001Everyone and welcome to the April 24th meeting of the Campbell County School Board. Thanks to everyone for being here tonight. Got a nice crowd. Before we get started, I would like to read a prepared statement on behalf of the board. I'm sure all of you are aware last week we lost a little person in our community. Logan's mom, Alyssa, is also... a teacher at Tomahawk. Logan Kozlowski passed unexpectedly. It was last Thursday, Wednesday of last week. On behalf of the school board, I would like to offer our most sincere condolences to the Kozlowski family. Our thoughts and prayers are with Alyssa, Joey, Hope, and the entire family as they navigate through this difficult time. No parent should have to suffer the loss of a child, especially so young. I can't even begin to imagine what
002they are going through. But please know that the entire Campbell County School family offers our support to the Kozlowski's and all those most deeply affected throughout our Campbell County community. As we take our moment of silence after the Pledge of Allegiance, please use this time to pray for and remember the Kozlowski's and all the families throughout the Campbell County that was most affected by this horrible. In addition, I would ask that you please remember Catherine Witt, Katie, one of our teacher aides in Alta Vista who passed unexpectedly on April 12th. She leaves behind her husband, Chance, and two daughters, Graylee and Josie. So at this moment, I would like to stand by. Congratulations. We have a presentation, the Legacy Education Center presentation tonight. Appreciate the empathy you expressed. Appreciate the empathy that our community has
003shown to the families. Two awful tragedies this week that touched our family was obviously the little Gowanski boy and then the family that lost a mother giving birth to twins, Richard's family. Life is precious, that's for sure. So I appreciate you guys doing that. On behalf of our staff and our board, Appreciate the opportunity to share with you a little update on where we are with Legacy. Certainly been a process, as most things are, but we keep gaining ground, so we're happy to do that. A lot of our success goes back to the support that we received from Dr. Johnson and from Ann Parker to create some momentum inside of Campbell County. So we would like to share a few things that we see going on that can help your students and help your students
004in the future. Roughly two months ago, Marjette Glass stood in front of the city of Lynchburg and said, there's 5,200 city, New Campbell County, Bedford County, Amherst. She said something that almost knocked me out of my chair was, workforce participation is 52's work. And so that's more momentum for what we're trying to do. The Legacy Education Center, in a small shortcut version, is really a mentoring program for workforce development. And even since the last time we met with you, we've had to morph ourselves into what we call workforce entry. I think that as big a problem for our young people developing what we call employment maturity at times is also just getting an entry pass into a career. It's not simple to get through HRs right now. And that's been something that's really opened my
005eyes to an 18-year-old applying at Delta Star. A lot of times they're told, hey, send your application in on Indeed. And the reality is you might as well throw your application in the James River a lot of times with just Indeed. 85% of our jobs come from our network. So it's really important that we continue to grow our network and help our young people with their network. If you look at the first page, one of the things that's important to us as we move forward, and Campbell County has excelled at this, is a year ago when I came, post-COVID, we spent a lot of time just getting permission to be back in schools, like everybody did, in all districts. So we went through a lot of me. You guys, you know, the Board of Supervisors,
006we're with Dr. Johnson, we're with the principals, we're with the guidance counselors. to try to get to the students. So by the time we got to the students a year ago at the end, it's May and we got one touch. And basically what we learned is one touch is not effective enough to build a relationship with anybody trying to trust a new broker. So what we've come up with is a three touch process that's very effective. Like for example, we went to Brookville sometime in November with a secret Miss Williams here in Maine, and we spoke to all the seniors. So 230 seniors or so were there in the auditorium. We got to share what we call a winning philosophy of workforce development. So if I would encourage anything, I think, again, a lot of
007times our young people are coming up, they don't really even understand workforce development and how they grow. We broke it down into small groups, you know, through the counseling team. Tracy and Chris were great. We met with 55 students in smaller groups. So I don't know how they determined the 55 yet because we just would still work through the process. 55. 55, 37 filled out an application. Then we broke it down and we met with, and if you turn that next page, you'll see where Chris put together a great schedule for us to go in and meet in smaller groups. So Graydon was one of them. He's here with me tonight. And we're able to meet in smaller groups now with two or three students and really hone in to what they want to do
008and how we can help them. So I'm going to send you this document because I asked my secretary to put it in and it looks like she didn't. The N.R. footprint, 15 high schools, is 2,715 seniors. So what we've identified is this. The separation right now is like this, but obviously five years from now the separation gets bigger, and in 10 years from now the separation gets a lot bigger. So here's your five categories of students I'm seeing. I'm seeing secure students, families understand the pathway, they have the resources, they understand college, boom, they're going. And they're going to UVA, Tech, Liberty, James Madison. could be going straight into a business, but they've got a plan, they're secure. About 20%. 20% is what I call searching with support. They have some level of understanding in
009their family. Maybe their parents didn't go to college, but they've had success in business, they can pay for it, they're looking for the program. They plug into CTE, they plug into student loans, they plug into community college. They're going to find their way. And then you've got 60% that I think really struggle to understand how to get there. and we can help in a big way. That would be searching without support. That would be what I call static students. They need to have a talent. And then you have suffering students that are there. And so that's 60%. So if my numbers are right, which I'm pretty sure with where we're going, we're somewhere in the ballpark, 2,715 students, that's 1,600 students in our footprint annually that we can help. So the 230 at Brookville. We're
010saying there's 130 students that we can really help improve this to be worth it. So what I'm seeing then is you want to change the 52%, you obviously got to get to where you're changing the mindset early and you're helping people see their career opportunities as they move forward. So what are you doing, coach, to change things? Well, two ways you come into legacy now. You come in with what we call degree completion. So I love this story. So one of Ms. White's students, Gabrielle Daniels, signed up last week. This is a great story. So yeah, I meet her at all these meetings. And don't know her before that. I meet her. And she works at the daycare across the street from Brookville. And she wants to be an elementary school teacher in Campbell County.
