ACPS Regular School Board Meeting 8/12/2021

001then we should do the pledge of allegiance. Thank you so much for that. At this time, we're looking at 1.02 for the approval of our agenda. Madam Chair, I make a motion that we remove... We have a motion to remove 4.01 from our agenda. Do I have a second? Second. All in favor? Aye. Any opposed? Thank you so much for that. At this time, we have something wonderful here for recognition. Dr. Arnold? Talks a lot about intentional excellence. this is what he's talking about when he talks about intentional. The Amherst County School Board would like to make a resolution to honor your accomplishments. So I'm going to read it. Your coach has it here. And that will go with you, Dr. Brownback, and we'll hang it up in the school. So whereas the Amherst County

002High School continues to attain the expectation of excellence in academics, athletics, and extracurricular programs, and whereas the Amherst County High School softball team has had a fantastic season capturing both the Region D softball championship and the Virginia High School League Class 4 state championship en route to a season-ending record of 15-2, whereas the Amherst County High School softball team was dominant in the Region D tournament beating Salem High School 10-0, Blacksburg High School 10-4 and Jefferson Forest 1-0 in a hard-fought game. And whereas the Amherst County High School team continued their stellar play in the Virginia High School League Class 4 tournament, winning two heart-pounding games including the 3-1 victory over Tuscarora High School. And whereas the Amherst County High School softball team now scored Hanover High School 2-0 in extra innings in the state

003championship tournament. Whereas the Amherst County High School team was capably led by head coach Samantha Thacker, who was named Seminole District Head Coach of the Year. Whereas the Amherst County High School softball team showed commitment, dedication, talent, teamwork, and sportsmanship required to receive this honor. Seven players received postseason honors, including five named to the Seminole District First Team. Now therefore, be it resolved that Superintendent Dr. Arnold and the School Board of Amherst County, Virginia, by this resolution, hereby... recognize and congratulate the Amherst County high school softball team for achieving excellence by winning the Virginia High School League Class Over State Championship. Congratulations. absolutely during my time in Amherst high school I could have sworn we had some really good softball teams but to do what you ladies did congratulations congratulations I'm proud I have a

004friend in mechanics field and his daughter played for the Hanover side and it was kind of a fun little token I'm grateful thank y'all so much for representing Amherst ladies there congratulations ladies Amherst County is so proud of all of you and I wish you luck in your upcoming journeys and again thank you and goodbye. Yes, congratulations. I really enjoyed following your journey on Facebook and on social media and winning all those games. Same thing. Very proud of you guys. Congratulations. and we're proud of you at the school system um made us amherst proud but i know everybody in the community is also proud of you thank you for your teamwork and send some great people for all of us As usual, I will echo that excitement and I had a personal experience myself there

005at these hard, fought games. Make your heart beat, your temperature rise, and your blood pressure rise. But at the end of it, these girls were victorious, played so wonderfully. And I want to thank the coaches for all that great hard work that they did for these young ladies. So once again, from all of us, cha-ching! I just wanted to say thank you all so much for your support. The community really backed up the softball team. It was so great to see, like he said, literally we had more Amherst fans there than I think the home team did. So that really spoke volumes and it meant a lot to the girls and to us as a group and staff. So thank you all for your support. So their recognition tour continues. They're going to go across

006the street to Amherst Night Out and get recognized over there. So unfortunately, they're not going to be able to stay for long. Sorry. Once again, congratulations. We all are very, very proud of you. Thank you. Thank you. You had a waving family. It's all right, isn't it? They're getting to get on waving families. All right. What a wonderful way to start this evening off. But this time, before we go into public comment, and we will be going there for 3.01, Dr. Arnold, you have a statement? Yeah. So as we know that the issue of masks wearing in schools is a very difficult conversation and topic. And up to this point, the school board had discretion to decide as to whether or not the schools would be wearing masks or not this year. This afternoon, the

007governor has issued an order that all students and staff in grades pre-K through 12 in schools will. be required jewelry masks. So I just wanted that to be put out there before public comments because at this time the governor has taken that authority back away from the school board. Thank you for that. At this time I will look at my sign up here and the first speaker is Mr. Josh Vickers. He will give you name and address as you reach the podium. and i've been told that there is a timer my name is josh vickers 1574 river road in madison heights i'm a father of two amherst county students a proud amherst county resident for the past seven years i love this county the amazing people the wonderful neighbors the fantastic schools And the sense

008of community that one feels whenever they're here. I had a full thing ready to go. I have studies about how damaging masks can be for extended periods of time with our students. We're now asking them to wear masks for five days a week, eight to ten hours a day. And I've got copies, I'll leave them here so that everyone can have one. But now all of that is out the window based on the 4 p.m. email that we got today. I want to applaud all of you for everything that you did, holding out as long as you could. I understand that this is not your decision or an easy decision to make. But now as a parent, I'm getting emotional. I have to go to my 8-year-old son that he can't go to school. He

009has anxiety issues and he cannot wear a mask for longer than 30 minutes without having breathing issues. And he won't be able to go now. He is in the third grade. He has missed over two years of school because he was required to wear a mask. And now I have to go tell him that he can't go after he met his teachers yesterday. And it's not fair. So my question is to you, what can we do? All of you work for Amherst County and its citizens. What can we do to push back and say that enough is enough? Let us be the model. Let us be the ones that show that we can go to school and our kids can focus on the education and not is my mask fitting properly? Do I have it

010over my nose? When can I take it off? Do I have to wear it when I go outside and play with my friends? What can we do? We need your guidance. ARA, can we put them in that now? I know that sign up was weeks ago, but now we're in a difficult decision. Can we put them in online school? Do we need to pull our students out of school altogether in Amherst County, which is going to make the school system overall suffer because then you're losing funding? Are we going to put them in K-12? Do we go to Liberty and go to their online schools since we can now not put our kids with those kind of needs back in the school system? It hurts that I have to go have this conversation. And it's

011not fair to them that they are now being pawned and put in the middle for a choice that we can't make as parents, you can't make as a school board, and they obviously cannot make as children. It's not fair. Help us so that we can help them, please. I'm sure I'll fail you. And I live at 950 NEA Street, Virginia. This year I am the AEA president for the 21-22 school year. I want to start by framing that my vision and mission statement is in line with the AEA. I believe that every child every day should be provided with opportunities to be successful. And when unified, we can create a great school. system that models integrity, honesty, and respect. These are core values that always transcend anything else. The AA wants to ensure that we

012get the support and resources we need for a high quality education that successfully prepares every single student to realize their full potential. We believe that we can accomplish this by advocating for students, educational professionals, and support professionals. I believe that optimal learning environments are centered around and if we create a positive culture and climate. By taking a balanced approach, treating our teachers, staff fairly, and professionals so that teachers can focus on student needs. This year the AEA and representatives will be part of an advisory senate working committee. Each month building reps will meet with their building principals. and the doctor on a bi-monthly to ensure that educational support professionals are part of the decision-making process. Whether that be an appropriate class size to accommodate student needs both academically and emotionally, creating a self and healthy

013environment, keeping in mind COVID best practices. Ensuring that every teacher has a classroom subject to science and we would like to have, of course, an unencumbered planning period. I'll leave it there. It's difficult, but we would like to do that. And for that, the unencumbered planning period so that we can give timely feedback to both students and parents. So to get the level of support we need also when adverse situations arise, that we can talk about it first and not make it public. In short, teachers, counselors, and staff have a direct contact with students. In fact, many of us have forged lifetime relationships helping our students out. with job applications, networking, and even job placement. These are things that we forged together as a community. So I ask again that we give each other a

014lot of grace and support this coming year because we do have many challenges ahead of us. So thank you so much and thank you all. Our next name on the list is Mr. Donald Handy. I'm just here to introduce myself as the secretary for the Amherst Education Association. I will background me. I'll be entering my sixth year of teaching in Amherst County High School in our English department. I don't want to finish by saying it's my pleasure to help support both our education and support staff in our efforts to support every child every day. Thank you. Are you all able to hear it in the back? So when you come to the mic if you would take your mask down so that everyone can hear you. Just take it off entirely. We will wipe the

015lights in between. Mr. Lloyd Coleman. Thank you Madam Chairman, members of the board. My name is Lloyd Coleman. I'm the 143 Gary Boat and Adams. I'm here to talk to you tonight about a policy amendment that you're going to be considering later on in your meeting of many because there are a lot of policy amendments tonight I'm going to talk about AD and AD is the educational philosophy of the Amherst County Public Schools and the first sentence says that the Amherst County School Board is committed to providing equal opportunity for every student to achieve maximum intellectual social emotional and physical growth That's been our policy for 30 years. Now today the VSBA is asking the school board to delete the word in this policy and the word is maximum. What is it about this one

016single word? Why should our school division be done with it? After all, the State Board of Education seems to be fine with suggesting a vision of student development that will maximize the potential of all learners. And the General Assembly writes in the law establishing the standards of quality that the fundamental goal of the public schools of the Commonwealth must be to enable each student to develop the skills that are necessary for success in school, preparation for life, and reaching their full potential. What's wrong with ACPS continuing to commit to providing equal opportunity for every student to achieve maximum intellectual, social, and emotional, physical growth? Well, there's nothing wrong at all with this. But there's definitely a reason for the VSBA to propose deleting this word. And the reason is that following on certain plans or

017proposed changes in our educational programs, the plain fact will be that there will no longer be an intention. to provide equal opportunity for every student. That's right. Equal opportunity for every student needs to go away. Malarkey, you say. But the BSPA does not deal in malarkey. Consider that there are numerous proposals to totally redirect the math curriculum so that advanced courses and placements in math will be replaced by a standard one-size-fits-all math instruction program, all taught at the same level. Those students who formerly benefited from a program which enabled faster progress through the math curriculum will no longer have that opportunity. Consider that there's planning and discussions to reduce or in some cases eliminate certain AP or Gil enrollment courses. Those students who formerly benefited from a course which enabled additional progress and credit in

018the various disciplines will no longer have that opportunity. To the extent that there are changes to the accelerated paths curriculum, For those affected students, equal opportunity for every student will have vanished. That's the reason the BSBA Office of Legal and Policy Services see the need to remove this unfortunate word, maximum, for some students that opportunity will no longer exist. I'm still mystified as to why the administration writes that this update to language has no impact on the school division. It only changes everything we have believed for 30 years. It changes everything. Has equality of opportunity become obsolete? I think that's the member of the school board to decide. And I would challenge the board that it's good enough for the General Assembly, and it's good enough for the State Board of Education, and it's been

019good enough for Amherst County Public Schools for 30 years, and it should be good enough to continue our policy of maximum growth today. and the votes and authority of seven board members can prevail what will you do thank you next speaker is mr uh sir rosin 362 peters hollow road monroe virginia i'd like to talk about culturally responsive teaching and cultural competence training i'd like to begin with two non-debatable points these are both an integral part of critical race theory or crt for short And my second point is that skin color is not a culture. Culturally responsive teaching is one of the most favored euphemisms of school administrators. This term is completely fabricated and meaningless, made up to sound alluring and woke. Cultures are phenomena that arise from geography, ethnicity, religion, family structure, workplace and

020other community affiliations, and they number into thousands, if not millions. Cultures by their nature do not require a response, certainly not in a classroom. Now if you mean skin color responsive teaching, then you should state that and explain it. Cultural competence lessons for teachers is another meaningless made-up term with a devious purpose. The adjective cultural cannot properly be paired with competence. Perhaps a little carve-out exists for anthropologists with respect to specific expertise and knowledge about certain cultures, but culture as a rule does not require competence. Classroom teaching requires competence, and it is gained from subject matter knowledge, teaching skills, and maintaining discipline without discrimination. Teachers don't need a college degree in anthropology. In fact, it has been brought to my attention that at Amherst County High School, English teachers may not need a college degree

021at all, provided that a culturally responsive approach was used in the hiring process. Is that true? If it is, then it raises some questions about illegal employment discrimination under the Civil Rights Act of 1964, does it not? Any comment? Anybody care about it? Culturally responsive teaching and cultural competence lessons are part of the same CRT philosophy as equity and social-emotional learning. Each is designed to create different standards for performance and advancement based mainly on skin color. Each is justified by demonizing so-called white culture as oppressive and by placing a mantle of victimhood on minorities. The end result is a devolved culture of mediocrity, entitlement, and racial separation and tension. However, in our schools now, rigor and achievement are now disincentivized by providing students an excuse based on CRT's victim oppressive framework. This crushes self-esteem and

022holds down achievement by the students who can least afford it, thrusting them into the adult world without the knowledge and skills to succeed. Parents of black and other minority students should be disgusted with this infiltration of CRT into the curriculum. To me it seems just one step away from going back to segregated schools. At the June 1st joint meeting with the Board of Supervisors, Mrs. Ligon gave a passionate speech and one sentence resonated deeply with me. I think would resonate with nearly all Virginians and it would have warmed the heart of Martin Luther King Jr. who worked tirelessly until his death to achieve it. She said, I don't see color. And a colorblind society had been largely achieved in this country. However, as for the administrators and school principals who are doubling down and pushing

023ahead with this hate-filled CRT curriculum, all you see is color. You are the new face of 21st century racism, which we call anti-racism. I'd like to just close with a suggestion. I hope that all parents and teachers and support staff that have loved our children will agree. It is my hope that the school board will reverse course and refuse to implement any and all the CRT guidelines and mandates coming down from Richmond, which it has thus far embraced. And this would take a lot of courage. That being said, all administrators and school principals that insist on pushing forward with this CRT indoctrination, as well as any school board members that still support it, you should resign. and you should resign now that may sound harsh and i assure you it is not an ad hominem

024attack on anyone i don't know any of you personally and i have no animus it is an attack on what i view as a culture of corruption in the emirates county school system and that is a culture that does require a response thank you for listening and softball rocks I'm sure we have anyone else in the audience that would like to make a comment at this time to the school board pertaining to school board matters. You can state your name. We all want to do back this three. When that buzzer goes, everybody. My name is Gloria Witt. I live at 432 Browntown Road, Amherst, Virginia now. I just want to kind of put a different spin to what I've heard, what I almost equate as madness. This idea of holding out and not wearing masks,

025thank God Governor Northam did what we couldn't do, which is mandate masks. I have a four-year-old granddaughter that has been in school every day since March 2020, and she wears a mask every day. It is possible. I have heard countless times about how important it is that parents make the decision. If the parent requests that the child wear the mask, the child will wear the mask. So they're screaming what's going on in the home when you argue about family values, etc., etc. The child will wear the mask if the parent requests it. Our numbers are worse now than it was in 2020. I checked CDC. Amherst County is only 26% fully vaccinated. 50% of us have one shot. Lynchburg, on the other hand, nobody should travel to Lynchburg. It's 1% vaccinated. Who are we? And

026we give our allegiance to the flag, one nation, unto God. We're literally killing ourselves because we politicize something that's a health issue. And I also want to go on record, repetition from March of this year through August 12th does not make crazy legitimate fact and truth. I don't know how many times the Virginia Department of Education have said it. Working and doing equity work does not translate into critical race theory. I'm so tired of it. And you know what makes me even sicker? If I don't show up, madness prevail all over Amherst County. And I want you to know there is a quiet majority sitting at home waiting on you all to do the right thing. But the governor had to do it for us. And finally. This idea of culturally responsible training and teaching,

