were excited when we were there the first day. The buses were rolling, and we all were happy and buying book bags and everything. But let me tell you, your health comes first. I know we don't understand that sometimes. Let me take this down. I know we don't understand that. But we can't have children in a school room getting sicker and sicker and the parents getting sick, the grandparents getting sick, and we have a teacher in the hospital. We had to come out. We had to do it. And we're not going to get behind. We're going to come back in. The teachers are working so hard. We

169want them not to be stressed. Just start over. You know, I've gotten older and I realize what's important. Education is important. I'm an educator and my children are educators. But this is a pandemic that is killing people. literally on respirators and ventilators, young and old. I see it every day. So if we had to step back for five days, so be it. I'm not negative on it. I'm positive because we're all still alive in here. We have 4,000 kids to be considered, 700 or more employees. We're trying to do the best we can, not just me and the board. Dr. Arnold is a train runner here. His crew, I came up here for that press conference. It looked like a command station in here. I thought I was in Afghanistan. Didn't I say that back

170there? I said, what in the world? We're trying to do everything. We're trying to tell people what to do, protect our students, protect our families, protect our bus drivers. We're doing all we can. I don't want anybody saying that we're falling behind. We're going to catch up, and we're going to graduate some people in June. We're going to have some celebrations, but we have got to understand that we are in a pandemic, not just Amherst County. I see other schools having to shut down. I see other football teams. My grandkids, they want to play ball, and so do I. I'm trying to get to the high school for a football game, but folks are sick. If you don't believe me, come on over to the hospital and check it out. So I want the school

171doors to open Monday. I'm excited again. I'm trying to come out and see them come back in. But we were in a chaotic mess, contact tracing all over this county. I don't know how Dr. Wells them do it. I want to applaud them for it. I'm telling you right now, up to midnight trying to find out and contact parents so parents can keep their children well. This is huge, people. This is huge. And as far as public comment is concerned, I would love it when you come. But let me tell you this. The reason we looked into some rules and regulations is not to keep you from coming, but to be respectful when you come. I don't care if people email me or get mad. You can't just come in here and scream at me.

172I'm doing the best I can. Okay, come on and scream, but we're going to put a time limit on screaming. So come, express your concerns. I write it down. I even call them back sometimes and say, well, what are we going to do about this? When someone asked me about early college, we talked about it tonight. I talked to Dr. Norma about those scores earlier this week. I said, I need to get into the nitty-gritty of this and see how I can pull the African-American children's scores up pre-COVID and after COVID. So I'm on the job. But let me say it again as I close. We are in a pandemic. It says that it takes a village to raise a family. I don't know who said it. Somebody said it. We've been saying it for

173100 years. Now is the time for Amherst County. as a village to come together and help us beat this pandemic so that we can go back to school. Wear your mask if you want to. I can't tell you what to do. I got one on. You know why? Because I don't want to die right now. I'm serious as I can be. I don't want to get sick. I would love for you to see my makeup and my lipstick one more time, but it's going to be a minute. And I don't want my grandchildren to get sick in the school system. I want them to go to school, get educated and graduate and live a happy ever after. But if we have to come out, we'll come out. If we have to do virtual, synchronous, remote,

174whatever it takes, we'll do it. And we'll bring our scores up. The whole state scores are down. And I'm not blaming anybody for it. It's the situation. So beat us down if you want to. Talk about me all night long, but I'm telling you right now, we have done the best for these kids. And not me, those people sitting out there is who deserves the reward. Making decisions, getting information, having the Department of Health, Department of Education, everybody's involved. And everybody says the same thing, or they should be saying the same thing. We are in a pandemic. But you know what? We're going to make it. We're going to make it when this county of Amherst comes together and stops putting people down and say, what can I do to help you? What can I

175do? Well, keep your child at home when they're sick, number one. I mean it. Just stay home. Get the books out and study. Do the best you can until we get back. For the teachers, hang in there. I'm an educator. Any day now, Dr. Caps may say, we got to shut down. I got to say, okay, we got to go. We'll do something else. And then for you don't have kids in the system, help somebody else that needs your help. Babysit for them, clean for them, help them read. I don't care what you do, but it's going to take a village to get us out of this. So, yes, I've been philosophical tonight, but I know all about the data. I know all about the policies. But I'm more concerned to get these kids back

176in school, but to get them back in there safely. And that's all I got to say. Does the board have anything else to say? We're going into closed session. Closed meeting 1 and student matters. Code 2.2-3711-82. Religious extension information concerning this matter is attached. And termination is going to closed session. We have a motion to close this. Do we have a second? Second. All in favor, we are moving. Aye. We're here with the James River Association of Rivers Edge Park and this is part of our NOAA BWIC 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

177then 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. 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 the curve in Amherst County. Join me in social distancing. This public service announcement is brought to you by Amherst County Public Schools. This public service announcement is brought to you by... in centers while they're in the library. It allows them

178to 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 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. Hi, 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

179to do our reading work and we use them in the classroom for our school work. Thank you so much for giving me 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

180variety of mediums and use lots of different materials instead of just paper and pencil. So one of the things that we have 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

181student would have their own housing, their own case for their watercolor trays. And the Education Foundation money purchased these inserts, refills type watercolors, and I would pop them in their trays. So every student had their own set of paints, paintbrushes 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

182them on the shelves. It's primarily for second through fifth graders and they can take these little books, put their headphones in, and listen anywhere they go. On the bus, at home, whether they're on vacation, wherever, they can listen to their audiobooks 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

183an Echo Show. Since students are required to sit in their seats more than ever as we deal with COVID-19, an Echo 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. the James River Association at Rivers Edge Park and this is part of our NOAA BWIC 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

184and 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. The Amherst County School Board has convened in a closed meeting on this date pursuant to the permit to record and vote in accordance with the provisions of the Virginia Freedom of Information Act and whereas 22-3712D code of the Virginia requires certification by this school board that such closed meeting was conducted in conformity 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.

185exempt from open meeting requirements by Virginia law were discussed in the closed meeting to which this certification applies and on such public business matters as were identified in the motion convening the closed meeting were heard discussed or considered. Do you have a motion to certify? Okay. Second. Ligon? Yes. Ms. Thompson? Yes. Ms. Wright? Yes. Ms. Byrd? Yes. Mr. Dixon? Yes. We do have a motion on the floor. Madam Chair, I make a motion that we approve the religious exemptions that Dr. Farmer brought to us tonight. Okay, we have a motion on the floor to approve the religious exemptions. Do I have a second? Second. All in favor? Aye. Any negatives? Vote carries. Asking now for a motion to adjourn. I make a motion to adjourn. Second. Second. All in favor? Aye. Thank you all. See

186you. We will have it closed.