011Doesn't have the resources maybe to just go do and pay everything. So she comes down to us. 21 months of her associates degree debt free. She will keep her job, she will stay in the workforce because she loves her daycare job. She'll continue to work 40 hours a week. And she'll still get, and what I love about this is that she's staying in the workforce helping our community. And she's improving herself to continue to help us at a higher level by pursuing her education. She'll have the support of, as you've seen before, our team. So at Legacy now you take two classes every eight weeks and you're in our building for seven hours a week. I mean, there's not a better way, a simpler way of education than mine. So that's a student that we
012would consider. Paula came to us, and this is interesting. Paula's struggling with some issues in life like a lot of people can. There's a lot of things that are pulling at her, hurdles and barriers. And she's under pressure. When she gets done high school, she's just like, I just need a job. And she's working two restaurant jobs right now while she's at work. She said, I'm going on Friday nights because I have to work. So we are moving her to another job, helping her move. She goes through this thing. This girl is unbelievable. She's got talent. She was selling me on, hey, I'm going to come to the restaurant and order. And you can see I eat at a lot of restaurants. So by the time it's over, I said, listen, you need to get
013sales. Unbelievable sales. You know what you can make in sales? Let's help you get a degree and help you find a sales job. And it will change your life. And so one of the things that we're doing. is we're connecting the students with what we call workforce entry mentors. So in Greg's spot, he wants to do IT work. So we connected him with a workforce entry mentor, and he'll share a little bit about that tonight. I wanted you to hear it straight from him on what he's experienced, and then you can equate it to everybody we're working for. As a matter of fact, some of you would be great mentors. We can sign you up before we leave to help us. All right? So Greg Scott is a senior at Brookville. Let's give him a
014hand tonight. How are you doing today ladies and gentlemen? Obviously Mr. Dunton did a very good job in introducing me. Legacy has helped me incredibly find and get Andrew. It's a straight to the thing. Seeing what he can do with a career, I'm sure he'll get a job somewhere. He's done well by me. What are your friends here? Many of the other students. What company is that with? CloudFit. Okay. So how are you doing today? So we're hoping with him, what we want to do is connect him to a workforce mentor. So when I walk into Brookville, he says, I want to do something in IT, you know, and rather than cybersecurity, engineering, processing. You know, that's over my pay grade, so I leave that to someone else. And so what we do then is
015say, hey, who in the community will mentor him into his career? Because he's obviously a talent and he's got to work at it. He's working at where you're working right now? Dish restaurant. He works at dish restaurant. What do you do? I'm a dishwasher. You're a dishwasher. So here is a dishwasher headed to be an IT specialist. So this is what we want to see happen and we want to see it happen multiple times over. So I told him to come tonight and start working on his public speaking skills. And he did a great job. The agent we have there is a University of Pittsburgh grant. So we need a little bit of help on this and I'm probably going to have to go to Ms. White to help one of the students over there.