027you need to walk in a black person's shoes one time. I've had my grandson tell me in the third grade that so and so, she discriminates against black boys. You need to live in our shoes and you would quit this madness. In fact, I would argue, get some black friends so you can wake up. The world is not equal. It never have been and we're still striving for it. And this education system, look at your own data. Look at the data. And I wouldn't have to come up here fighting for what is right for black and brown children. Thank you. Hi, my name is Dawn Justice. I live at 125 Garland Avenue, Amherst, Virginia. And I'm running for Amherst County School Park, position number two. Dear Madam Chairperson and school board members, thank you for

028all your hard work. I know we are all concerned about protecting the children. Tonight I speak to you on two very important examples of infringement upon the rights of parents to guide, direct, train, and care for their children. I will go still further and assert we all agree it is the sole responsibility of the parents who know their children best to guide, direct, train for their own children born of their flesh as the saying goes, forever my heart shall walk upon the earth outside my body. This topic is close to my heart as a parent and an educator. Over the past year and a half, parents and schools have been told what is best for the children. School at home, mask, unmask, which often changes from week to week and region to region. Currently in

029Florida, we have school boards defying their governor's mandate to not penalize individuals for not being vaccinated or going maskless through loss of job, benefits, or even intimidation. Here in Amherst, we have a different situation. The governor, by CDC recommendations, is determining what's best for our kids, our teachers, and our schools. As of today, a mandate. These are decisions which must be made by the parents for their family, teachers for their health and convictions. It is the school board's duty to set policy and stand up for the private rights of individuals to choose for themselves. We are not in a state of emergency anymore as we were back in March of 2020. We know what we are dealing with. Now 18 months into it, we have many studies which have shown the following. According to Research

030Square, a study involving 25,000 school-aged children found significant harms to children's health and learning, which the school board and administration would be responsible for inflicting upon Amherst County students should parental rights be overrode and that's required. The study showed that out of 68% of the parents who reported That is more than 10,000, it's more than 12,000. 60% of the students experienced irritability. 53% experienced headaches. 50% difficulty concentrating. Teachers know that is one of the things that's difficult in the beginning. 49% less happiness. 44% reluctance to attend school. 42% malaise. 38% Impaired learning, talk about marginalizing students. 37% drowsiness and fatigue. 29.7% of the students experience dizziness. Hundreds experience accelerated respiration, tightness in the chest, weakness, short-term impairment of consciousness. According to the American Institute of Economic Research, published March 10, 2021, children do not readily

031acquire SARS-CoV-2, very low risk, spread it to other children or teachers, or endanger other children or teachers. Yes, ma'am. I'm so sorry. Thank you. I have the stats. I would encourage parents who don't want to send their kids to do K-12. And you might even consider having teachers or the administration sign a waiver saying they're responsible for any negative repercussions to your kids wearing a mask. I am addressing the school board. I am addressing the school board tonight as a parent, grandparent, and... teacher with a concern that has come to my attention. I've talked to people in and out of Amherst County and they've been asking me questions about our teachers. They want to know if there really has been a huge number of teachers leaving the county this year and why they're leaving. At

032first, I didn't know what they were talking about, but as I talked to more people, it seems that this may be true. I've heard the use of the number 70 or more than 70, and with only nine schools in this district, that would put the number around eight per school, although I have heard that Manelison may have lost as many as 16. I explained that teachers leave every year for various reasons that affect all of us, retirement, transfers. spouse transfer and as a teacher I saw this happen every year but it was usually one or two per school. This made me wonder what in the world would make so many teachers leave Amherst County. Does the county have a problem that needs to be addressed? Any teacher can tell you that you get better at

033your job the more experience that you have. That means each year a teacher gets better with the lesson plans, using the curriculum, knowing about the school and the students. This is especially true for special ed teachers who have students for several years in a row. They have an opportunity to learn new ways to help them that continue year after year. No teacher just out of college is completely prepared for what they will experience that first year in the classroom. I've had many student teachers over the years that have told me how difficult and different it is to take on that classroom by themselves. Does this mean? We have more and more first-year teachers trying to figure it out. And are we losing the experienced teachers in grade levels? Where are they going? Why did they

034decide to leave? One of the number one reasons to leave a job or business is the work environment and your boss. Teachers need and expect support from your administration when there is a problem with a parent or a student. If you stay in this profession long enough, you are eventually going to have someone, whether it's a parent or a student, who is not happy with the decisions that you have made. Teachers are making hundreds of decisions a day based on the students that you assign to them. Administration should be aware of the students and the parents who have problems in the past and their circumstances. And when a problem arises, the teacher is expecting support from their staff. So if they are getting the total support from the administration when there's a problem, why does

035the county have so many teachers leaving? I'm hearing that there are an influx of special ed students this year, and we all know that state and federal laws must be addressed, and class size ratio is top on that list. If we continue to lose valuable staff, will we be able to meet those requirements the rest of the year and in the future? And to sum it up, my biggest question for you today is, do we have a problem in Amherst County? Are too many teachers leaving the county? And if it's true, why? Okay? Thank you so much. didn't sign up and I wasn't going to speak but really quickly my name is Laurel Knapp 823 Union Hill Road Amherst Virginia I feel like I need to say something really quickly Gloria that wonderful man over

036there Sid Strozum is a dear friend of mine I am black 10% from Ghana And I'm very proud of it. And I have many, many black friends myself that I grew up with, my best friends since seventh grade. And I have many black children. As a matter of fact, I probably got over 200 black children at this point teaching. I love dearly. Love more than my own white son. And he knows it. And he said it when he came to school. He said, Mama, you love them more than you love me. And I said, I love them just like I love you, son. And I do, and I have. Every day I've been a teacher since 20 years. But even more, Sid has a very special past. Both of his parents are survivors of Auschwitz.

037They were in the camp. They had the tattoos. on their arms to show what they survived. When he gets up here and he speaks to you about CRT, when he talks to you about what's happening in the school system, he's speaking to you as a boy who grew up with stories. His parents lived it. I remember when his dad, when I was a kid in Amherst County School Systems, his dad came and spoke in my classroom. I remember that. It was so powerful. Can you imagine being the child and both your parents telling you about living through that? So you demonize him and you don't even know him. And I'm not going to demonize you because you and I might end up being best friends. We might really like each other. And that's the problem

038today, isn't it? We're demonizing each other and we don't even know each other. Everyone address their comments to the school board. That's a problem though, isn't it, Ms. Ligon? No, I'm not going to answer back. I'm just asking you to follow the rules, address your comments to the school board. And I will. And I will. I will, Ms. Ligon. Obviously, I struck a nerve. I'm just saying. It does not translate back. I'm just saying. Everybody. Finish what you're saying, but address your comments to the school board. I think that there's a lot more people and it's important that we all pay attention to that. I think the parliamentarian will be able to pull up that public comments to be directed to the school board. Am I right about that? I don't think I was out

039of line. Yes, ma'am. Do we have anyone else that would like to make a comment to the school? At this time, please feel free to come forward, give your name and address, and then we're going to move on. If we can. Say that a little louder now. Debraisland, Sales, 122, Amherst, Virginia 24521. I come to you, I appreciate the opportunity to come before you today. And I come to you looking for answers. I have been in my job for 23 years. I have never been a discipline problem, but I find myself now pulled from my position. Let me stop the clock just a second. No, I just want to clear up one more thing. We can hear your comments to the school board as long as they're not related to personnel. Am I right? Just

040wanted to make sure. Now, hold on just a minute, Ms. Sayles, because I try to be fair. If you have, I think I spoke with you, but if you have a concern that's personnel related, even yourself, please, please call Mr. Gallagher and or Dr. Ong early a.m. Now I disregard you, but am I right, Ms. Palmer? Can I discuss personnel? We want to hear what she has to say. You work for us. Can you find that? We can't discuss personnel at all. We can go into closed session with Mrs. Sale or anyone that has a personnel. So we can actually just make everybody. We don't make decisions, but what we can do is if Ms. Sayles would wait until we get through this reading of this, we could go into a closed session to hear

041what she has to say and then come right back out. Is that all right? We're going in anyway. Can you wait on us? Yes, ma'am. Okay. Just trying to do the right thing. I realize I work for you, but I am held accountable to the rules. I'm just trying to do the best I can. I almost have to go in here. Tonight I'm trying to do the best I can. All right, this time, am I right? The board has the right to say I'm right or wrong? We shall hold a closed session with personnel issues at the end of this session. Right now I have some letters to tell you. I'm going to get you to help me out with a few of these. I'm still under the influence of cataract surgery. I'm going to

042read half of them and you can come up and get the rest of them. Is that all right? These were asked to be read at the school board meeting. This comes from Miss Amy Wade. It says, Miss Ligon, I wanted to write to express my concerns about this upcoming school year and face masks. I have been with the school system 22 years and I have never seen anything like last school year. My current position as a preschool inclusion paraprofessional, I chose to take advantage of getting vaccinated through the school, knowing that I was protecting myself. I in part did this so that I would not have to wear a mask. I do understand that my kids will not be eligible to receive the vaccine as of yet, but I'm well aware of distancing and protecting

043myself and them. When teaching phonics and early language skills, it makes it harder for them to learn when you have a mask on. They need to see your lips. If we feel we have germs in our class, I would, to protect myself and the children, wear a mask. I really don't want to start this school year in a mask. Thank you for your consideration. My next letter here is, Ms. Ligon, I have a concern that I would like to be addressed at the school board meeting tomorrow night, which is tonight. I would appreciate it if this letter could be read during the public session. I've always thought of Amherst County as a leader in terms of education and investment in our children. It's sad to me to find out that this is not the case

044for all students. I have recently discovered that money is available to help pay for students to attend the STEM program and governor's school. The students in the early college program have not received the same consideration. We have been told books will be paid for. However, it is my understanding that books are lent to the students and then they are returned to the school. There doesn't seem to be equity across these programs. Further research shows that surrounding counties as well as Lynchburg City do pay for students to attend this program. Why doesn't Amherst County? I respectfully request that this matter be discussed and equity be shown. Let's show our students that all our programs and all the students are equally important. Thank you, Lynette Smith. Please read this comment section of the next school board meeting.

045My daughter is a rising seventh grader at Amherst Middle School. She's bright, social girl that loves to learn and spend time with friends. She's also a medically at risk group. She had to attend ARA last year in order to protect her from severe complications from COVID. She's very excited to return in person school in the fall, but now we aren't sure that that would be possible. With the new COVID variant and the risk that masks will no longer be required, we fear that in-person school setting will still be too much of a risk for her. I've had to wear a mask for work all through this pandemic, and I know it can be tiring to wear all day. I also understand the need for it in order to protect myself and those around me. My

046daughter desperately wants to return to face-to-face learning and learn best in that environment. At-risk groups were one of the groups that suffered the most academically and socially last year. Please don't force them to make a choice between their health and safety and being left behind by Amherst County Schools. Prioritize those that are at risk. Don't make them sit out another year. Please require masks for everyone that has not been vaccinated for the 2021-22 school year. Megan Perkins Harris and Josh Harris of Sweet Bride Virginia. Please read it the next school board meeting. It says, I am a mom of two elementary age children that are a part of ACPS and as their mom, I need to be an advocate for them. There are a few subjects that will be decided on your next meeting, which

047I believe is tomorrow. The first issue is the decision on mask requirements. I cannot tell you how badly I would like for that decision to be made by each individual family. Masks should not be required at this point. Every child is different and every child matters. There are situations where a mask is absolutely what is best for a particular child and their family. There are other situations where the mask causes more harm than good. There are children constantly complaining in school of tummy aches while wearing a mask. I understand the CDC just advised the schools to mask up again, but there was also a time when the CDC admitted that children were breathing in too much CO2 due to the mask. Not to mention that our kids' immune systems have experienced high anxiety from having

048their face covered and it's just a recipe for failure. If not for remarkably wonderful and persistent teachers and staff that my son had last year, we would not have passed first grade. He was riddled with anxiety that his little body and mine just couldn't handle well. My children both suffered from having masks the entire school year and would beg me daily, please don't make me worry. It broke my heart sending my son to school with tears in his eyes nearly every morning. This is caused by family doctor visits, UVA hospital visits, and many sleepless nights. My husband and myself are trying as hard as we possibly can to encourage our children to stay positive. We believe that it is so important for our kids to have a healthy social life, and we understand the benefits

049of in-person, face-to-face learning about it. The decision of masking or not masking my child should be my responsibility alone. As I said before, each child and each family are different. What works for one simply will not work for all. Another topic is being discussed is critical race theory. This is another example of the government stepping over the parents. As a parent, it is my responsibility to teach my child to respect others. I have taught my kids that people do not all look the same. People do not all act the same or talk the same or believe the same things. Though we might be different, we have a responsibility to show respect and kindness to all. Not only that, but my children have taught that when they see injustice, they have to step up and say

050something, whether it is a kid teasing a classmate or even an adult belittling a child. Lastly, I'm a little baffled as to why the next issue is even being considered. Please excuse me for not having more sophisticated words for this. If an individual has male parts, they should use the male facilities. If an individual has female parts, they should use the female facilities. Anything other than that is inappropriate. I am aware that earlier I said every child matters. I still believe that on this issue as well. No disregard for the person writing. I'm just going to let her cut me out a little bit of that time writing. If you don't mind. That'll be okay. First and foremost, I want to thank you for all that you do and have done in these difficult times.

051It is to be commended that you all take on this role for our community. With that being said, I just wanted to voice my opinion on the upcoming vote about masks. I'm not going to quote CDC guidelines or statistics, but just say what I see. I'm a parent, teacher, and also a former student of Amherst County Public Schools. I've lived in this county my whole life. last year was a difficult year for us all. I work at Amherst Middle School and we choose to send my daughter to sixth grade with me. My son, on the other hand, would have been starting kindergarten and we chose to keep him at home and do virtual Virginia for numerous reasons. We take care of my father-in-law in our home who has been off and on on hospice for

052over five years. So we have not taken COVID lightly because of his health. He actually got COVID and beat it. We do believe in God and that if it is your time to go, then it is your time. We have continued to see our loved ones and live our life not in fear through it all. I realize that we are not going to go from wearing masks all the time in school to not wearing them at all. I 100% feel that it is time to scale back. None of the kids should be sitting at their desk with a mask on. It is time for students and... teachers to see what each other look like smile at each other and have face-to-face unmasked interaction i can go along with wearing a mask when the kids enter

053the building or transitioning to other spaces example middle school high school changing classes but not required all day if a student wishes to wear it all day then that is their choice i do not feel that there should be differentiated regulations between vaccinated and unvaccinated students There is already enough divide in this world. Whether it is kids' choice or families' choice to be vaccinated or not, they should not have that label on them in schools. I can already see where there will be more divide and disagreement if a vote is made this way. Every child, every day, all students should come to school and not feel pressure no matter what their choice, belief, or disability is. Vaccinated versus unvaccinated, belief in God versus no belief in God. Gay versus straight, regular ed classes versus special

054ed classes, the list could go on and on. Never before has personal health information been disclosed, not even if a kid has HIV due to HIPAA. I do realize this is a pandemic, but let's not forget basic rights for each and every child, and we have to get back to a level of comfort and normalcy in our schools. A lot of kids are dreading coming back because they do not want to be masked all day long, five days a week. With the new A-B schedule, secondary kids will only have gym two or three times a week. Last year, it was only first semester, two days a week. That is the only time these kids can move and socialize without a mask if we are able to get outside for class. These kids have forgotten how

055to talk. Thank you for reading that. I think the board had a copy of this as well from Ms. Wilson. And we read it out loud. Before I close this session, does anyone else would like to approach the board? If not, we shall move on. All your comments under consideration. We are now at 5.01. Is that correct? Yes. That is Dr. Wells. Dr. Wells. Madam chair ladies on the board. This is the section where public policy and there were three sections or bring up with this your consideration one again was and policy ad They were term of the word maximum with mid last month. Y'all did not have a little silver conversation on that So I'd like to consider that for conversation and you can we have to bring it back to the first three

056later if we change it Or we can pull it so that's for conversation So I'll start with that. And also in GAA, we're removing GAA from consideration because there was legislation that was passed during the special session of the General Assembly, which kind of contradicts. the policy. So we're waiting for the policy to be given to us and GAA will be pulled. And also in JED, procedural guidance, the section there that Ms. Thompson asked about the procedural guidance for the civic engagement section. We have made guidance on that, procedural guidance for that, and that which will have to be a prearranged absence to the school. And that was placed on Board Docs for you in pre-overview. So for JED, we did come up with guidance for schools to use for middle school and high school.

057teacher students that wish to just pay an instant engagement they would need to have a pre-arranged absence where they would request that absence two days prior to the event all other policies where there are no changes my recollection on that ad was we had questions a lot why they were pulling the maximum so and what was the basis for that what was the It seems kind of silly. All we needed was, if y'all wanted that changed, we just need you guys to make it. Right, well, he said discussion, so that's what I was having a discussion about. I just think when you don't give, I just think it takes away a goal or it takes away something to aim for. Again, I think the gentleman said something of mediocrity. Makes my spine chill. So, you

058know, I personally would like to see that one taken away. I'm not in favor of removing the maximum language from there, but that's, you know, my position on that, and I'm welcome discussion from the public. We want to make a motion, too. Right, but I'll let them, if there's any discussion with it. Well, I absolutely agree with that. I think we need to put water in down the education system. I think we need to... There's going to be people who can do better than others. And let's not hold anybody back. Let's make everybody. do the best that they can in whatever capacity that they are at the end. So I agree, we should take it up. I wasn't here last meeting, but I did watch it on Facebook. But I was under the impression that

059Maxima was going to stay in there, and I believe you took a note to keep that word in there. I didn't do anything official. That's why. It's still the first read. So you guys just have to take a vote to get it off there. And we'll bring it back as a first read with the words still in there. Okay. It's procedural. Just a quick question. If we decide that we want to remove policy AD from consideration, do we actually need to bring back our current policy for the first read if we're not making any change to our current policy? Well, if you want to leave. No, because there's other changes in there as well. Okay. So is this right? You want to make the... Sure. I make a motion that policy A.D. be brought back

060without the removal of maximum for first read. I'll second. Okay. Then probably move to second. All in favor? Aye. Any opposed? Board, I'd welcome you to make that, bring it back to us. Yes, ma'am. Moving on. Gentlemen, ladies and gentlemen, other policies? Yes, ma'am. I believe you needed to talk about JED. Yes, ma'am. And you provided guidance on that, and I appreciate that very much, but I just thought I'd sort of left it open-ended. So I'm assuming if the board wants to discuss that, we can do a vote on that one or not. It was really just clarifying. It requires a student to get 48 hours notice to request. Again, I left it. still open that you know as it may be you know you may not be approved if somebody comes and there's a

061legitimate reason the principal may approve it but we still want to request 48 hours in advance that's basically what we're asking well i i like it because i think consistency division-wide is important we don't need just leave it on the president And y'all can vote on the whole block, except for GAA. Yes. So that's been pulled so we can wait to hear. Yes, Tom. Also, we had discussed last time DCA. We're asking for some clarity. It was about school board terms for chair, vice chair, and I think corporate board. Like I said, there was only a term for one year. And I think there was just a lack of clarity that it doesn't state that they can serve consecutive terms. I think I understand the intent of it, but if our deputy clerk can only

062serve one term, that would be an issue. But if he can serve consecutive terms, then I think that would just be clarifying that he could. Well, we have to vote on it every year. Y'all have to approve it every year. So, it's not... We're going to bring the same deputy clerk. That's an internal thing for us to bring you to court. Exactly. Right. That's why I said if we could just add to it that you may serve consecutive terms and it doesn't leave it vague. And you don't think I agree with that? That's just a rumor. Is that wrong? Yeah. I think that's fine. We'll make a motion that we pull DCA and that we add the term may serve consecutive terms. Second. I think we're probably moved and second on a paper. Aye. Let

063me just clarify my own stuff. I'm sorry. All in favor, aye. Any opposed? Just VCA. And then the other one, policies GCN, and it talks about our teacher training. I know that Amherst County supports cultural diversity and inclusion, and I think it's important that we have those expectations for our teachers. to do the same and it's a very important policy. So I don't want to just rubber stamp culturally responsive training without them digging in and doing some due diligence. Virginia Code 23.1 298.7 says that cultural competencies will be implemented with guidance issued by the board. So I take the word guidance to mean that we do have some local control. I want to suggest that we move this policy to our work session to just take a look at what the policy is going to

064be doing for us and its impact on our teachers and our students. My take is if the Virginia Board of Education is providing us with training, that that's going to be a tremendous resource. I also know that we may have other groups that want to help come in and train our teachers. So I just feel responsible for some type of oversight and not just, well, this is coming in to train, this is coming in to train. And I'm sitting here and I don't even know what our teachers are training on. So I would just like to have some time that we maybe in our work session talk about it, see what the training looks like. We can... you know make it our own we can make it better because i know the union department of

065education always says you can go well above and beyond so let's look to see what it looks like so that would be my recommendation before we just uh rubber stamp it and just move it to our work session and get some more information on it so i guess we're looking at policy gp and And the motion on the floor for Ms. Thompson is to remove that at this time to the next work session. Second. We have a second. Mr. Terry, all in favor? Aye. Any opposed? We should move that to the next work session. Any other additions or subtractions on 5.01? Then we're moving on to... 5.02 so we're pulling AD, DCA, GAA and GCN so we need a motion for you to approve the rest of the policies. Board are there any other discussion

066on the other policies? Madam chair make a motion to approve the main policies as presented. Properly moved do we have a second? Second. Is there all in favor? Any opposed? Ms. Ligon, just for the GCN discussion, we will not have anything from the state in a couple months. So do you want to just wait until we have that information? Maybe we can put it on for a short item to just talk about the policy and what's wording. And then, yeah. I just want you to know it's not going to be there. And I appreciate that. Yes, that's fine. They choose at that time to move it. So do you want that on the next regular board meeting? Okay. On the next regular board meeting? Work session. Work session. Is that the only item we're going

067to have for a work session? Well, I guess we will see at the end, but I actually have eight on my list. Don't call it regret. Whether we put all eight on there or not. Well, for this session, 5-1-0-1, are we concluded? Dr. Wells, do you have everything you need that's been moved? Yes, ma'am. For 5-1-0-1, we're good. Thank you. Thank you so much. Let's move on. 5-1-0-2. Yes, ma'am. I'm Graham. ESSER III plan for your approval. We discussed it at our last two meetings and we have received one comment from the public and one was to, it said, it asked us to consider adding not one but two reading specialists at the medical school. I think there was one in the list. Remember that this is being, we have to submit it on September

0681st. And so there's always amendments that can be made to it as we go along as well. But we need your official approval so we can, in fact, submit it. Any discussion before? I want to be clear on that. We had a very good presentation last time. Yes, ma'am. Dr. Arnold, I noticed in the ESSER plan, and I'm looking through it, the documents you shared with us, and it's very thorough. I also noticed that Dr. Norman shared a document with us at our work session. I think it was called ESSER III Informational Spending Memo. For easy reference, it's also in our minutes at 6.01. But in that memo that Dr. Norman gave us, she mentioned that... there was a curriculum that we would be utilizing from UBK called CASEL. If you pull that document, it's

069a paragraph two subtext number one, mental health training services from CASEL. And that was going to be done through a morning meeting, engaging strategies that support student voice like Socratic. seminars and closures to lessons. Well I saw that as curriculum that I am not familiar with and I know we're working on a policy. Yeah it's not curriculum that's just training for staff to help give staff resources. Well it looks like it was morning sessions that were going to be done with students and closures to the lessons of how they could utilize that through the day and It sounded to me like it was social-emotional type of lessons. And so I don't know much about it. But I do know that our consensus is that when we bring policy, that's not coming out of policy. Curriculum,

070that we were going to look at our policy of how we were going to review that in public. opportunity to review it before we move forward with it. So I'm feeling like that may fall in that category and we haven't provided that vetting by the public. I know that in Virginia Code, 8BAC 20, 620-10 on school counseling and school guidance and counseling services and in our own policy on that topic. We provide that new students shall be required to participate in any counseling program to which the parent objects. So I'm seeing that maybe if it is curriculum that's around mental health, that would be counseling under this policy and Virginia code. And I don't know if we have informed the parents. I don't know if the parents have had time to review it. I don't

071know how much we've paid for it. And I don't know if our parents know that they have the right based on Virginia code and our policy to opt out. So those are the questions going through my mind when I read that. That document that was shared at our July 29th meeting, that was the first time I saw it. And it was not posted on our website for feedback along with our ESSER plan. So I think the two go together. and that perhaps we may want to consider pulling that if it can be updated and that can be re-added later if we find that we are following our policies and producing the code. So I certainly don't want to misspeak. I don't want to represent myself as an expert in this particular, what we're talking about

072with CASEL, but my understanding of that and what I've seen of that is the strategy is oriented. So much in the same way, I provide training to staff in regards to overall classroom management, aid and modification interventions, CASEL is oriented towards structures within the classrooms, the idea of a morning meeting, a closing, positive things that teachers can do. to build that climate within the classroom. So there's no prescriptive curriculum that I have seen that is with that. Of course, we'd be happy to go back and collect some resources and be able to share that with the board. But ultimately, what I have seen with it is oriented towards the strategies that teachers would use within the classroom. I think that would be very nice. I don't know. That's why I'm asking. I haven't seen it.

073I do know that I went into the website and just started clicking on some links, but of course I don't know if I'm clicking on the links to where we are going to be utilizing it. But I do see things about how to be an anti-racist educator, and that concerns me. Different things that you bring in from CRT, and this was just on the CASEL website, so I'm sitting here being cautious. So that's why I'm asking the question. I'm not saying that's what we're doing. I just want to make sure we're not because I know the board has already banned CRT. So we can do, we can break that. Dr. Norman had an emergency today, so she can break that. But it doesn't, it shouldn't preclude whether or not we move forward with the plan

074because that's a, that's a strategy for the plan. So like we said what we said moving forward was that it can it can adjust and be updated as we go. I agree. But I think it is important for the public to know what it looks like and if it does fall under the category of remit not found. And also I'd like to know the financial implications of that. And then there was one more thing within the plan. It was about the the addition of the auditorium and there were no comments on that issue. I posted up here on my laptop and it's all social and emotional learning your SEL and I was curious also how much it was going to cost and what training did we also look into besides this? We would have to

075have Dr. Warren tell you about that. And also For the auditorium, I was under the impression that the old auditorium was going to be converted over to CTE space and not Blackfax. Well, that's not been determined yet because when we hire the firm, they're going to meet with the community and get community input. We are not experts on how they should use the space. We want the firm to work with our community, to work with you guys, so they can develop the plan. Our RFP does not give us what an auditorium would look like, what CTEs, but they have to do that work. That's why we're hiring the firm to do that. And they will spend a lot of time with the community getting input so we can make plans. I have a question on

076that. The consultant that we have is going to be looking at the use of that auditory. We get them to, and they may already be doing this, to look at the data of how many students we have that are maybe backlogged in some of our CTE courses. And that to me would be something logical that they would pull. But if not, maybe we can provide it for them. So that's even provide us, you know, so we would know like if. We have a nursing program and we provide five slots for that but we have enough that we could have actually 12 to support student need. I know there are two, cosmetology and what we call agriculture. So apparently there's a need for that and a desire. So my only thought was are there courses we

077already offer that were backlogged on and additional slots might be helpful. Just in the analysis of looking at what we need. I think that's typical of what they do because it's not just a, it's not a space only issue, it's a program and space issue. So that's what confirmed what we were looking for. Exactly. Thank you. So with the question and answer session of 5.02, are we not approving that or do we want to get Dr. Norman to bring in more information? We don't. yeah i think the castle thing we can get that yeah but the grant has to be approved i think i don't want to see a slew that on seven million dollars but for that we can control the castle piece as through policy i feel comfortable with that the rest of

078it i think needs to go forward so that we don't miss out on that response if we go forward though are we going to be able to pull those funds back and maybe put them to towards something else that we don't agree with this case it's a fluid it's a fluid agreement it's a fluid grant i mean of course we do have the discretion over there madam chair uh i apologize dr norman is texting me information from castle or at no cost so there is no no funding associated with any castle resource thank you yes Does that clear that up, Ms. Burke? Yes, ma'am. Ms. Thompson? Yes. Any other questions on this? No. Then we need a refreshment of what this is all about anymore with the plan itself for the grant. Madam Chair, make

079a motion to approve the ESRI plan as presented. So moved. We have a second? Second. I'll be moving second. Mr. Ciccio, in favor of approving 5.02, sign? Aye. Any opposed? Opposed. And Director of State, 6-1? Aye. So it's 6-0. Opposed. We are now. Any other questions there? Even though we voted, any other questions? If not, let us look at 6.01, 6.02. Let the minutes reflect if the chair abstains from the personnel. So, yes, Madam Chair, the vote will be approved. Do we have a second? Second. All in favor? Aye. One yes. 7.01. Yes, ma'am. Madam Chair, ladies and gentlemen of the board, I want to brief you a little bit on the construction, where we are, our new construction in the building. So, Mr. Ruggs, speak to that. All right. The three major schools will

080be doing projects after the summer. Amherst Elementary, the bathroom renovations are complete, and that project gets finished now. Amherst Middle School, we are doing drainage issues, correcting drainage issues for the front tennis courts. That aspect is complete. they're working on the rear part of the drainage in the rear part of building actually today started digging the ditch lines and putting new drainage and manhole covers on that aspect so that should be finished probably next week so should not have any back from schools and they will schedule for that. Our last school is Madison Heights Elementary as far as the working on the foundation and re-securing that all the exterior work is complete new drainage from the roof drain to our end and all the exterior parts done. The interior as far as floors have been

081leveled and early part of next week they should start putting the tile down on the floor. The school is aware that those classrooms will not be available for the first couple days of school and they already have plans in place to take care of those. All the projects are pretty much on date and on track and almost complete. Any questions? I'd like to say thank you for a job well done. I'm getting lots of emails and comments that the grounds look really good and the attention you've given to the schools. I think everybody has been real pleased. I know we've had a lot of parent volunteers that have helped. I want to say thank you to them as well. But I know that you've been at the head of all of that, so thank you.