016So just for your information, you know, we're working in a lot of ways to build a lot of relationships. So with the University of Winnsburg, we have a partnership now with a science grant and we want to take a Campbell County student for the next three years to Costa Rica. They'll go for eight weeks with Dr. Tom Shahady from the university. They'll do water quality studies, so we want it to be a science-oriented student. And this is incredible, is that it's fully funded, Dr. Miller, fully funded, and the student gets paid $6,000 for the two months on top of it. So everything's paid for. It's a full grant. And what needs to happen now is we've been working with one of the Brooklyn students, but they just need to go meet with Dr. Shahady. And
017if they don't want to go, they don't want to go. Obviously, you want somebody who wants to go. But this is a great program. This is going to be phenomenal for some of our students. So I don't know if Dr. Johnson wants to handle it from his desk. He could in terms of us putting some competition out, finding somebody in the county that you would want to do this. I'll be wide open to working with you on that so we can talk about it later or we can handle it with the principals and the science teachers. But this is a phenomenal program for us. What we started now with us, so we've got our workforce entry students. So I had my first workforce orientation last Wednesday. We had three Rustberg Wilders there. We had a
018number of students from the county in the building. And what we're doing here is they must go through a workforce orientation for us to then let them come to what we're doing as workforce open houses. So we have 28 students that are going straight into the workforce. Your welders, your electricians, your trades, your craftsmen. When we go in and meet with them, just like with Graydon, that's what they want to do. So what we're doing is we teach, and we go to Pat and his work is a great work. We teach employment maturity. So we brought them in last week, and we had four business leaders come in and tell their story about how they got to where they got, qualities it's going to take. And now on May 11th, We have Delta Star coming
019in to speak to the same group. May 24th, Banker Steel. Foster Fuels coming in on the 11th. So we're going to invite industry leaders in the community to come in and speak to these students that have gone through the orientation. Now they're not looking at a resume, they're looking at a person. And they get interaction, and I guarantee you they're going to say, you need to apply for this job, this job, before they leave. So this is a little more engagement to create these jobs and make them happy for the students because they get talent. So those things are going good. You see our core values at the end and then we stress in that orientation A plus two. So I want to express my great appreciation back to you for opening the door. We're
020in Campbell County. We're in Wentworth City right now. We're in Charlotte County. We're in Appomattox. And the doors are opening elsewhere. We've been diligently working at this and we get a lot of cooperation from a lot of people because I think workforce development and workforce entry is a big issue in our communities. And so we applaud you for what you're doing with your students and thank you for the opportunity to meet you guys. We look forward to a next update when we'll have a lot of those students and where they are and exactly what direction they're moving with it and what jobs they're in. To close with this one, we can always think that somebody's ready, sometimes they're not and they did steam work. So we had one student come in, wanted to be a
021welder, sent him to Banker Steel. He's a graduate from a local, Buzzer Camp County. So they sent him back to us and said, hey, okay, so I find solutions. So we had the student come in for two weeks. We did tutoring with him on the side. Got him to where he was excelling at that. Next thing you know, you got hired at Delta Star for seven. So sometimes that student would have probably got lost had we not helped him learn. We can appreciate what you guys are doing. Just thankful that we're young enough to keep going. Any questions? Yeah. Are you as proactive in all the high schools in Campbell County as... Yes, yes, yes, we are. We met with all the seniors, and now we've got a follow-up meeting on the first. In Campbell,
022we're in again for these smaller groups. I think we can really help the business students, too. They've got the Future Center. So there's some things that they're doing, but like I said to the guy, you know, to Jesse, I said, Jesse, I'd love to see your stats. Because I want us to give you guys stats, too. So out of that 55, we ended up with 37 signed up. And then five didn't come to the individual meetings for whatever reason. So we got all 32 of those students participating right now. So we're 32 out of 32. Let's see how many jobs we can get out of the third come back and say, hey, this is effective. But we'd love to work with all the schools. Three touches. You know, and then let the students decide what
023they want. Good question. Anything else? There's some good things. Thank you. Matters from the floor. At this time, the board will hear matters from the floor. Each speaker will have three minutes to speak. Please be respectful of the three-minute time limit. Prior to speaking, please state your name and address. Comments must be directed to the board and not to the staff, the audience, or the media. I believe we have three. guest speaker scheduled to speak tonight and the first one would be Mr. David Gifford. that it says that this is necessary and advisable and in the best interest of the county. Paper unhappy footnotes. I don't know exactly what that's referring to, but my question is, is that so? Do you think that is so? And so I've been knocking on some doors, talking to
024some people, trying to find out what the citizens think. And I've talked to well over 100 citizens by now. And a couple things, one of the things I'm asking people is, what are you concerned about? What do you want the school board to know? And the main thing I'm getting from the people is they're concerned about school security, about building security, about bus security. The second main thing that I'm getting from the people is that they're concerned that some of the buses don't show up, or they come too late, or they come too early. I've asked a couple questions to the people, what their thoughts about the high school renovations and how that's going to impact our going up, our taxes that are supposedly taking a very, very large hike next year. The people generally
025are not against that. The people generally aren't against that, but not people who say who work for the school system, okay? One thing that I have found is that people feel like, They don't say anything because they don't feel like anybody listens. A lot of people just stay home and don't get involved in the school board or in the board of supervisors because they feel nobody listens to them. And so I think you do do better at that. The second thing is that some people fear, they fear speaking up because they fear that their employment or their social relationships will suffer if they do. that there will be some kind of discrimination against them in the county, against them if they take action in what they call politics. So that's very, very concerning. The second