082Yes, again, the credit goes to my staff, you know, sort of helps to the ship. I said I've been working hard. It's been very hot last few weeks and we've been there with them, but they've done a great job. I'll make sure I pass your comments on for them as well. Thank you. moving on dr. well so the RFP process so you put the project out for proposal we received six proposals we're doing this proposal at this time and we anticipate making a decision on those in the next week or two moving that forward so we ever see six proposals in different firms and within the mainland state and we're We'd be still in process review and there's a lot of work to do that coming up later As far as the the auditorium officer,

083Dr. Arnold will be speaking to the board of supervisors on August 17th and he can speak to that if he wishes I'm just going to share with the board of supervisors the progress we've made and kind of the timeline that you guys have already been given but they need to be aware of how this process is going as well because they would need to probably at some point be a part of the process financially yes sir any questions on that so far okay we also back in the summer we received information from the aep about the possibility of applying for electric bus grant and uh so aep We applied for the grant and we received the grant. So the AEP is going to basically offset the cost of two electric buses. We have to pay

084our regular bus fee, which is about $110,000 per bus. And AEP will offset the rest of the cost of those buses. Electric buses run about $350,000 to $400,000. So that grant is going to offset those costs for those two buses, as well as work with us on putting the charging station at the bus garage so we can charge those two buses. The range on electric bus right now is about 150 miles per charge. We're putting a three-phase charger and so we can charge the bus in about 40 minutes once we receive them and then they'll be able to do a one-and-run, come back in, plug in, by the afternoon they'll charge and come back out and do an afternoon run. So we're experimenting with this. It's at no additional cost to us, but we thought

085with where things are going in... With some of the EPA requirements some of the bus companies are making the engines are stating that after about 2028 some of these diesel engine companies will be making it clicking the EPA guidelines So we will have to transition so we wanted to get a little bit of a good start on that to know if those vessels actually work in our area and then if they don't what our next option is going to be so again, it's no additional cost to us that just also the cost between what we pay for regular bus and That it does save us money and services not paying for fuel We pay for electricity, but we're not paying for fuel, and that only requires us to replace two filters a year as opposed

086to changing the DEF fluid and all the other fluids on the bus on a monthly basis. So it will save us money in the long run with the fuel costs and fluid costs that step on the bus. Are they able to make it up the mountains? We're not going to put them up the mountain at first. We don't know. We'll find out. The runs will be local around Amherst because the charging station will be in Amherst. We'll keep those runs on a route close to this area of the county until we get a good deal for it. They say they will, but I don't have it yet, so I can't tell you. But we will be putting in the purchase process for this in the next month or so. So we should receive the buses

087in the... January February timeframe and we'll start doing what they'll be doing. Will they be able to last the full day on one charge? About 150 to 175 miles right now. So, we can do the morning runs. We can do two runs in the morning easily. We'll plug them in just to charge them back up to full and then the afternoon run they can do the afternoon run easily. Um we just depends on what the route is and so forth as far as how far they go but we would you know we're again this is uh Something new. We're just going to see. But again, all the research is out there and all the stuff in the company is saying it's very positive news. So we're excited about that. You say the EEP is picking

088up the other $250,000 per bus? Yes. $500,000? Roughly. Just out of curiosity, do you know about how much we spend per bus on gas a year? I haven't looked it up, but Theresa may know. I figure we fill a bus up about twice a week for our regular runs, and it's about a 30-gallon tank, 40-gallon tank on a bus. They get about 8 miles to the gallon is what a bus usually gets. we can do the math I don't have to tell me right now it's a lot it's a lot any other questions regarding electric bus grant I'll move into 7.2 or two and it gets into our mitigation factors so as I've already stated at the end of the meeting the state health commissioner ordered a public health emergency today with statewide requirements that

089we're masking k-12 schools we're we are anticipating having to follow that they got it so we put motions out today to the schools and to our parents saying that what they what that guidance is um there are there are areas in there for uh medical and other issues and religious exemptions that uh we can just that will be developing guidance for um but Last year with our masks, we required doctors to do a medical, if that person is for medical, we had one doctor, we also had some IEP based decisions regarding some of our students, some of our specialized programs that we were able to do exemptions for and we'll continue to do that. There's no reason if a mask is an issue, they could wear an acrylic face shield. Some of our teachers. And

090those specialized programs worked for the face shields last year so students can see their lips when they're talking to them. And that will be fine as well. So we're going to adjust this and adapt to this and make it work for us. But right now, we're, about all the information for our attorneys, we're required to follow this guidance. So. I have a question. I thought you still talked about it. I did, right? Did you have more about mitigation? Yes. But I can, I'll stop if you have a question. No, I don't have a question. I have a lot to say, but I don't have a question. Okay. All right. So as far as mitigation, I gave you the information at the board meeting in July regarding our mitigation strategies. Those strategies have not changed. Early

091flow chart, if you don't mind clicking on the flow chart. So we've developed this flow chart to talk about what to do if somebody's exposed to COVID. So we've put this flow chart in place. And you can see that for students, if they're exposed to COVID to a COVID positive person, that includes 15 minutes for 24 hours within a 24 hour period. If they're vaccinated, they could tell the nurse or our COVID team that they are vaccinated. We would not ask them if they're vaccinated. If they don't tell us they're vaccinated, they'd go to the non-vaccinated side and they'd go to the next side of the spreadsheet. However, so they have two sides. They're vaccinated and not vaccinated. On the vaccinated side, they continue attending school or coming to work. The CDC has stated they

092would ask them to wear a mask, and now that this mask mandate is out there, it kind of takes that away, but they will continue to wear a mask for the 14 days. They would contact their health care provider. The CDC is recommending they get tested even if they are vaccinated because there are some breakthrough cases in the area. So they'd ask to get tested three to five days. As long as that test is negative, they continue coming to school and coming to work. If that test were to come back positive, then they'd have to be quarantined based off the positive test result. If they're not vaccinated, the student would stay home. They would notify the school. They would contact their health care provider. They'll quarantine for 10 days from the last day of exposure

093or on day five after exposure if they can get a PCR test. And if it is negative on day seven, they can return to school. If it's positive, obviously they go into the positive side for results with a positive test. If they don't get a test, they'll be at the whole 10 days. So if they don't go get a PCR test, then they'll be quarantined for 10 days. If they go on the other side of that, if they're experiencing symptoms, we ask them to stay home, notify the school, contact a health care provider to discuss testing. You have to get tested or provide an occupation of a doctor that you don't have COVID. And come, you know, that negative or not tested, can return within 24 hours of symptom free. So the comeback negative. 24

094hours after symptoms end. If they come back positive, obviously they're going to the positive side and they're quarantined for the time that they need for that. That's basically for students. If we scroll down, we can see for staff and basically the same thing for employees. Vaccinated again versus not vaccinated. Nothing really changes there for others, so staff member or student. And really for employees to necessarily changes there for that is just a matter of making sure that if they're vaccinated, that they can continue to continue coming to work unless they test positive or they start showing symptoms if they start showing symptoms, obviously, we don't want them in the building. Just the gist of it. Any questions on this? Yeah, I got a question. Don't necessarily. Okay. One of the exceptions is exercise. Yes. Kids

095go out for recess. The mask is only for indoor, not for outside. And so PE classes as well as recess, it wouldn't. And PE classes too, when they're running, they would not need to wear the mask according to the guidance from the state. And if they're outside, they would not need to wear a mask. Or while they're eating, obviously. and we're going to i know kind of set this but exploring opportunities to get the kids outside yes out of the classroom we have breaks get them outside get some fresh air take the mask off bring them back in we rent tents from aztec rental or something set up an outdoor classroom one day i mean those kind of things yeah and we encourage teachers to take this classes outside i know when it's 95 degrees

096it's kind of difficult but when it's in the 70s and 80s there's no reason they can't do that so we've encouraged teachers to take their students outside whenever possible is there more But this particular slide I'm in. Is there more about mitigation? Because I'm thinking you're going to answer a lot of them. Okay. Because you have so far. Okay. Well, I can continue talking mitigation or I can answer specific questions. Basically, for mitigation, we will, basically, we are quarantining. We are not checking temperatures at the door because we had around 500,000 temperature checks last year. We had one student that we found that had a fever. that came in and that had to be quarantined or had a positive result of that. So we had to do temperature checks. Teachers will screen students in the

097classroom during their homeroom or first period in the morning to identify students. We are asking... parents to screen their kids at home before bringing this into the school so if there are issues they can check them at home and not send them to school. But we also have teachers do some screening in the classroom at the beginning of the morning and if they see somebody who, you know, once they get that report built they know somebody's usually really chipper and really on top of it and today they come in they're down and dragging them or they're having symptoms and we will send those students to the nurse and make sure they get checked. If the nurses are fine, they go back to class. If there's questions, we'll ask a parent to come get them a

098ring and take them home and go from there. That's about all I have on this side to answer specific questions. Okay. So, yes, I would like, you already said you're going to define what the actual mask requirements are and what's allowed as far as the face coverings go. And you said outside it's not, so that was one of my questions. So I want to charge you with specifically paying attention to the additional guidance given on CDC's website for schools K through 12, especially where it says for people who only are able to wear masks some of the time prior to rising, having them wear masks during times when it is difficult to separate students and or teachers and staff, such as while standing in line or dropping off in pickup. Mr. Vickers, you spoke earlier.

099That's kind of what he was talking about his child having a problem wearing a mask all the time. So are we going to I would like to know this too. Are we going to require a doctor's note for the exemption or whatever the guidelines allow as an exception to the mask policy? Is it only if you have a doctor's note? So right now we're working with council on that to determine what that would look like. And so until we had this happen at 2 o'clock this afternoon, until we've had a chance to really consult with council and then develop some guidance for us, we're going to wait until we get that council from our attorneys. We understand it's a quick turnaround time too, so we certainly want to have something in place as far as

100we can. Yeah. we just we just don't want to require things that we're not able to require by law and so we want to make sure that our attorneys have put together our attorneys are also Campbell counties and Appomattox County school boards attorneys and so they're working for all three of the school systems to try to come up with criteria and those kinds of things right so this is kind of hard a needle to thread because The same reasons some people are upset when we didn't make it a mandatory thing are some of the reasons that people are upset it's now mandatory, such as the cutoff to put your child in Virginia virtual ended in June. So I think we have to make it clear in the announcement we make about those options, if there

101are any. And I mean, there's an exception for, and this is... probably move and just personal but there's an exception for if you're playing an instrument in a room you don't have to wear a mask and I think that if you're a child sitting playing an instrument blowing air out of your face without a mask a child sitting at a desk not doing that socially distanced from everyone else should be afforded some sort of opportunity to have a break from their mask because it is a long day and if face shields are allowed maybe that's going to be helpful. But I would like to see us do everything we can to make this fair for everyone as possible when our hands are this time by the governor. That's all I have. I just had a

102quick question. Since the governor mandated that we go back to the masks, what's going to happen if he comes and mandates social distancing? How are we going to handle that one? Right now, how it's written is that it's the greatest extent possible. To be at three foot, the greatest extent possible. If they were to come back more than that, we would have to notify them that based off of our ability to do that, to have everybody in school five days a week, with 99% of our kids, 90% of our kids in the building, that would be very difficult for us to do. We'd have to know that. But right now, how it's written is that it's the greatest, social distance, the greatest impossible. That's kind of what we're working off of. Would he have to

103open up virtual Virginia then? No. I can't speak to that. So that's not what the law, remember at the beginning said that we will or we shall provide in-person learning. You may provide virtual learning. So that was Hill's decision to allow us to open up virtual Virginia for our students. I have contacted the state superintendent last week asking because you know like this bright said there are people that wanted the option with mass or optional there will be people that want the option with mask are mandated and so we asked we've asked dr lane to consider reopening virtual virginia but he has not done that yet what was the cost per student on that we get a letter just throw that out there i mean we well we um we budgeted for 400 students 400

104students we have 70 okay yeah we use the cares act to funds and budget yeah that's what i was thinking i was just now can when we go that route are we still going to or are we can we um use some discretion as to who can do virtual virginia for example if there's attendance issues oh yeah yeah yeah we already have that i just want to make sure that because things shift a little bit yeah that's still something i'm not i don't have a lot of belief that virtual virginia will open because of staffing issues because what they'll have to do if there's a lot of students going into virtual virginia virtual virginia is going to start hiring teachers and they're paying them for it so but so I you know I think they

105understand that balance that we have to mitigate to the maximum extent possible If we're not able to provide three feet distance in between our students, are we still allowing them to be less than three feet? Is that still meeting the law? Do we have those circumstances in our system? That's practical. That's in checking with our insurance. That is the fact that we have to let students back in means that we have to be closer than. three feet. And that's I believe that's why that language was put in the bill to begin with. It's because they understood that if you're going to have six feet of social distance and they were three feet of social distancing and you have 24 students in a classroom that's not practical. And then we also have class when we change

106classes we can't maintain we can't put a bubble around everybody for three feet going in the hallway so there will be times when they're closer than three feet just into class changes at secondary level. Elementary level we can do a little better because we kind of cohort them a little bit more but secondary level with the high school schedule middle school schedules with changing classes it's very difficult to keep that separation throughout the day. I was just assuming that with more students you may see in cases arising when they see more. So when we quarantine, what will be the mode of educating the students that are on quarantine? You'll have this document in your place, and it lays out four different scenarios that could happen if all the teachers are in and all the students

107are in, of course. We want them to continue to use at least Google Classroom or Canvas to kind of keep students engaged in that. style of learning. If there are teachers, the teachers in and one plus students are out, there's a list of things that we're going to do. We really want there to be synchronous learning. We think, based on what you guys had said last year, synchronous learning, we want students to follow their schedule. So there's the... For that one, we have different things that are set up there. And then with the teacher out and students are in, then we have a different scenario. And then, of course, all teachers and all students are out. Yes sir. This may be something I know we talked about the leave thing with the report. So the

108plan would be is it teachers out? You're talking about that they're reporting? Is that correct? So then technically they're working so they wouldn't have to worry about the leave piece. we are going to bring you up yeah and mr crawford so we're asking all the schools to kind of work with their staff to start working with their staff on how to meet these these uh these parameters and so mr crawford has worked on his intemperance and so if you want examples of each one of those so we've asked them for number one put down what your plan would be number two put down what your plan would be so they're currently in the middle of doing that right now but mr cropper finished his and so so you guys could have an example in front

109of you and i know you've mentioned that you'll be working with parents one-on-one because i know if we have a student that's got a medical exemption and they don't you know they may not have to wear masks that student for some reason wasn't able to come to school they still connect So for short term, we would do synchronous learning. If there were a medical issue where they cannot come to school and the doctor said they should not be in school at all, we would recommend they do like a homebound prescription or something of that nature to that extent. So it depends on the situation. There are times where there may be a medical prescription that would say they should not be in the building and the doctor would have to write that out. So like

110the gentleman we heard earlier, Mr. Vickers, he should contact you to find out what his circumstances are and how you can help him. Yes, ma'am. Other questions for Dr. Wells on mitigation and on GloShot? So I wanted to go over a little bit of data with you just where we are right now to see if you know where we stand today. So in our school system right now, we have five students that are COVID positive. those five students three are elementary students and two are middle school students we also already have seven additional students we place on quarantine due to being exposed to this online at home or another family member who is coded positive so we have five students who are coded positive as we speak right now staff-wise I have two positive staff