026thing that I ask of them, what would be their thoughts? Would they be in favor or would they not object to the fact that the county could offer violence, literature, or instruction in schools as an electorate? People way are in favor of this. I mean, over 100 people that I've talked to, only two were against it. A lot of people were for it. I mean, heavily for it. I don't know if I ran that thing out or if it never started. Anyway, when I was looking at the grades of all the high schools in our county, I see that Brookville is doing really well. Mr. Gifford, I'm sorry, your time is up. Thank you very much. It didn't go off. It didn't go off. No, I didn't hear it. It did not go off. I
027just know the time. Yeah, the time was zero, but it didn't go off. I apologize. We had an audio issue with the time. The alarm didn't go off after the three minutes. Okay, next speaker is Jackie Mendez. Is this working? You should be able to turn it on. Testing. Testing. You can hear me? Okay. Hi. I want to first offer my, express my condolences for the Koslowski loss for their little boy. Again, it's a tragedy, and it's a small child who could have had a. Just a great a great life, but the Lord called him back, but I expressed my my name is Jackie Mendez I'm a resident here in Edmonton Virginia, and I'm also the founding member of Campbell kids Tonight we continue to press the issue of the budget. There's so many Many
028questions to answer and yet little interest to understand the fiscal responsibility this board to ensure that children, teachers, and community members are receiving value for the dollars spent. The task on hand for this board is to explain such items on the budget that supposedly meets objectives to educate the next generation of leaders. So we are drastically falling short in meeting these objectives. I'm concerned that repeating the same process over the past 10 years and expecting different results is just not working. So I want to bring to your attention the Center for Education Statistics, part of the U.S. Department of Education, illustrates the comparative growth in the number of students, teachers, and district administrators in our public schools in the period from 2000 to 2019. The number of district administrators grew by a whopping 87.6% during
029this year, outstripping the growth in the number of students. at seven and the number of teachers at eight point so this is with American education so you board members have to be vigilant about the ideologies that are introduced into our school system and we don't want administrators encouraging the use of pronouns different than their birth gender So character strong, I said I was going to talk a little bit about curriculum, is based on concepts formulated with social experimental theories promoted by overpaid administrators through the lens of political ideology. CRT, critical race theory, is now called DEI, diversity, equity, and inclusion. The school system needs more teachers and less administrators to promote solid educational goals of reading, math, and science. Parents and community members continue to pull their kids out, seeking better alternatives to educate their
030children. This past week, I spent time with Hispanic families that have taken their kids out of school for private options or homeschooling. This is a big trend between blacks and Hispanics. We continue to see an exit from public education to better alternatives. So parents are seeking... transparency where none is forthcoming. So will this board ever take the control and repair the damage done over the past 10 years? Thank you. Ms. Mendez. Our next speaker is. Good evening. I'm Crystal Coleman from Alta Vista. At the very end of March, I did my usual review of the school libraries in Campbell County. I guess I'm always looking for that miracle. What I did see for each of our libraries. Parents, if you wish to learn more about the books that your student is reading, you can access
031information from several websites. These websites are not managed or endorsed by Campbell. Provided next to that statement was four or five sites. Imagine that I almost felt some and contacted Dr. Stanley in me to express that and to share a few comments on that work in progress. What I was really encouraged about was that it was very user-friendly and provided. content advisories, warnings, and a rating scale in addition to excerpts and accurate book summaries. Everything that a parent needs to make an informed decision. Well, how short-lived that was. Today, when checking, now there is a cryptic message about making improvements to the Destiny Catalog experience. Two steps forward and five steps backwards. Now a few questions appear to be gone. Some have no summaries given and some have camouflage summaries. Gone is the system. Please
032be careful that we will need to check. So whatever the final version of these improvements is, it must be clearly and transparently communicated to parents and guardians of the system while giving them the info. These improvements cannot be the show that the divisive concepts resolution was. And as far as that resolution, This school board needs to clearly and transparently communicate the resolutions expected in every car. And it must be our new employee. It must be beginning of school information when new families. Remember everything. Okay. Approval of the March 13, 23 and April 3, 2023 meeting minutes. Mr. Chairman, I move we approve both minutes. Second. Got a motion by Mr. Brandt and a second by Mr. Maddox. Is there any further discussion? All those in favor, signify by saying aye. Opposed? Motion carries. Payment of
033the bills. Mr. Chairman, I reviewed the bills from the past. We've got a motion by Dr. Miller and a second by Mr. Phillips. Is there any further discussion? All those in favor, signify by saying aye. Aye. Opposed? Motion carries. Ms. McClanahan, acceptance of donations. Tonight you have 21 donations that were listed in advance of the meeting on BoardDocs. Unless you have any questions, I ask that you approve them as presented. Motion. Got a motion by Mr. Maddox and a second by Mr. Jones. Is there any further discussion? Yeah, it was over 16,000 in donations. That's great. If there are no further discussion, all those in favor signify by saying aye. Aye. Opposed? Motion carries. Consideration of non-resident tuition. Tonight two applicants have been approved by the principals as acceptable non-resident students. If you have any
034questions, I ask that you approve them as presented. Motion. Second. And a motion by Mr. And a second by Mr. For the discussion. All those in favor, signify by saying aye. Motion carries. Consideration of requests for supplemental transfer of appropriations. Once again. Tonight you have five appropriations listed in advance of the meeting unless you have any questions. So to ask that you approve those as presented. Mr. Jones and the second by Ms. Parker. Is there any further discussion? All those in favor signify by saying aye. Aye. Opposed? Personnel report. Chairman, members of the board. The personnel office has been busy in the last month that we have seen you guys. You have the personnel report in front of you with a lot of exciting hires and changes. So unless you have any questions, I'd ask
035that you approve it as written. So we hired some experienced. We got some experienced people. Yes, sir. If there are no questions, I'll move for approval of the personnel report. Second. I have a motion by Mr. Brandt. I'm a second by Mr. Maddox. Are there any further discussions? Staffing is up. We're still plugging along positions for next year. Doing a very good job hiring. We've got a few more. Working on administrative changes. So just so you know, Ms. Stephanie Anderson is here tonight. You just approved for her to be the new principal. You know that Stephanie is an assistant principal at Brookville. Mrs. White is sad to see her go. But we're excited to have Ms. Anderson come and join Alta Vista. Start wearing some orange and black. And then Derek Adam, he's also here.
036He's the new principal at Tomahawk. He's coming to us with principal experience from Amherst as well. We have plans to introduce them this week to the faculties at Alta Vista. I'm excited to get started working with them, and they are too. Excited. Okay, all those in favor, say goodbye by saying aye. Aye. Jump the gun. I said you haven't approved it yet. No, no. Next item up is consideration of 20. Ms. Barrett, I was talking about the end of the year. At that time, seven months, we weathered those. We need a motion on that, correct? Yes. I'll move to approve that. Second. We've got a motion by Mr. Brandt and a second by Mr. Maddox. Is there any further discussion? All those in favor, signify by saying aye. Aye. Opposed? Okay. When Dr. Robert Johnson
037announced his retirement, most of us felt that if there was an outstanding individual within the school system, we should consider that possibility. Dr. Johnson has led the school division in an admirable fashion for 14 years, and we're in a stable and strong situation. We have an outstanding staff that has been with us a long term. We prefer a continuation of the present course. with as little disruption as possible, but we absolutely must have the right person. We began by meeting and discussing the process to be followed. Our consensus was we wanted to find a person who would have the immediate support and respect of the community, parents, teachers, and staff. If a clear and compelling choice was not available within the present staff, then we would begin an outside search. Individually, we opened discussions with
038parents, teachers, staff. We were approached by many people who made suggestions and comments. One name kept coming to the... That name was Dr. Stanley. As individuals, we met with Dr. Stanley for informal discussions to obtain a personal assessment. We know Dr. Stanley as the assistant superintendent for instruction, so we are familiar with his professional work for the school board. but we wanted to gain addition. Each school board member was provided with his professional qualifications, his educational accomplishments, and extensive experiences as a teacher, principal, and administrator are impressive. His resume details much of that and I would like that resume to be included into the record of this meeting as part of my statement. On April 3rd, 2023, the board met and interviewed Dr. Stanley at length. We discussed our individual findings and due diligence. The
039consensus was that an offer should be extended to Dr. Stanley. At this time, I will entertain a resolution from the school board. Be it resolved by the Campbell County School Board to extend it to Dr. Clayton Stanley for his appointment as superintendent of the Campbell County Schools. This offer is contingent on reaching an agreement on the terms of the contract and by the same by the attorney for the school. Mr. Chairman, I'll second that resolution. We have a resolution from Mr. Jones and a second by Dr. Miller. Is there any further discussion? At this time, all those in favor of the resolution signify by saying aye. Aye. Opposed? Motion carries. Congratulations. Okay, the next item up for discussion is the... talk to you very briefly informationally about our updates to our library which is destiny
040is the service that we use that manages our library catalog as well as some other updates we are making to our school library pages that are works in progress so our goal really is to provide services for students that are and that they can so today i'm just going to talk about our parent notification system that was implemented at the beginning of this school year every time a student checked out a book as well as the variety of professional development days we have sent with our librarians and then also what the new websites and desks look like. So first we begin at the beginning of the year sending out notifications through our system every time a student checked out a book. It would be sent to a parent's email and it's an opt-out, meaning everybody
041receives it unless they choose not. This was very positively received and really did not receive any negative feedback. Originally the email looked like this and here's what it is if you'd like to opt out. as well as an image of the picture. And I apologize that it is a little bit small. Our new update will include this that will include a bigger picture because that's been one of the feedback that we did receive. It clearly states, tells you if you wish. And then at the bottom of this, it is currently there but will be. There is a link that will link back to some of our resources on our division website. The challenge is we can't push everything out at once because then it's live. There's no draft that we're able to work within, so
042this will be added. So at the bottom, there will be a website link, and it will take you to our division page. The division page has book review information of the websites and also does say that they're not necessarily managed by us because they are outside, but it does list them in alphabet. It includes five different, and again, the intent is to give ease. ready to use access to parents that you wish to know. And again, it is alphabetical. There is the listing, the brief summary. Along with this notification, we have worked with our librarians and media center specialists all year. In August, the first meeting was held reviewing the library handbook. That was at the very start of the school year. In the fall, we also met again with librarians, and then they did
043have the opportunity to attend the Virginia Association of School Librarians because it was in person. In March and April, our librarians, particularly at the secondary level, but the virtual meeting was with all, did do work to really have a chance to collaborate because some of our staff is new. It gives them that opportunity to work together as well as to ensure that they're moving through their process with looking at their resource. With our Destiny updates, we're excited about the new look of the library catalog. and as well as to our websites. So our websites don't look like this now, but will. They will show on one hand, a parent will be able to click to go to the library link for Destiny Discover, and then it also shows the face of the library. This is
044the librarian at each school, and that way they know who is their specific person in their building. This is an example of the elementary, and then this is an example, and again, Destiny is available for clicks, and it also gives that information. for the face of the letter. The other positive of this change is they will have additional information just by looking at Destiny itself with this website. So this information includes the reading level, which is very important when thinking about a book selection for a student. It includes, and again, a very brief summary of what it is. The biggest feedback I would say is it would be helpful to know about a book, a very brief summary of what it is. So that is included with the title. is we still maintain our library
045area library media center specialist page within our division and this is easily clickable as well with and I won't go through all of them but it is available what is it that our librarians do as well as other procedures that we have and then finally this is a reminder that our goal is to provide easy to information for our students that they have those resources so that they can do the future endeavors that we will be able to do So just a reminder, this is in progress. We will release this later this week. And so we wanted to make sure that we had all of the pieces together to then be able to push this information out. We have already been in touch with our librarians. We have already been in touch with our principals.