111members right now With the students, we really probably there's more than that, but some parents haven't started calling us to say that their kids are sick. So we anticipate that we're being probably a little bit elevated than what we actually have. And we'll probably find more of that next week when school actually starts. But we do have five students, and three of those are elementary age students. In the area, just so you get some numbers, in July. 16.5% of all cases of COVID cases in Central Virginia in July were those people 18 and under. So the numbers are rising in that age group. This is the story we're meeting with Central on Tuesday. So the majority of cases are people 35 and under right now in our part of the state. And school age numbers

112are higher than the elderly numbers. So if you look at numbers of people who are testing positive, school age individuals, there's a higher percentage of school age people testing positive right now than those over 70 testing positive. And part of that is because most of those over 70 received the vaccine, and majority of our school age children have not received the vaccine. And the Delta variant is growing rapidly through those who are not vaccinated, more so than those who are vaccinated. It's about 97, 98% of the cases are unvaccinated people and roughly 2-3% are those that are vaccinated. But there are some breakthrough cases. So I just want to give you just a little bit of numbers there just so you understand what's going on in the area. I'm glad to answer any questions. What

113is considered an outbreak? Is it still two? Two or more. Based on the same exposure. is an outbreak and we have to report that right yes related to student quarantines waivers or are there as far as attendance and all that i mean well we have not gotten that information yet but i think i think a month ago people felt like that was not going to be necessary so I think once these things start happening the DOE is going to have to go back in and rethink their position on that. That's my opinion. I don't know that for sure but currently there are no waivers. There's a school system in the Richmond area who started a week or so ago and the first week of school they had 200 students out. Yeah, I think we should

114clarify that they had 200 students with COVID. No, two of them. And I saw that, so that's why I'm asking about outbreak. Any more questions? I'll be glad to move on. Okay. Okay. 7.02, we do anticipate having discipline issues this year. I hate to say that. And there's also 7.02 and 7.04 kind of tied together. So if you could, I ask that y'all could go ahead and assign people for first semester for discipline and SAT committee. I realize we have an election year and things may change after January. but we could at least get people assigned for the first semester so we wouldn't have if we do have to have these meetings we can have people assigned to those committees so i gave miss lincoln a spreadsheet uh sent to her email about a couple

115weeks ago so if y'all could just get with miss lincoln i don't need the names tonight but i would just get with her um so she could get that to me so we can just go and get that finalized and then the last thing i have is 7.05 which has to go with our crisis plans uh this was under executive content um however uh it's not a for you to take action on but i have to notify you that we've completed our crisis plans and uh we are and we've completed those so um you're well welcome to read the crisis plans about 140 pages 150 pages per school there are 10 schools with their crisis plans um they've been reviewed and they've been submitted and uh we'll be getting that to law enforcement and local

116ems in the next few days as well as uh here so we can make sure everybody's aware of the situations that i built any questions if you have trouble sleeping like just pull another start reading you'll be asleep Ms. Crouch. Madam Chair and members of the board, you have at your place the budget monitoring forms, the revenue receipts, the object code summary for the full year. Currently, our balance is $777,000. We are anticipating approximately $222,000 more from accruals, which puts our available balance to carry over to the CIP plan. at approximately $995,000. You will notice the object code. There's explanation of some of the overages. I'll be glad to answer any questions. Do we have any questions from the board on Ms. Crouch? No red flags, I don't think. No, ma'am, there was none. No

117questions. We should go on to 9401. Mr. Nabors will fill in for Ms. Crouch. I'll do my best to person nation this evening. Madam Chair, Madam Board, Dr. Norman Hatton has asked me to call to your attention there's a memo in your packet related to accountability update. There's several components she covered within that. First being accreditation. This highlighting that accreditation has been waived for the 2021-2022 school year but is expected to resume in 2022-2023. Some additional supporting information there but ultimately looking at those components and trying to be aware that the accreditation has indeed been waived for this coming school year. There are some additional data releases that are upcoming. The timeline on that specific date has not yet been received, but we anticipate that to be sometime during the fall. We're going to be

118receiving that information and data. Of course, as we receive that, you will receive a copy and we'll be reporting to you the contents of that information. looking at additional important communication notes continue to go through we will be getting a update on that so a pass rates for 2020 2021 school year at the end of this month on August 26th there's some notations there that dr. Norman wanted you to be aware of obviously the impact the last 18 months fell with those but one of the wake you where those are coming out at the end of this month with an associated news release also coming out at the end of September in regards to graduation rates dropout rates other information along those lines Dr. Arnold did mention earlier there are no waivers this school year

119obviously with situations changing we are anticipating some additional information there about this time we have no waivers that are reported to us in those areas Also, the last component there with the fall growth assessment for this school year, we're moving into that growth assessment for three-year model that has been discussed previously by Dr. Norman. This is the year where we have the initial in the fall, and then again in the spring. The following year is when we'll be moving to the three times the fall, mid-year, and end-of-year assessment with that. So again, I just wanted to update you on that, make sure you're aware of that information. I will do my absolute best to answer any questions you might have, but also be taking notes. Again, that's for Dr. Lohman. I can pass this along.

120And I will say, I think because of the changes that are occurring so quickly that a lot of these things might be changing quickly as well. So this is what we know as of today. Do you want to take any questions? Thank you for the info on behalf of Dr. Lohman. She's listening as well. That's the longest, ma'am. I believe also as far as you may have just wanted to add as a part of that bullet, I believe Dr. Horne has also provided you a breakout, the MAP assessment data. Now, the substantial amount of data with that subgroup data is also included in that packet. Obviously, we want to give you time to review that and digest it. Certainly, there will be questions as well as that. We'll be happy to answer those as those

121occur, but just wanted to make you aware that she has provided that to you. It is substantial. It's good data for sure, but takes some time to process through. Now with technology. Yes, I'd like to bring out Mr. Joe Goldman. He's going to be sharing some information on all the work he's been doing in technology. Good evening, everyone. I wanted to talk to you tonight about some of the things we've accomplished this summer and what's coming this school year. On July 26th, we upgraded our internet access from 1 gigabit to 10 gigabits. That's a lot of bandwidth. I learned a long time ago not to make predictions on how many years because we just don't know what's coming. But I think we're set for a few years at least, and we're definitely ready for this

122upcoming school year. I want to thank administration, Dr. Norman, Mrs. Crouch, Dr. Arnold, and many others because they came to me in the spring and said, let's talk about this. In other words, I didn't have to go begging for money and camp outside doors and these kind of things. So I greatly appreciate that. To get ready for the bandwidth upgrade, we needed a new firewall. Money is there more important things than money, but let me throw some numbers at you the first firewall We looked at was a hundred and fifty thousand dollars and then the second we looked at was seventy five thousand dollars And then the third one we well what we went with it was the cheapest, but it wasn't about money It was just it was the right fit for us including

123we now have enough VPN access for all of our staff actually But in my opinion, your teachers don't need to be in, but principals would love it. They can come in and look at Canvas. So if there are any principals listening, I will expect some emails in the morning requesting that. The VDOE is always, you know, when I get these security updates, they're always saying, you need a next-gen firewall. Next-gen, next-gen. Well, we've got a next-gen firewall. And it means many things, but... When we deployed it, we instantly saw attacks coming from parts of the world and we blocked certain countries of the world to stop that. So that's pretty neat. We distributed approximately 213 hot spots. Now that was last year, but this week along we've distributed 13 hot spots to families and some

124to staff. I don't know if you remember, but last year you asked me, okay, are you ready? All these Chromebooks are going home. Are they going to be filtered? Are you ready? Well, that was the start of cloud filtering. The old way was you have this device that sits in your network. Well, as part of our bandwidth upgrade, we wanted a device that could handle that much traffic. It started at 50,000. So we needed to go cloud for many reasons. And that's going well, including guest access inside and outside. We don't have this very expensive thing sitting there that could cause problems when something doesn't work. Could it be that? And then last but not least, we launched a new website. And I believe Mr. Cargill is going to update us or someone is going

125to update us on that. So Mr. Cargill, all credit to him. And it's not on the list, but a huge thanks to Kevin Harrison. He moved us from self-hosted to hosted power school. That was a huge undertaking, and we greatly appreciate him. Now, what is coming this school year? We'll have an improved Wi-Fi experience and security for our teachers and guests and students. In the spring of this year, we applied for what's known as Category 2 money, federal dollars, for new core switches. Think of that as the most important network device in the school. The first thing, a single point of failure, it needs to be beefy. So in the spring, we applied for that. And although no one has been awarded yet, I fully expect we'll be awarded around Christmas time or so. And

126I think we'll get that stuff deployed in the spring of next year. New access points for Amherst Middle and Central. Also, Category 2 requests from the spring. I'm feeling confident we'll be funded and deploy those in the spring. And then just today we applied for 1,100 new Chromebooks through the Emergency Creativity Fund, or the ECF Fund. Just think of it as kind of like CARES Act money, but it can only be used for technology. And obviously there's strings attached, data caps, price caps, these things. That is what's coming this year. You guys have any questions for me? thank you thank you it might be more dr. on but he made me think when we got to be i think those trailers and things that they were did that ever come to fruition they're out there

127they're still out there I had to be down in the lower Madison community and I noticed that some people that had gotten accustomed to that bus being down there like last night by the district and were accessing there weren't able to access anymore so I was curious where they were at. There are two out there right now. One is at Monroe School. One's up at the Temperance area. That's it. I'm bringing this down. I put the name here. I'm a leader at the church. And then I've got a third one. And a little bit of a little one. Okay. I'm just curious what happens in your church. Well, like the church said, we're distributing confines, too. Oh, yeah. That's beneficial. Thank you. Thank you, John. it's mandatory we have mr cargo coming up to give

128us an update on the china new website well good evening board members school administration community both here and online i've got great news we got a new website so with that i want to take a little bit of time and just give you a quick highlight um so with this um I wanted to just give you a little background. I did a little bit of research and found that... I'm trying to start my timer, I'm sorry. For the research we found that the use of www.amherst.k12.va.us was first used on March 5th, 2001. And you can see there the Wayback Machine, which is great because you can go back and get a lot of information. But that means that we're in our 20th year of having a website. With that, we started development back on November

1292019. And why? with why do we choose in Toronto track record since 1999 they've had tens of thousands of schools have made school messenger the solution for their communication needs ACPS also uses several other services both for parent and community engagement and then as we were working on the plan something happened I hope it 19 yet And this is where progress slowed as the focus was on sharing current information and updates on a monthly, weekly, daily, sometimes a hourly basis for the changes we have, for the changes to who we, how we operate in the school division so that we can communicate more effectively with our students, with our parents, and into our community. We brought in some newly established social media as a part of this to be able to get that communication out

130there. So we wanted to make sure that that message was being heard loud and clear. The shift in focus was necessary as we worked to finish the current school year and to prepare for the new challenges we'd face with summer school and the next school year. And we were able to refocus our attention on website development and planning in the fall of 2020. So with that, the website process basically has several steps to it. One is design. Basically, design is where you go in and you determine what your focus is, what you want that website to be. And in that, we established a team of members that, to list them all would take some time, so I'm not going to use all my two minutes that's left. And we also talked about being able to

131come up with something that really would... highlight the visual image through visual imagery and the message. We really wanted to make sure that was a part of that. After that, it went into migration and I want to shout out to Joe Goldman who him and his team were able to put that information together so that the team at Entrato would be able to put that into the actual framework that needed to be done. And then content content basically um started we started training in october 2020 as i said and we had several two-hour virtual trainings that went uh with taught by professional um specialists from toronto and thanks robert sheila for a great job on that and then on july 25th we went live now with that i want to take you on a quick

132tour so with that to kind of show you some things And there it is. All right. Welcome to the new site. One of the things that we really wanted to, again, as I said again, is to be able to focus on the visuals. You can see here, this site actually is a video of all of our schools. So if you play it or play automatically, it will actually take you through all the different schools as we go through. Then we get into our quick links, which I'll talk about in a bit. And, of course, our mission. for Amherst County Public Schools and of course our What's Do. This is where current information is going to be put out there so for the public so they can see what's available as far as information. We then

133go into what is the roadmap for our Every Child Every Day student. And these, you can basically mouse over and you can see the information. Kevin Harris, shout out to him. If you click actually on the words, it takes you to the actual PDF of the comprehensive plan and it'll take you to the specific part that it shows there. So you can break it down. We also have the school calendars. The one here is our schools that basically all what's happening in our schools and as our schools come more um get all this together you actually be able to go here and select or see what schools are going one quick tip here if you click up here there's a little um button that you can if you have a child that's in an elementary

134a middle school and a high school you can just select the ones that you want to see and then that really helps to show what schedules or events are happening at that time on the right side is our division upcoming events as They take place as you can see we have three teachers and of course here's our school board meeting as we saw here this next section is basically on the basis of we divide this for elementary middle school and high school and then division highlights it also allows for our public to actually see the event if I click this right here you'll see that it has a live online sign and then you can see that it does give you that instant information and of course our social media. Let me take you to

135the school board actual site here as we go. We're going to go into here and basically when I click on this you can specifically see the information that we have. We have your agendas, meetings, we have your board docs, of course we have your pictures, board members, and a little bit of bio information on it and then more information here. The thing that's nice about this is it's concise in a location. you and the public to be able to see what we need at that point. Then with that, we also have up here at the top. We'll see where it says school board, organization, which is basically where we get into our administration. So if you want to see what's going on in our administration side, you can reach out and contact them. And then

136every administrator, as far as what information that they sort of oversee, you can find it here under these tiles as we go through this. And then through the rest, you basically see the top here up here, this will take you to the schools, this will take you to our academic programs, and we wanted to build in some more ways to get, not just one way to get to the information that you need, but various ways to be able to get to the information. These are my icons here called quick links. These will take you directly here to an external link or to another page that's on the site as you go through that. And all I can say is there's a lot to show and you can't do it in five minutes, but I do

137want to encourage everybody to have a chance to go in and really to take a look at this. The part that I really wanted to show, going back to the slide, is where we are when it comes to our schools. So the division side's done. Well, it's done, but it's always continually being updated. But our school sites are in the process. The design is in place right now, so all of our schools. We are working on fine-tuning what needs to be said so that we make it simple for people to find what they need. then we have our migration content and then our go live so we will actually be updating this as we go there will be a way for you to be able to find out if you just stop by near my

138office if I have a board there and it actually is this chart it sort of shows where we are on those things we talked about design content migration and go in line with that Just a couple shout outs. I want everybody you see in here names. These are the folks who are part of this. This is not a, it's not about me. It's about everybody who's been a part of this. And what we've done differently is we've given everyone who has a page the ability to make those changes when they need them. And the idea behind that is you have faster and more accurate information as it goes. Because we know in this time. things change fast so with that being a little over five minutes any questions mr carlton as far as the individual

139school sites is there is there guidance to the schools about at a minimum what needs to be on there yes yes we actually um in our in our setup and the way we design our things that we have already established is um whether the things need to be shared and those things that we want to make sure that parents know and so we're trying to put that design in place as we go through I skipped a slide which talks about analytics because I didn't have time but that's really what we're looking at with this we've had over 10,000 views already I mean 10,000 users attend and as a little while ago we had over 71,000 page views in the short time from the 25th till now So it's growing and we're excited about it and

140we hope with the schools coming on board we have a target date but we know the things there's a lot of people to train there's a lot of things to move and a lot of things to get and make sure our content is right and when we release it we want to make sure it's the best we can at the time it's ready. Looks great. Do you know when it's going to be a secure site? I know I had difficulty the other day with my computer. It wouldn't let me on the site. It kept saying it was unsecure. Well, that actually is a great question for Joe because that might be something with certificate on, like whether it's a Chrome or whether it's a Firefox. It actually is secure because you cannot get into the

141site. to log in, you have to have the login as a user to make any changes, but anybody would be able to go in and actually view it as a user. And so in Toronto, and part of that might be just that it is brand new, and so our certificates that we have to make sure that depends on who the, you know, where it's coming from, it may need a certain type of certificate that should be resolved. Okay, thank you. Thank you. Here's Joe. Any other questions? All right, any other questions for me? Okay, I hope that was five minutes. If you have any questions, please email me. Again, it's a team effort. There's a lot of people involved, and there's even more coming on board. But we're excited for the opportunity to be able

142to provide just a user-friendly website. It will take a little bit of training, so just so you know. Any other questions? Give me a email. All right. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Cargill. I'm a program? Yes, ma'am. It's me again. At your place, there is a memo regarding data to be collected as a part of our 2021 summer programming. I broke that out. Elementary, middle, and high school programs. As a reminder, we have approximately 300 students that were consistent attenders in our elementary programs. We were able to see a very positive attendance rate as well as a retention rate from the beginning of the program. to the end those figures are there for you we are also very pleased with the growth rate that we saw on the star assessments that's a component of the

143power scholars curriculum that the ymca utilizes for their summer programming i think i was most pleased to see that for our rising first and second graders they represented the highest percentages of growth on those two assessments are really seeing a lot of growth with those younger groups coming through that program These numbers are commensurate with the last time we were able to host the program here in Amherst County. That was two years ago. We had about half the number of students, about 170. So very pleased to see, even with that tremendous growth in the overall number of students, we were still able to have a very positive growth rate as well as attendance rate for that program. For our middle school programs, we had approximately 200 students that were consistent attenders and participating. Detailed there

144for you what that process looked like. So teachers worked individually with students to set goals based on data that was collected during the 2020-2021 school year, looking at those different academic areas and remedial components that they were addressing as a part of that program. The profile sheets that were collected, the teachers completed at the end of the program. Approximately 86% of those demonstrated some level of growth in those identified goals the teachers had laid out for them in the associated rubrics that were created. So again, very pleased to see that as part of that tremendous amount of work went into those programs with our middle schools in particular. Teachers are really building that from the ground up in a lot of ways. So very, very pleased to see that. Our high school program actually has

145just ended here in the last week or so. Had a kind of a summer long program, different offerings that were available for students. What we collected here, we have approximately 100 students participated across, but 60 of those students were participating in either credit recovery or new credit courses. As you see there, we have 43 that earned a passing grade. Six did not earn a passing grade. Eleven were not able to complete. and sufficient percentage was not completed of the course again very pleased to see that 43 students were either able to recover those credits or attain new credits as a part of being in that program this summer so all in all very very pleased with our data we were able to collect it's certainly the largest group that i've worked with as a part

146of the summer programming here in amherst county public schools and ultimately very pleased with what our teachers were able to do with our students over the course of the summer I'd be happy to answer any questions you might have. Good work for the summer. That is a big showing up there. It is. And kudos to the staff that's put in a tremendous number of hours to ensure that we have a successful program this year. Yes, ma'am, that is me again. My last bullet for the night, I did want to give an update on Medicaid reimbursement. We've discussed that for the last several meetings. I will begin by saying we are still very much engaged with state agencies in getting that data that we need for me to be able to come to you and give

147you actual figures with what that piece looks like. I thought that I was associated and understood red tape with what I do every day, but... I'm a whole different class and level here, working through Medicaid, but we have had a lot of good conversations. The agencies have been perfectly agreeable with working with us. Just a lot more to unpack than I think we initially understood or even realized. What I did want to do with this memo is lay out for you what we've envisioned as an initial phase of how we can roll out Medicaid reimbursement. We really have put a lot of thought into what we are able to accomplish within current staffing standards, what we have projected. for this coming school year those areas that have been identified we feel as though we can

148target those for beginning to integrate this into what we are doing This school year obviously that is not the balance of areas that we can request reimbursement for Further in the memo you'll see other areas that are available for that and certainly ones that we can consider expanding to as we go into the future Ultimately as we do that looking at what the balance of time will be with staff How we were able to put that with an existing staffing standards existing requirements on those particular staff members and whether or not we're going to be able to balance that without having to add additional resources. We also feel with this kind of initial phase that the current administrative staff that handles some of the paperwork and compliance components, we will be able to do that

149as we move forward in the future. This is kind of our test year to see how some of that goes. That may be a consideration we want to ensure that we've taken this first step and really know what we're getting into from that reimbursement standpoint. So I wanted to give you a little more of a complete picture of what our thought process is at this point and what our first steps might be. But again, I'm happy to answer any questions the board might have about it. Yes, I was wondering if you looked into transportation also? We have, and actually that is the one that we were waived off of for our first year, and I think they didn't want to scar us with that. The reason for that is that it's primarily a paper-based reimbursement

150system, and that requires a significant amount of administrative time on the back end with that. Obviously for the future, that is something that's available for that, but we were told repeatedly that that probably wasn't the best one to start out with, at least for this year. Baby steps. Baby steps, yes ma'am, absolutely. I just want to say thank you so much for all your hard work and I really do appreciate everything. Absolutely. Any other questions from this topic? If not, we're moving on to HR. Thank you, Mr. Mabers. You did a wonderful job filling in for Dr. Norman. So, Madam Chair, members of the board, you have several items for me tonight. The first is a memo that is at your place, and that is our current vacancies update that I provide for you. You'll

151notice in the professional columns, we are certainly much reduced from where we have been in the past. Though those positions continue to remain posted, we do have all those. staffed and ready to start the year where necessary and continue to post in those to fill as we move along but we've been fortunate to at least find a plan to staff those in the interim basis through full-time substitutes or contracted substitute teachers that we have licensed on staff i'll take any questions however about any of those positions that remain anyone I will say I feel fairly fortunate as I discuss with folks around our region because it's been a challenge, a significant challenge to fill their positions. I feel like to get to this point, we do still have places open. We are prepared, ready to

152open schools fully, and we are in relatively good shape. secondly I just wanted to kind of talk a little bit about new teacher week that we had two weeks ago and miss Ligon certainly thank you for being present on that first day in the morning to officially welcome in our new teacher team and to be present for the new teacher luncheon I think that was an excellent event very positive feel to that as well this is a I know I say this probably every year that we have a strong group and I've kind of had to go through and talk to all the different administrators who have worked with this group from a professional standpoint, development standpoint, because the first two days I had them. And I just felt like they were incredibly engaged, they

153were enthusiastic, they appreciated sharing, they embraced the five C's, they were very collaborative, very creative in their thinking. And as I talked to the folks, I had to walk around and say, if you had to tell me what you thought of this group as an overall group, just define their characteristics, the words that I got right off the top were. enthusiastic eager student-centered engaged excited receptive and appreciative so I think they also and they spoke to that being appreciative of the support there they were provided an opportunity to ask questions along the way during this time so I think it was successful I think that we're in for good things administrators are going to be happy because I think this is a good solid group but if you have any questions about new teacher week

154I'm certainly happy to to take those but very positive from that entirely. Mr. Gallagher, how many new teachers did we get this year? So our new teachers right now that we have is somewhere, I'll give you the exact numbers, I don't have it off the top of my head. We were probably in the high 60s, but I'll give you the official number. So it's higher than usual. Those are not all leavers, however. We did have four positions that weren't filled last year. Add to that, we have some support positions that are one year only. We had numerous new positions, either administrative, budgeted, or in our grant-funded positions that were opened up. and we had domino effect in many cases where people would take internal positions opening up positions elsewhere so but it is higher in

155general uh in previous years when i spoke with you last it was slightly below right and since then it has grown and to clarify is that 16 teachers or 16 employees and i'm talking about teaching positions What is that number for a normal year? Well, it's not necessarily normal. Our average, again, has been in the lower to mid-40s on average over time. So this year certainly is a bit of an anomaly as far as the numbers of new positions. But again, they're not all new. So that is not the number of leavers. That is the number of new positions and teachers that we have. And did we get surveys for those teachers that did leave? We have exit surveys for everybody. We haven't compiled that data, though we are close to being able to provide

156that to you. That isn't specific per person, but I've shared those from the past and indicated that I would actually share that with you all when we pull that data for this year together, 100%. And we use the Virginia Department of Education model when we survey everybody for exits. Everybody is provided an opportunity to give their input. And if they leave us and they no longer are at our email address, our department finds their email address to make sure they have that opportunity. Whether they check their email and do that is up to them. But we give an opportunity to everybody. And I'll be happy to share that once we compile it. Will that be soon? It could be soon certainly, yes. I'll put what we have together and put that in chart form for

157example, similar to what I did previously for you. Happy to share. Anything else in that regard? If not, I'll turn to our, I think Mr. Grazi, you're the one that kind of asked that we put something together for emergency sick leave pay. Our Families First Coronavirus Response Act, as we, I think, discussed previously, was reauthorized beginning April 1st of last year. I've notified all of our employees that that goes through September 30th. That's something we voluntarily entered into last year. At that time, on April 1st, everybody was given 20 days. I'm sorry, 10 days to utilize for emergency sick leave or 80 hours. So whatever portion of that was remaining for any of our employees, they can continue to use that. As a matter of fact, I think Dr. Wells had talked about several people

158that we have on our list already are utilizing those supports. Again, those expire September 30th. So once they do, I believe we'd like to have something in place to support individuals moving forward in this memo. Outlines that they would have to have exhausted those days, obviously. And once they've done that, exhausted their FHCRA days, they would have up to ten days for being considered close contacts or being quarantined from work. You did mention something that was important. If they're quarantined and yet still able to provide instruction, say the whole class is quarantined, if you're able to. fully continue to perform your duties and responsibilities you would not need to use any type of leave in that scenario but that is something that gets approved by the building principal by individual basis so i think you've

159had this to look at so open to any kind of questions or comments or anything you'd like to look at as far as changing or modifying these things To date, just as an FYI, I don't anticipate that they're going to reauthorize the Families First Act. At least that's what our consultants indicate. If they were to do so prior to September 30th, there's a clause in this that would allow you to discontinue the support and would revert back to the Families First and Coronavirus Response Act leave if we chose to do so. So, Mr. Gallagher. Yes, sir. Does this provide, does this just for coronavirus or COVID-19 or if somebody gets normal sick, does this work? This does not work for typical illness. You can use your sick leave as you always would in those situations

160for policy. This is for situations specifically when you are quarantined from work. So it's not quite as broad as the Families First Coronavirus Response Act was and had emergency sick leave. which also would indicate, for example, if your children were home and you had to stay home with them, you could utilize those days and so forth. There was a spectrum of other opportunities. However, this mirrors what we had provided in our plan last year for situations where you're quarantined from work, specifically due to suspected exposure or close contact. And this is the first well that's pulled from, right? Or is it just regular crude leave? This is the first well that will be pulled for last year. If you remember, there were some stipulations because we wanted to make sure that they had used all

161of their FFCRA sick leave for other reasons, anything other than being quarantined from work. due to close exposure at work, then they would have to use their personal sick leave days up to those number of days that they use for other reasons, if that makes sense. We said in our plan that they had, our days were for specifically being quarantined from work due to close exposure at work. So if you use your FFCRA days for other purposes, those are the situations where you had to use your own leave before being able to access the ACPS leave. That doesn't exist here. The FFCRA days will be done and complete and I simply put in a proposal for 10 days to be accessed. But again, this is something that I put together for you as a draft

162and is certainly open for discussion, change, modification, whatever you all seek that. So I assume at some point that would take your approval. Yes. Do you want to put the next meeting on action? Well, you certainly could because again they have an FFCRA all the way up through September 30th. So you put it with a September meeting for consideration. In the meantime, if there's anything you let me know, you suggest for changes, you can get to me with that. The next memo had to do with proposed revisions to the procedure for adjusting grievances associated with policy of GBM, professional staff grievances. And you asked me to take a look at that and ask what steps we could put into place to alleviate solely situations where the grievance was with a principal. And is there something

163else you can put into place to provide either additional step or something in its place? And I did kind of look at this. I also sought some counsel to make sure that I didn't violate the actual spirit of this process, which is to resolve grievance and to find solutions together, first and formally, and then do a formal process. And basically in step two, and this is just my initial draft proposal, indicated the addition of bringing in somebody from the central office level into that situation. In fact, the grievance was with the principal. to where the assistant superintendent would be invited into those meetings to facilitate and oversee that process. And step two, still giving opportunities for agreement and the person who is the focus of that to be able to work those differences with bringing

164their focus to represent them as well as allowed in that section of the policy or procedure. So at this point, and I think Ms. Thompson, you had asked me to bring a proposal. Again, This is open for your discussion in any manner as to whether you feel like you'd like to see anything different added, deleted, and so forth. Board members, my concern was that if you had agreements that you would have to take it to your immediate supervisor. So I'm assuming that if I'm a department chair, would that be my immediate supervisor? it's simply the the principal or super ability principal or supervisor it's not it's not going to be for example an instructional assistant won't agree to the teacher for example with that to kind of oversees them but it would go to the

165principal or or supervisor in situations i might make the recommendation that in that first process that you know yes you could take it to the principal but we could also say for administrator in the building. For example, if I had agreements against an assistant principal, I might not feel comfortable when you talk to that person. Hopefully, they would go and talk and work it out. I would hope I would be a big enough person to do that, but there can be circumstances that I would receive that you might not be comfortable talking to that assistant principal and I could go to the principal or vice versa. So, I'm just, I want to give our staff some I guess some respect for their voice to where they are working towards a solution but not necessarily put

166into a situation that they're not comfortable. That was my concern. And so I guess in step two you have an opportunity to have folks join you in those meetings. So I wonder if in step one, which is the formal process, you may be able to invite an additional administrator in, for example. That way you have somebody you can select that you're comfortable with that can be there during that process. That actually has been done because that certainly can be offered anyway, even if it is not written in the procedure. And I find that that may be an option where you can select an individual that you're comfortable with to do that. Because in step two, you have opportunities to bring others into that, into the fold. And I understand that. Oh, yes. But I myself

167have been in a situation that going to that person that agreed with me was not comfortable for me. Well, again, if anybody would like to propose specific language or anything you'd like to consider, anything that we adjust, certainly we'll review it and bring it back to you however you would see fit. Would it have to be another administrator that goes into the meeting with them? Are they allowed to bring in just another supportive staff member? They are. That's already written into step two. And, for example, you may have an ARA member, for example, come in with you to represent you, some other party. Now, whether or not you wish to include that piece into step one, I think if you take away the opportunity to have those individuals present who are at the heart of

168the grievance, even if there's additional parties present, you probably want to give some opportunity to directly resolve that in an informal level or you're really bypassing the informal level to kind of take away that opportunity. Unless somebody is going to go back and forth and be a go-between, you can decide whether you feel like that's effective. But the principal or supervisor, if they are in fact the focus of the grievance, will still have to be a part of that process or there will be no resolution informally. And in this grievance process, is there something in there to protect the teacher or the staff that's having issues against retaliation? 100% there is. It is prohibited for any type of retaliation in this process due to filing a grievance. And who would be the judge of that

169retaliation to say it is retaliation or not? That would likely come as a complaint to me. If somebody was saying that it created a hostile work environment or retaliation. That would be something within our policies and procedures to come as a personnel issue and I would be part of investigating that process. And what would happen if, say, that said person is you? I'm sorry, again? What would happen if the complaint is against you? Who would be taking your place in the investigation? If the complaint was against me, then, yeah, sure. Okay. Thank you. Oh, yes, ma'am. Ms. Berg, I like your suggestion. That way it would, as Mr. Gallagher said, it would keep it informal, but you'd have a third party that could be there, would be a witness, or also make sure the person's

170comfortable and that there's no imbalance per se. I think that might be a good solution. I don't know how the other board members feel about it. I mean, your job is HR, so you know the HR rules, but... I understand the intent, but that does concern me a little bit because even the person whose agreement is towards, if you're there at an informal meeting, because it is personnel, their rights and privacy are important too, right? Correct. So I don't want to step on any... any HR issues they well that person would agree that would have had to invite that individual into the meeting voluntarily therefore yeah the agreement but if you're meeting with the person who you have the problem with right it's what I'm talking about that person has rights to. That is correct.