046And we'll continue that communication with staff and family. And at this time, I will be happy to answer any questions. Looks good. Looks good. Just to clarify, when it's up and running the way it's designed, There'll be an easily recognized link to websites that review the book and that would address the concerns that were alluded to tonight? Sure. At the bottom of that checkout email, it will directly link them to the book review site and those links are there. There are five different websites that parents are able to choose from to access to then click. But we want it to be easily accessible and so that will be sent every time a check's out. And if they don't want it, they can opt out. So that way that is their choice if they would. Okay,
047report of the superintendent. Dr. Johnson, this time we will hear matters from the board. Let's start with Mr. Brand. Okay. Got a few things from Brooklyn High School. They've got a play, Deuces, which is a musical. It's opening this Thursday and it's going to run for the next two weekends. Is that Friday, Saturday, Sunday or Friday, Saturday? Thursday, Friday, Saturday, Sunday. Wonderful. Emily Emanuel, current sophomore, was selected as a Virginia Thesman Officer for the 2023-24 year. She is the first Brookville Theatre student to serve at the state level. We have two state champions for debate, Ahir Vyas, current senior, and T.J. Kaiser, current junior. And I'll leave the rest for... Mr. Park. Mr. Maddox. I'd like to thank the Albuquerque YMCA. Yesterday they hosted a art show for our high school artists, and I think
048it was over 25 participating students, and it's great for them to support the school. That's it. Thank you. Dr. Miller. First, I'd like to offer my personal congratulations to Dr. Stanley. He'll do a fine job for us. William Campbell, I talked with... Ms. Hanson today and she was happy to share that they were able to field a JV softball team. She wasn't sure if they were going to be able to do that, but that's going well for them. Also, she asked me to recognize Emma Baldwin. Well, I asked to recognize her, but she shared that she was recognized at the regional level as a young author in poetry. Still working on teachers. I hired a new English teacher. I'm happy about that. And they wanted to thank the school board. Well, they wanted to thank,
049she wanted to thank for the landscaping that was done down, and I understand it's been done at all the schools, but she was very appreciative and said it really looked good. And Mr. Bennett shared the same for Brookneal Elementary. When I talked with him, he said everything was going well. He's a little worried about testing because he's very competitive. And he's looking forward to at least showing a lot of growth and doing well with that. He still struggles with some attendance issues and just a constant frustration for our youngsters down there. I'd like to share that I had a Laurel board meeting a couple weeks ago. Everything's going very well at Laurel. We are sort of in the same boat with approving a budget that is very fluid, given that we still don't know what's
050happening at the state level and don't know what's going on in Lynchburg City School system. So that's still very fluid, but everything's going well. I'd like to thank Mr. Dunton for what he's doing with Legacy. I'm really excited about that. I feel for these kids coming out of school and not knowing really where to go, but having that resource is really good. I hope that all the schools receive that program well and really make it a priority. I'd just like to thank and notice that some trees were taken down at Rustberg High School. And so I've been watching those and I'm glad that they're down. And there's a couple there at JJ Frey that should come down also. But on a sad note, I know we talked about Logan. I don't know if many of
051you knew Tricia Garner at Rustberg Elementary School. She was such a wonderful person. She was a greeter at the car drop-off and just always had a smile on her face. She had a spider monkey stuffed animal, so she was lovingly known as the monkey lady. And that was certainly a term of endearment. She just made every kid's day when they got out of the home. And I called Mr. Shearer, who was the principal there, just to get an idea. I didn't know how long she'd been there. But he said she was such a help that the kids, especially the kindergartners, first graders, as they got out of the car, if they were upset or whatever, she was the first thing they saw. And that relieved me. the staff and the counselors so much of dealing
052with these young children. She was just a wonderful person. She was such an ambassador for Rustberg Elementary, but she passed away a couple of days ago at a young age. She was a remarkable woman. I'm going to miss her. Thank you for bringing that up. Thank you, Dr. Miller. Ms. Parker. Yes, thank you. regarding donations I need to really thank the Waterloo Moose Lodge which I'm a member I did not solicit I was shocked when I saw it I actually asked for permission to thank them publicly because yeah wow great donations to the school district from a lot of our locals community organizations not just employers really impressed by a lot of our donations I appreciate that I do want to thank clay and Amy for all their hard work with promotions and transfers that
053have been going on and how awesome the communication has been I really appreciate it you know we're not just showing up here behind what I call behind the tablecloth and finding out so I really appreciate all the communication ask for our consideration. I really appreciate that. Thank you very much. Excited about the end of the year. I think everyone will be excited for the 31st. Hopefully the graduates will show up on the 2nd, right? For graduation. And the 3rd. Don't want them to go off to the beach and not come home. Super excited for that. I also want to thank Randy. I spoke on his behalf when he first came in. I see these kids come in and pick up their paychecks at my office. It's really amazing. They're single young mothers who had no
054help to help them find a job or get a further education. He is all on donations and all on volunteer mentors and volunteer retired. professors for help, so he's out there constantly hustling for more help. So I really appreciate all his efforts, and I'm hoping one of my sons will take advantage of this program. And that's all I have, thank you. Thank you, Mr. Barber. Mr. Phillips. Yeah, so thanks again to Mr. Dutton for the update with the Legacy Education Center. Thanks for, congratulations, Dr. Stanley, on your new opportunity. And thanks to Dr. Hale for the great library. That was really good information, so thank you for that. A little bit of information from some of the area schools. Rushburg High School, they had a Rushburg's Got Talent show on May 20th. Participated in that.
055They had the senior prom and after prom this past weekend. 200 students attended prom. Students attended the after prom. Success. Had some trips with mental classes. to the James River to collect water samples and analyze eBuy they can buy. Spring sports of course is underway with a lot of games going on. A couple of events, rising freshmen were invited out to the school on April the 5th, 22nd at 6 p.m. The US history and government students took a field trip to Washington DC to experience gridlock in Washington DC traffic amongst The other things you can check out there. I had a daughter that lives in D.C. for three or four years. It's good times there. College Fair, they had on it for students at a multitude of universities and colleges. And lastly, April 4th, they
056had a driver's, sophomore drivers took place on a driver's ed simulator sponsored by the Virginia State Police. At Rustberg Middle School, a couple of students won regional awards. For the Young Writers Contest, Emma Smartgen and Vivian Romero won for poetry, and they have a chorus concert on May the 9th at 6.30. And at Yellow Branch Elementary, the Pre-K and Kindergarten Parent Teacher Organization has a performance on May the 9th, and they have their field day on. So lots of year-end activities and things. Congratulations, Dr. Stanley. Good principles. assistant principals who are bringing in some from across the river and from Appomattox as well. So, I'm looking forward to working with you. Some of the stuff I've had here, it's been a while since we've had a meeting and David and I participated in Mr. Nagy's
057early college class here back at the end of March and interested in it. Saw mr. Kenny Holtz and I thought he was just like, you know killing time he informed me that he ran the show You know, I thought I thought when we had the Campbell County Public Schools job fair I thought it was gonna be kind of hard to top that but here on the 30th of March college and career day it was It was second to none. It was amazing to see this entire facility filled up with over 75 businesses and post-secondary school opportunities for our high school seniors and vo-tech juniors and our early college students. And it was just amazing. I mean, it was like everybody wanted to participate and people to take their jobs. I mean, it's just amazing that
058so many of the jobs that were offered here even jobs. Opportunities are tremendous. My hat's off to Ms. Ashley Wilson and Mr. Hardy, and y'all did a great job. It's one of the better things I've seen in Cal. Thanks to the Campbell County Education Foundation who graciously provided lunch for all those vendors, which was quite an ordeal. And I think everybody, both the students and the representatives, everybody had a good time. I visited Yellow Branch Elementary School. And had a brief meeting with Mrs. White, the assistant principal. If you all remember, she was here at our last meeting and gave a presentation. It was very impressive. Attended award ceremonies at Concord on April the 6th. And it's just amazing to see how many smart kids there are at Concord. I mean, I'll take that to
059the bank. It's just amazing. Ms. Rinelli, who's sitting back there, she completed her second Boston Marathon. She told me it sprinkled at the beginning and sprinkled at the end. Sprinkled is not the right word. She said she got drenched at the beginning and drenched at the end. David didn't mention it, and it was set up for Saturday. She wanted to go, but we had to go watch her grandson play soccer first. So when we got down there at 10 o'clock, it was pouring down rain, and I went down by the county building and turned right up the new building. And just as soon as I turned right, that entire road, it looked like there was a sporting event going on. Cars were almost down to the bottom. And so we, the umbrella went, and every
060plant was already sold. It was that much demand for them. They projected to make 2,000. I don't know about the math, but if you multiply that by four, you get pretty close. Everything was already paid for, the plants, the seedlings and all. And they had beautiful potted plants, just... spectacular stuff and it was all sold. So Mrs. Jones is not real happy because she didn't get any of this stuff. But I was so intrigued by the, and understand it's pouring down rain and there are these kids that are running to gather orders and pull orders into the shop where there were people lined up for over waiting to pay. So I was intrigued. I asked one of the kids, I said, who runs this show? And they brought me Mr. Evan Reedy. I did not