171And I appreciate you saying that. In my head, I was thinking we may want to consider whether or not a third party for either. Like a mediator? Officially? Well, a third party that would represent either party in other words. If you did that, then you're respecting the rights of all involved. Which is a great point because we don't know the scenario. So I think that's a valid point. I think a more impartial person. But that was the purpose of the reason for the second part where I would invite the assistant superintendent in and of course that's a role, that's a position currently that's Dr. Wells who I feel would be impartial and provide supports to all parties but that's actually her role, not person so that would exist moving forward whoever's in that position. But

172if you would want to suggest some other mediator I guess we would have to talk about what that would look like. Well, I mean, I get the whole point of the informal situation and the intent. Yeah. But both parties have rights. So I want to make sure both parties are okay with it. It could be a mutually agreeable third party to both the individual who's in focus of the grievance and the grievance. And if it's mutually agreeable, then that's the person who would facilitate as the third party. And perhaps that's the way to go about that. And we just both agree that that's the person that would be present. The fact that there's an evaluation process that exists between them could be problematic. I don't want to go to that person and express myself. It

173could affect my evaluation. Or, as Ms. Wright said, it could be, well, I have to watch what I'm going to say because I do evaluate them and I don't want that to look as if I'm... Right. And again, that's where the protections for retaliation are in there. And at an informal level, there has to be resolution. It has to be able to work through that and find out. And there may be ways that only the principal or supervisor is able to come to terms with with that person to make it better. Because we don't know what the issues are. The third party would help them work toward those decisions in an informal process. The whole hope there is that we work through these things at that level in a very civil manner and come up

174with mutually agreeable first state whatever the issues, and let's get down to that, and then what do you suggest to help make this better, resolve this, and then see if we can agree to those terms to everybody's satisfaction. A third party that was acceptable to both I think would be certainly an reliable solution. That's a good idea. Maybe you could check with council and make sure it's okay. Sure, and I can adjust that in step one to talk about a third party that would be mutually agreeable to both individuals in the process and bring that back also in September, if you wish. Thank you. You're welcome. I believe that's all that I have on the list. Thank you all very much. Appreciate it. we have two new student representatives for the school board i am

175going to introduce them by name and then they are going to take over and tell you about themselves and what they hope to accomplish this year we have miss ciana cavill and mr peter garrison and i think this cattle you ought to lead up Good evening. Hi, nice to meet you all. I'm Sian Cavill. I am a senior this year. I am 17. I have been in Amherst County Public Schools my entire life. I started at Amalon, Manalison, now the high school. I'm also at CVCC and I'm dual enrolled and will be going on further later. I have not decided yet because there's a few things that still need to be worked out. But I will be going on to college. So for me personally, I've always felt that I've fallen into a certain crowd

176or a certain like type of people, especially at the high school that people know me for. I'm very into sports. I stay with a specific crowd. So I've always felt like people see me as a popular kid or an athletic kid. And I know, personally, I've tended to stick around those people that do the same things that I do. And so my goal for this year specifically was to mix and include everyone in either sports clubs like just mix more because i feel like as though we as high school students and as people in general we are divided by so much so especially at our age i feel like as though we tend to put up barriers ourselves and if we can divide ourselves already we can mix ourselves as well so that's my hope

177for this school year to mix as well and like get together more um I'm hoping by the end of the school year that what we have done this year will stick around for the high school and possibly move down to middle and elementary schools so that they can feel as though they're not still separated or they've lost their friends on the way and stuff and like they continue to move on and still have those friends by their side or know that they can always go to those people no matter that they're in a different school, a different grade, different clubs or different activities in general. I just also wanted to thank Dr. Arnold and Natalia. Cecil? Sorry, not Cecil. I have a teacher in third grade named Cecil. Sorry. I would like to thank both

178of you for giving me the opportunity to accept me here, and I'd also like to thank the board for accepting me as well. And I hope everything that we do this year is highly looked upon in your eyes. Good evening. My name is Peter Garrison. I'm also in 12th grade and 17th in high school. I also go to Central Virginia Governor's School for my morning classes. I'm also planning on going on to college for some form of aerospace engineering, possibly at Embry-Riddle in Florida or wherever that ends up. It's a process that takes a while. I'm really hoping to develop a lot of communication skills, both large scale and one-on-one, working with each one of you, administrators, whoever it is you work with to get things going. I really want to allow for kind of

179what we were talking about earlier with the maximum opportunity for each student by advocating for and increasing the STEM opportunities in all schools. There was a really great thing that happened. I don't remember exactly when it was, but recently stipends for middle school STEM activities, or I guess I think all clubs? Well, the school chooses. Stipends available for extracurricular activities outside of sports. I hope to see that expanded to high school, maybe elementary school as well, to allow for extracurriculars for everyone. I personally have started the robotics club at Manalison when I moved here five years ago, and I've been doing that ever since. And it's grown. It shrunk a little bit last year, as is to be expected, but we're expanding it quite a bit this year, hoping to expand to some other schools

180as well. But robotics isn't for everyone and I hope for there to be opportunities no matter what everyone is interested in to be able to grow those skills, get those connections, preferably in the industry, and be able to learn as much as possible. In addition, related to that, including more and improving present STEM opportunities as electives at the high school and in middle schools. We've had the excellent opportunity this year with the block schedule to have more class periods and therefore more electives, which means more opportunities for students to experiment, find out what they like and what they want to do. But they are also somewhat limited in their scope. Obviously, I don't think we're going to have an aerospace engineering or a nuclear engineering class even for seniors. But having some more lower level

181things like general engineering, there are some technical design things along those lines. But increasing those opportunities for students who are interested in engineering fields and other STEM related activities would greatly help every student move forward in life. I would like to thank you all for the opportunity to. Work with you guys. Hopefully better the schools in some meaningful way Thank you. I do want to pass along one item of information. I was told that one of Peter's favorite things to do is to sit at home and watch school board meetings. I feel like if anybody put that on themselves, he needs to be here. We are really excited. As you can see, they both are going to bring a lot to the table and are great. So welcome, you guys. All right, yes. So I

182would like to first ask for some consensus around whether or not to do a resolution to respect the honor of Dr. Nichols. We did something very similar two years ago, and we would like to do that again for Dr. Nichols. I know he has, there's a man that... has taken care of all the arrangements and we think we could get him to come and receive that resolution. But I'd like your permission and your consensus to move forward with that and do that at a future meeting. Okay, thank you. Five C's is listed and I want to keep that in front of you because that's something that's really important. That's what we've talked about with our comprehensive plan on how we're going to get that integrated into our schools. I was at a regional economic and

183manufacturing an education summit a week ago and there were probably 100 and some people in the room and some data was shared regarding manufacturing and in the United States they're projecting in the next 10 years 4 million manufacturing jobs open. Along with that they said that a manufacturing job, say for example a machine toolers job today In 10 years, they're going to be four to five times more technical skills that they're going to have to learn on the job because technology is growing so rapidly. And so for us as a school division, while we want to provide students opportunities to work in machine tooling or those kinds of things, we have to find... the skills that are going to be future perfect, right? We need our students to be able to, when they get to

184that job, that they can pivot and they can learn something new and they can create and be critical thinkers. So I thought I would share that with you. Our convocation speaker tomorrow is going to talk a lot about that. I'm going to talk a lot about it in our convocation. And so I just want to keep that in mind. front because we were away from it for so long I want to I want to make sure we get back to it and start moving in that direction all right and I have attached it is a partnership agreement we have not entered into this agreement but I want to bring into your attention the Virginia tribal education consortium They have come to me. They've received a federal grant and it's for the seven federally recognized tribes

185in the state of Virginia, the Monacan Indian Nation being one of them. And part of this grant, and I'll kind of come down to the second, the purpose, is to promote tribal self-determination in education, improve the academic achievement of Indian children and youth, and promote the coordination and collaboration. a vtec with the virginia department of ed and amherst county public schools in short what they're trying to do is to provide resource to the tribes in the state of virginia to to help their students have better outcomes so so it's it's almost like a support of of the the travel uh youth in our community we have quite a few uh that are uh are monica Indians and so we so that's why they've come to us obviously because all of the all of the counties

186that have these these tribes represented they have come to us for that and so basically what we would do is is we would be a resource for them to kind of engage the students we would also help they would help us with with information about their you know their culture those kinds of things but the main thing the number one thing is that it's trying to get a get the recent get the support of the school system so they can come in and they can help their families help their own students and so it's also to also retain and to hire and retain teachers that are in one of these tribes. So I think it's a positive thing. I think it's just another layer of support for students. And I don't want you to do

187anything with it right now, but it is obviously one of these things that would be a good conversation at a work session. So there's not a kind of a timeline on this or anything like that. I just told them I would share that with you. and we could spend more time just in discussion. All right. Okay, so we've got some dates ahead of us. Obviously, open house was last night, school board meetings tonight. Convocation is tomorrow morning. It says 9 a.m. on here. We'll be logging in at 8.45. If anybody, do they have... Zoom. All right. So you've been sent a Zoom link to that. And then, of course, next week, August 17th, is transition day. We are bringing in kindergartners, sixth graders, and ninth graders, and also first graders, seventh graders, and tenth graders

188who might not have been in the building last year. And so then that night, I'm going to present to the board of supervisors for the construction project. First day of school then is the 18th and another reminder to you, the SDA conference, November 17th and 19th, we are getting at a place where we need to start canceling rooms. So if you know you're going or you do not think you're going, please let Mrs. Cecil know so we can cancel some rooms. Madam Chair, that is all I have. Any questions for the superintendent on any of those? Mr. Chair, you want to start us off? We'll combine our committee with... Yes, ma'am. Thank you. So the STEM Academy has not had a meeting here lately. We have one next week. It'll actually be the first face-to-face

189meeting that I will have attended since I've been on the STEM Academy board. So it'll be good to actually see people. I'm not sure of the status of masks or any of that or distancing or how that works, but... It'll actually be nice to see people instead of just being on a computer screen. So as far as tonight's meeting, starting off with the softball team, those girls, you know, we cannot congratulate them enough. That was an awesome season. I will admit, I did not get to... any of the games other than the state championship game, but to see the community rally around them, the girls thrive on that energy, it was phenomenal. Every night to be like that, you know, to have that kind of community support, they win a state championship every year, and

190it was great. But they stepped up to the plate. They had a tough game. They did a great job. The speakers that came tonight, they were pretty divided. You had a lot on both, on all sides. I ask speakers to make sure that you're speaking to the board. We're here for you to yell at us, not everybody else. And hopefully when you're done in the night, there's stability between you. I did see... people leaving early who had different opinions but there was at least a head nod between them and a shaking hands as they left so that was that was a positive thing you don't always get that we all see the news it's not like that everywhere i hope amherst county can be better than that so please keep that in mind i will

191admit i did vote to go Um, mask optional. If I had to vote again tonight, I'd do the same thing. Um, that'll lead to more hate mail. I'm sure. Um, but, um, the governor has put his mandate on us. So that's where we are. Uh, we have to live with what we have to live with. Make the best of it. I think the main thing is getting the kids in five days a week. Um, said again, five days a week, not anything else. So if we have to endure mass, We have to do a match. I hate it as much as everybody else. But the presentations tonight, the technology stuff and the webpage, it is much easier to use. Thank you for all the work that you guys did on that. That's great. And see

192the outcome of the summer program. Thank you, gentlemen, for presenting this up. You hate to have to have that many kids have to go to summer school, but You know, it's great to know that it's there. I'm glad to see that you got some good responses and some good outcome out of it. I hope every summer school we can get that kind of response out of it. You just hope you don't have to have that many kids go. It's going to be a challenging year for the teachers because kids are kind of behind a little bit. So getting them back where they need to be is not going to be easy. I know our teachers are up to the challenge, so we look forward to the year. And our student representatives, Sianna and Peter, I

193will admit you two are very well spoken. To be here a first night here, coming in, Sianna, I love what you said about being inclusive, getting everybody together. I mean, we showed here tonight, there's a lot of diversity. for people to be able to shake hands as they leave and be civil about things is key. And I hope you're able to, like you said, branch out, meet new people, do different things. Good luck. I'm behind you 100%. And Peter, I participated in a part of your robotics last year. That program is awesome. And keep up the good work. keep influencing kids because you know everything out there after high school it just gets a little bit more technical and if you don't pick it up now it's you know it just it just snowballs so

194uh thank you guys i look forward to the year i know you'll do a great job um and that's about it that's great um cip committee i've met since our last meeting we have meeting 25th Hopefully get some things to bring back to you after that meeting. Thank all those that had public comments tonight. Again, kind of stressing on Ms. Terry's comments about civility. It's a great thing that we're not trying to end up on YouTube and all that. We're here to express our opinions and be able to interact with each other as members of this community. So it's important that we maintain that level of composure. Softball team, awesome. Awesome. congratulations I had to wrap my memory because when I again when they said first state I said man we had some good teams

195back then so for them to accomplish that it's just speaks volumes for their work this year student reps glad to have you here So it's like front row, Mr. Garrison, if you really like watching this at home, you know, you got, we're 3D now. So glad to have you all here and look forward to your reports and your interaction throughout the year. Again, kind of echoing Mr. Terry, I said we live in a dealing rule state. It's brought up, you know, we're only, the school board and localities only have the powers expressly granted in by the state. So this is the cards we play. One great thing, though, is that we are going to be in school five days a week. And so we gotta be positive. Like I told my wife, we have rules

196for our house for our kids today. And I try to set that example here. I may not necessarily agree with the law. I may not necessarily agree with something that comes down. But I have to walk the walk and talk the talk and realize that's the law of the land as it is until it's changed. Thank you all for your hard work putting this information together tonight and we appreciate everybody that came out to participate in the meeting. Yes, I just wanted to thank all our speakers this evening, everybody who actually took the time out of their day to email us. It's greatly appreciated on both sides of the aisle. Also, congratulations to our strong ladies on the softball team. I love sports. I love the attention sports. It gives people the confidence and I

197hope they do well in future endeavors. And also a big thank you to Joe and Mr. Cargill for their hard work on the website. And, oh, Peter, instead of Avery, think about the Naval Academy. That's where it's at. Need any help? Let me know. My tool list was the Naval Academy. I would love to help you in that journey. And I believe that is all for tonight. And we'll go into executive session. I'm looking forward to hearing from our employees. Thank you. So I echo a lot of what they said. Congrats again to the softball team. That was an amazing accomplishment. And Dr. Wells, you are the grant man. I'm always impressed. If there's a dollar, you're going to find it. And kind of piggybacking on that, the HVAC units that we overhauled or we