061know him, but I talked to you Saturday about it. I said, give me a call. This morning, he's quite an impressive young man. He teaches agriculture, agriculture. I think he says he teaches 65 to 70 kids a day. He says there's a huge demand for the agriculture program. He's just, anything you talk to him about, he's just full of enthusiasm. And if we can do that. Little old rustic little school. There's no reason we can't do that in every School we got because the community will support stuff like that the first thing that I told him when he called me this morning was I said it looks to me like we need a bigger greenhouse So clay will be working with that But it's just it's just amazing how the community supports these type of
062programs I mean people are going to get flowers and he does play does And when I say they're hanging potted plants, I mean, for me to say they're beautiful, they're pretty. They're beautiful. And he says he does those and mums in the fall and pansies. So you've got to figure a way to keep that greenhouse occupied, you know, 12 months out of the year. So, you know, we've got four high schools. We need to be doing that kind of stuff to give kids the opportunity to engage in this stuff. And those kids were running around and pouring down rain and just so enthusiastic. It's just, it's just. impressive to me so got a lot of good stuff going on in Campbell County. Again the 21 donations thanks for all the generosity sixteen thousand dollars given
063by just the community again Randy Dutton and all he does with the legacy program and my wife and I I think it was Friday night we took and went to a sporting event at Rustberg High School just getting out and seeing soccer baseball softball it's a great time just you know get out and go watch Talk to the people around it's just a great evening. So I think that's all I got Evan graduated across the river so we need to keep him engaged here in Campbell County so yeah he said he went down I won't hold that against him Mr. Jones I think Mr. Brand's got something else he'd like to say I believe we left off three things Autumn Bragg a current junior was selected as one of the Beatberg Poetry Contest. Her poem
064is currently displayed at the Riverview Artspace in downtown Lynchburg. Our forensics team was Class 3 state runner-up. We have three state champions for forensics. Xavier Colbert, current sophomore, Kenan Primer, current junior, and Sirius. duo and Rachel price current junior in storytelling and the winner guard received the silver medal a a Championship and like Barry said You know whether the greenhouse or whether it's a school we've got to keep them going and keep them updated So schools don't get updated for 25 30 years. Well, I don't think I can anything new to that But what I will do is just echo Mr. Jones comment regarding the college, the career day here at the Technical Center. I too came down that morning and I was amazed. Couldn't hardly find a place to park out here. There were
065so many people out. That was just great to see. Me too. I'd like to thank Mr. Dunton again for his presentation tonight and hope we all, as Dr. Miller said, hope all the schools can take advantage of what they have to offer. I'd like to thank all the donors. 16 donations. You just don't think of that, but that really is over time, and we appreciate every penny. I'd like to congratulate Dr. Stanley. Look at your new role and wish you the best, and it goes without saying we're here to support you and help you in any way we can. I'd like to congratulate the hirees, the new hirees, and the appointees, every one of you. We wish you the best of luck. Look forward to working with you, and again, we're here to help you.
066That's all I have at this time. I do believe there's a need for... So I'll entertain a motion to move us into a closed session. Mr. Chairman, I move that we convene in a closed meeting for discussion or consideration of disciplinary matters or other matters that would involve the disclosure of information containing a scholastic record concerning students in the school division, specifically students 34 and 35 from 2022-2023 school year in accordance with Section 3. 2.2-3711A, 2 of the Code of Virginia, 1950, as amended. Second. We've got a motion by Mr. Brandt and a second by Mr. Maddox. Is there any further discussion? All those in favor, signify by saying aye. Aye. Opposed? Let's take a quick five minutes to convene an open session. So moved. Second. We've got a motion from Mr. Brandt and a
067second from Mr. Maddox. Is there any further discussion? All those in favor, signify by saying aye. Aye. All opposed? I think it's sensitive. We'll see. We're good? Okay, back in open session, I ask for a motion certifying to the best of each member's knowledge that during our closed meeting, only public business matters lawfully exempted from open meeting requirements by Virginia law and only such public business matters as were identified in the motion convening the closed meeting were heard, discussed, or considered in the meeting by the school board. So moved. Second. I have a motion by Mr. Jones and a second by Mr. Maddox. Is there any further discussion? All those in favor, signify by raising your right hand. Mr. Chairman, I move that we accept the administration's recommendations on students number 34 and 35. Second.
068We have a motion by Mr. Jones and a second by Mr. Maddox. Is there any further discussion? All those in favor, signify by saying aye. Aye. Opposed? Motion is carried. Any other business to discuss? When are they tearing down Rust Park? It could start this week. Will it? This week? If there's nothing else to come before us, I'll make a motion to adjourn. If there's no other discussion, we have a motion by Mr. Brandt. Second. And a second by Dr. Miller. Is there no further discussion? All those in favor, sit your foot up and say aye. Aye. Opposed?