198did work on, so there's talk about money coming from the state for upgrading those systems. Are we in play for that, or do we just pay for all of that ourselves? Well, we did pay for it. Well, I know we paid for all of it. So there could be some of the systems that weren't replaced that we could look into. But what hasn't come down is what the parameters would be. So once we get that information from the state, we could look into it. Some of the systems in the 1995 addition to the high school were not necessarily replaced because they were still within their lifespan. But there are some areas we could look at. But the majority of everything we had was replaced. And unfortunately, most of this grant money. can go back to

199when the pandemic started and is that correct so we were finished with all that before yeah so um but yeah dr well we did not finish every school so there's some still out there and the systems are supposed to be like coded regulated or whatever so and i think we talked about that before that our systems were So I went through the online registration process for my child and that was great. Do we have any preliminary numbers yet about registration? Are you asking about enrollment? Yeah, enrollment. We do? I can't remember the number being around 39.50. Oh, okay. And we budgeted 39.33. I know there was a hiccup with the forms, but overall that process is a lot more pain-free than it used to be. And have you met with the sheriff yet about the

200MOA? We haven't. We're ready to bring it. Okay. So the student reps, I'm always impressed with our student reps. They're always so poised and confident. I was not like that when I was in 12th grade, I guarantee you. and everything he had to say was impressive. And I agree with either Mr. Terry or Mr. Kynes, mixing in, it's so important to be inclusive and bring everybody together, especially in the times that we're dealing with. So I liked hearing that. And I know that there is a lot of political and... all of that being brought in in conversations. But there's a lot of good stuff going on too, and a lot of good stuff going on at Amherst County Public Schools that I don't want a black cloud to really override. Because I think that it's

201always our goal to do the best for the students that we can. And when our hands are tied, our hands are tied. So I look forward to a good year with you guys and hearing what you're bringing to the table, and I think it's going to be great. First of all, congratulations to the softball team. It's good to see the kind of athleticism at play. It's good just to have a little bit of normalcy with that, too. I'm glad the speakers come out. Tonight was interesting because it was not just a one-subject kind of... speaking of, there was actually a lot of different thoughts on the same topic and a lot of different thoughts on different topics. So I kind of enjoyed it with Mike, but it did get a little divisive. So we need

202to make sure we keep being civil. And it's interesting too, I'm sure this is how it is in all politics to some degree, but everybody keeps saying do the right thing no matter which opinion you have of something. And either way we're going to get it wrong by somebody's opinion. So everybody should know that we do take what you say into consideration. The emails, when you come up to speak. The one thing I would ask is do it in a civil way and give us time to process it. Sometimes these things happen almost too late when it's out of our hands. Things have already been in place. I agree with Mr. Farrakhan. I missed the meeting where it was actually voted on for masks, but I too would have chosen the option. I do think

203we, as a general idea, are losing a lot of our rights. And I think... I think everybody needs to be able to make their own choice. And that's becoming more and more of an issue as we move forward. However, we are mandated to wear masks at this point. One thing I will ask to keep my eye on is if we get to the point where we're hearing states say something about not coming five days a week, That's when I think there's no more discussions that that becomes a problem for me. I can deal with the mask. But that's a deal breaker. And then to the student reps. Yeah, you guys great first night. Keep that energy and enthusiasm coming. Dr. Arnold said, you know, you bring a lot to the table and I want to

204encourage you all to bring it. Tell us what Ideas you have, thoughts, all of it. We can bog down in policy stuff, but y'all's opinions, thoughts are a big chunk of why we're actually doing what we're doing. So don't shy away. I want to say just welcome back. I know it's going to be a fantastic year. Maybe a little bit more normal with some things that aren't quite like we're used to, but I think that we have a good chance of having a good year. So welcome back to our new teachers, to returning teachers and staff, our students. I'm just looking forward to all the exciting things. I want to welcome Peter and Sienna to our team. You've already made a big impact on us. Peter, I know I've been hearing about your robotics at

205Van Ellison for a long time. So thank you for that expertise and that dedication and giving of yourself to do that. And Sienna, I will just have to say, you have just hit it on the head. You have just warmed every one of our hearts because... You know your statement that you said if we can divide, we can come together. That's going to be my motto for the year. So we have, as adults, a lot to learn from you. So thank you very much. I think it's an honorable and an enduring goal. And you have an opportunity to have a huge impact on this school with that attitude. And you know what I really appreciated? You started that with you. It wasn't your expectation for anyone else. It was your expectation. your dream and vision

206is to. So you let us know how we can help you. And then I want to say just a shout out to the softball team. Just such a wonderful accomplishment. The girls were dedicated and worked hard. The coaches, wonderful. With the mask mandate, I voted that we had some choice and I wish that we did. I know a lot of people that are going to struggle with the masks, but we followed the law and we do what we have to do. face shields were mentioned for some students that might anxiety issues that might be a good solution for them and I'm hoping that our school system will work and look for our kids who struggle with the masks if those masks are becoming a barrier to learning then we need to be looking at some

207interventions for them and working with their parents whether that be with breaks or how they're going to deal with their anxieties but To me, we deal with barriers that students have every day, and this is just one more. So we need to make that a priority because some kids are struggling with their learning. They need to have some friends. So let's do what we can to help them. Also, we have not really determined whether we're going to have a work session at the end of the month. Items that I would like to see on there, and then we can, as a board, decide if we want to do that. One thing I'd like us to consider is maybe adding some additional funds to our teachers' use in the classroom, maybe from the CARES Act. I

208don't know if we can do that. But our teachers go above and beyond, and if we have some extra money and we can help them and take that down to the student level, I think that might be something that would be appreciated. I would like to know more about the VTEC group. I think that's a really exciting partnership. And I just would like to learn a little bit more about them, so that might be a good opportunity. I would like to review policy CH, no, CHGCM, and also I don't have the number, but the policy on school counseling. So I would not be able to look at those and just have some conversation about it. I can send you the number. I just didn't want to bounce. I'd like to talk about communication plan and

209teacher voice in that. I'd like more information on the CASEL that we've already talked about today, maybe teacher exit data. That's a lot, so it may not all fit into one, but those are things that are on my list that I'd like to look at. We'll see how the rest of the board feels about that. Good? No, we have one more. Class sizes. Just give us a general idea how that's looking, especially with the mitigation strategies. anything else we'll stop right there does the board have a wish for a work session except in the month of August or not it would be the 26th if that's what you choose Maybe we could also, I think Mr. Gallagher said September meeting, but I don't know if you want to talk about the sick policy. Yeah, I

210actually have those two down. I put down the remit procedures and emergency sick leave, I think, because I think we're going to need to act on those in September. Okay. Well, I will admit I wasn't too favorable to have the work session when school just started and how to work that they already have to do. However, I will go ahead and say to the board. Mr. Terry? Yes, please. I'll go with the pleasure. I'd say go with the pleasure. Are any of these things going to be a week? Maybe not until September. There's so much happening in the next couple of weeks. Well, my thought process is it seems like we get so much on our plate that if we don't stay on top of it, that it just sort of snowballs. So my list

211is pretty lengthy. I don't know if anybody else has things. So you could take some of that and move it to September. But if we move that chunk to September, then we're going to have additional chunks. There's going to be a lot of nothings. Well, I think... this to me about half half of that probably could just be given through an email or yes policies that they get to discuss but that's I mean I know I would be a favor given that back to school buffer and maybe trying to do more of this in the end of September. And I do think some of this probably could be... I don't want to come in here and it end up like a middle school dance and we just stare at each other and stand against the

212wall. So that's why I just want to make sure that if there's a valid discussion, absolutely we need to have it. I said it before, all four meetings if we need it, I just don't want to do it for the second one. I just don't want to be considered as to. I think we have more than enough to dance for the most of the day. Bring your dancing shoes. Well, we'll just vote on it normally. We won't keep going around in circles. Let's just, Terry said yes, Mr. Grimes said yes, yes or no. Do you have a work session? If that's what the board will say. Ms. Berg? Yes, ma'am. He's right there. Ms. Khaleesi? Yes. Ms. Thompson? Yes. Okay. So it's six to one. So we will have work session in October, I mean

213August. Now, for my report, I will be not too late. I did have an audit meeting with the VSBA on Tuesday and all finances are in order. I'm very excited about that. Of course, a shout out to that great softball team. Just wonderful for this county and for those young people and they're young. Still got most of the stuff about you coming back next year. I hope I'm just speaking. We're excited about that. I will be meeting with Laurel, I think, on the 25th. Is that correct, Miss Nabors? We're not meeting until later in the month. Looking forward to that. The open house I saw was wonderful yesterday. I was out there as a grandma, school board member, but as a grandma, and I was in three or four schools, and I thought it was

214just wonderful. Teachers were excited, administrators were excited, kids were running, jumping, screaming, having a good time already, and so it's nothing like going into a preschool classroom. with the little names on the desk, you know, and all that. That's what gets me excited. And then you go to middle school. You're a little more strategic up there, but it's all good. So we appreciate all the hard work that was done yesterday by everyone. The teacher breakfast and luncheon, I saw excitement there, as the scout said. I mean, I don't know. Everybody looked like they had to be here. And I think I reinforced that a little bit. But we hope that love continues on through the next 25, 30 years with us. We will, we did read a letter about early college and we will give

215that to the prof officials, the lady that's listening to me. We will give that to the people tonight to look into that. If we could put that on that list as well, that work session on September meeting. whatever's good September meeting will be fine we can actually have that conversation I think I know the answers we went there some years ago but it's okay to revisit so we can see what we can do with early college versus what we're doing with STEM and for the government school so we put that somewhere on the agenda those are my hot points and I'm not going to go over and be backwards on this math thing The rule has come down and I'm gonna do what's been asked of us to do the best I can. I was

216debating this morning, I just kinda really laying in bed praying about this. I don't know any answer to this. I don't know who I can make happy with this. I think you've heard me say that before. I received calls, I received letters, please, please mask because my child, I don't want them to get sick. I don't want my family to get sick. And if we don't mask, then we're not coming back to school. Then I receive calls, if you mask, you're not coming back to school. I see emails. I try to do the best I can to just say this, but do the best we can. I know we can't solve this. I know we can't make everybody happy. That's not a cop-out. But I'm hoping that we can, as someone said, go back to

217school on the 18th the best we can with a good heart and trying to stay safe as well as we can. But the main thing is these little preschools, they don't know anything about this. They're just so excited to come in and play with their toys in the sink. They weren't worried about any class yesterday. They wanted to build something in the sink. And so we want to be there for that. And we can just possibly get by and be friendly just for a little while, the best that we can. That's all I can say, but that's all I'm going to do. No one wants to wear a mask all the time. And I think someone said, let us try to address those people who have anxieties and so forth. We want the children to

218be happy. We want the parents to be happy, but we also have to look at what has been asked of us to do. So with that, I'm going to conclude my comments by saying for those who are listening, to the parents who are listening, the audience, let us try to go into this school year as positive as we can and as healthy as we can. Because let me just share this with you to tell you that you have that article from Central Health. Central Health put an article out yesterday, wasn't it, in the paper. Even before this mandate come down, and this has nothing to do, because I don't work for Central, I go in there with my students, but I'm just talking. They had already recognized that we're in a serious situation. That's Lynchburg,

219that's right here in Amherst County, that's our biggest healthcare. That was before the governor and his people, it wasn't actually the governor, the commission of health in Richmond came down with this, and the governor. But Central Health had already alerted us that things were not so good. So I had already thought to myself, we need to protect the children. I didn't say I was going to vote, but I was going to vote to go back to Mass to protect the children. Because it's not fun seeing what can happen to these young people or anybody else with COVID. So for this time, for right now, my final comment is we'll do the best we can. We hope that everybody will be as happy as they can. And I think it's been said before on our public

220comments, we want people to come and write and talk to the board. to the board. And so at the next meeting, Ms. Parliamentarian, could you have Robin rules the book somewhere? Yes, sir. Boyd, do you have anything else before we go into closed session? I'm only spoken myself. Yes, sir. I was just on my way for the record to say I skipped over my committee report, but I did that because I was traveling last weekend. The governor's school didn't meet, but I was a part of it. Are you there? to get a report. Everything's good. Okay. That's an easy reward. Okie dokie. So with that said, Dr. Ong, please give us a question. For section 2.2-3711A1 of the Code of Virginia, it is recommended the board convene a closed meeting for the following A1 and

221A2 personnel matters. Okay. We will first have our guests come. Public service announcement is brought to you by Amherst County Public Schools. Hello, I'm Rob Arnold, Superintendent of Amherst County Public Schools. Unfortunately, the positive COVID-19 tests in Central Virginia and Amherst County have dramatically increased in the last two weeks. That is the bad news. The good news is that we can change these outcomes and get our students back to school by committing as a community to follow several health recommendations. So join me in flattening 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... I'm Karla Stennett and I'm the third grade teacher at Timberlands Elementary School. I would like to say thank you to the Amherst County Education

222Foundation. They recently accepted my grant for an Echo Show. Since students are required to sit in their seats more than ever as we deal with COVID-19, an 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. 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

223in the library. It allows them to use their creativity and their innovation skills, as well as cooperation, to help build their own designs and use their own ideas to create things that they want to see. My name is 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

224we could use a variety of mediums and use lots of different materials instead of just paper and pencil. So one of the things that we 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

225individual watercolor trays. Each student would have their own housing, their own case for their watercolor trays. And the Education Foundation money purchased these inserts, refills 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

226these. I cannot keep them on the shelves. It's primarily for second through fifth graders, and they can take these little books, put their headphones in, 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 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.

227We take them outside to do our reading work and we use them in the classroom for our school work. Thank you so much for giving me the money to purchase these. I'm really thankful for it. 22-3712 of the code of Virginia requires a certification by the school board that such a 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 law be exempted from open meetings requirements by Virginia law were discussed in the closed meeting of which this certification applies and on such public business matters as were identified in this motion convening the closed meeting were heard discussed or considered motion to certify the motion is certified second miss lincoln yes

228miss thompson yes mr yes yes yes yes yes yes yes yes yes yes yes yes yes yes yes yes yes yes yes yes yes yes yes yes yes yes yes yes yes yes yes yes yes yes yes yes yes yes yes yes yes yes yes yes yes yes yes yes yes yes yes yes yes yes yes yes yes yes yes yes yes yes yes yes yes yes yes yes yes yes yes yes yes yes yes yes yes yes yes yes yes yes yes yes yes yes yes yes yes yes yes yes yes yes yes yes yes yes yes yes yes yes yes yes yes yes yes yes yes yes yes yes yes yes yes yes yes yes yes yes yes yes yes yes yes yes yes yes yes yes yes yes yes yes yes yes

229yes yes yes yes yes yes yes yes yes yes yes yes yes yes yes yes yes yes yes yes yes yes yes yes yes yes yes yes yes yes yes yes yes yes yes yes yes yes yes yes yes yes yes yes yes yes yes yes motion to adjourn. Are we there yet? Do we have a motion to adjourn? Yes we do. Second? Second. All in favor? Aye. Have a good evening.