001With liberty and justice for all. Okay, thank you. Thank you, Tenley. Next item on our agenda this evening is our public hearing. Public comment is received regarding ESSER III financial plan and safe return to in-person instruction. Do we have anybody signed up this evening to speak? Well, Ms. Davis is bringing that. This is a reminder that next year when we invite George Watkins, we need a larger venue. Thank you all for being here. Go Wildcats. Okay, we have one speaker this evening, but before we begin, I would like to thank everyone for coming out this evening to speak. Please note that comments are limited to three minutes. Once the timer sounds, please promptly finish your comment and return to your seat. It is customary for the school board not to make comment during the citizen
002comment period. Please make sure that your contact information is provided on the signup sheet if you would like someone to follow up with you. and thank you again for coming this evening. Our first speaker this evening on the ESSER III financial plan and safe to return to in-person learning is Tom Miller. Mr. Miller, please go ahead when you're ready. Members of the school board, Dr. Nichols, and most of all, all the parents that are here tonight, I want to talk about ESSER III funding and mainly the SEL portion of ESSER III funding. As you know, if you've read anything about SEL, it's a gateway to CRT. And you can sit here all day long and tell me that it isn't. Second Step SEL has sexually explicit material in it and has racism in it. I
003have seen the charts, even though they're copyright. And it's alarming to me that none of you have looked into those documents. You've finished SEL second step for the year, and I understand you're now looking, not you, because this school board does not review curriculum, to my amazement. But the curriculum office is looking at what you're going to do next year in SEL. There are no funds currently in the line item in the ESSA 3 funds for SEL. I hope that you keep it that way. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Miller. The next item on our agenda is item number four, recognitions. We have quite a few recognitions this evening. Our first one is our school spotlight from George Watkins Elementary, Ms. Tammy Krujarik, and our fifth grade with Ms. Dishman's, I'm sorry, for fifth grade
004and Ms. Dishman's fourth grade students. So please go ahead when you are ready. Good evening Madam Chair, members of the board, and Dr. Nichols. Thank you for the opportunity to present tonight the work of our talented students at George Watkins. Our first presentation highlights the One Song, One School initiative that our creative music teacher Ms. Carol Dickinson has been working on with all of our students. They will be performing to We Are the World by Michael Jackson and Lionel Richie arranged by Roger Emerson. We hope you enjoy it. After that, our second presentation is Ms. Dishman's fourth grade students in collaboration with our ITR team, Mrs. Courtney Lewis. Here they are to explain their research projects on the impact of extreme weather. We hope you enjoy it. Here we go. That's extreme weather. That was
005extreme, right? That was extreme. Okay, so this all kind of came about. I went into Mrs. Lewis, our ITRT's office, and I said, hey, you know, we haven't done science in a while. I know you just got a new green screen and some other things. Is there anything we can do? And after a couple of like five, 10 minute conversations, she kind of took it and ran with it. So we started our extreme weather project with some entry events. And in those entry events, They got to see photos and footage of extreme weather that happened here in New Kent. And we took it a step further. We had them come up with some wonders. They had about three main types of extreme weather that can happen here. We focused on tornadoes, blizzards and ice storms
006and hurricanes and floods. And during the span of these two weeks, we actually had the opportunity to talk with the meteorologist Nick Russo. He gave them a lot of information about these extreme weathers, as well as answered some of their questions they had kind of gathered from their research. They were able to use different student safe research websites, as well as simulations to see kind of the effects of tornadoes and hurricanes, as well as gather information about ways to prepare. And they knew that the end goal for this project was to present it to an authentic audience, which would be the residents here in New Kent County, because that's kind of who we were focusing on. Excuse me. And so these are just some pictures of some of those entry events. So there's the chat
007with Nick Russo. We have our focus groups focusing on their extreme weather type. And then you can see we had. um some different projects and creation there in those pictures um by the way i'm courtney lewis i'm the itrt yeah she just woke up i guess i should introduce myself first um but this was a two week long project and there were a lot of parts i wish we could actually spend even more time telling you about all the things that these students did because um it's it's hard to capture it in just a short little presentation but they really did a great job and As Ms. Dishman said, we started with student wonders. That was the, that drove the whole project. We started with the Padlet and they put all of their wonders on
008a Padlet, which is basically like a virtual bulletin board of sorts and got to kind of put up other questions. And from that, we formulated these driving questions and these driving questions took us through this whole project and were kind of our guidelines. for this project. So the first driving question was how does extreme weather affect ecosystems? And then the second driving question was how can we reduce the negative impact of extreme weather? And so you can see these are some of the subgroup projects that they worked on. So we had a group create a hurricane proof house or how could they build a home on stilts to prevent flooding. We had a group work on a blizzard snowstorm project where they worked on the roads. We found slabs of concrete and they actually got
009to practice treating the roads and kind of compare and contrast the different types of treatments and then we had a group create a blizzard car kit or a snowstorm car kit so they created a kit of things that they could keep in your car you know to prepare for any extreme weather events and then that last picture there is we had a group do a tornado preparation video so these are some students that are actually not presenting tonight but we kind of wanted to highlight what they did as well so I'm going to turn it over to our small groups and they want to share kind of what they did so thank you You're up. Hi, I'm Zachary. I'm Juliana. I'm Ainsley. I'm Carter. Good evening. We made a video on how hurricanes can affect
010our ecosystems and how we can use them. We also talked about hurricanes and how many homes were destroyed. We are only focusing on hurricanes. One of the things we said was we can make sure we take down all of the dead trees. That will help so that trees cannot fall down on our heavens. That is one of the ways we can reduce its impact. Hurricanes can produce too much water. That can make plants die and some animals have nothing to eat. Enjoy! This is the Hurricane Trek reporters. Reporter Ainsley. Reporter Corder. And Reporter Zachary. This hurricane was really bad. Oh yeah, bear with us here. It was the weather that bad y'all couldn't talk. The wind was... When lots of plants are damaged, that affects animals and humans. Plants, also humans, and animals. That affects
011animals and humans. Perhaps while they're troubleshooting, we'll do the next group to talk about the snow preparedness and we'll work on the video. That way we're not all staring at Mr. Miller. I'm Maddie. I'm Zoe. I'm Hannah. We were in the blizzard focus group and chose the driving question, how to reduce the blizzard's impact. For our sources, we use the American Red Cross website. We chose to make this video to inform others about preparing for a blizzard. Bye. We'll continue to buy them more time. Thank you guys. Okay. We're boarding live in the blizzard of New Cambridge, and we're in the winds of 40 miles per hour. When this happens, near you, gather supplies in case you need to stay home for several days without your power. I'm Finn. I'm Wyatt. We did a group
012presentation on tornadoes. We worked super hard, and the driving question we answered is how we can reduce a tornado's impact. We named the title, How to Prepare for a Tornado. So one way to stay safe is to make sure you're in the middle of your house or in your basement. We are going to show you a model home that has a basement. Oh, and be sure to follow all precautions and safety guidelines given to you. An example of a guideline is to go to the basement or an inside room without windows on the lowest floor. If possible, avoid sheltering in any room with windows. For added protection, get under something sturdy. Cover your body with a blanket, sleeping bag, or mattress, or something heavy so you're a little safer. The house with the basement. So
013welcome to the basement. We have a TV and also a radio in case the power goes out. That way we know if the tornado stops. We have a shelf, two prints of food, two flashlights, and some batteries for the flashlights. Oh, and a very handsome person. And a bathroom. It also goes a little deeper if it gets too bad. It's not a bad tornado, so we don't need to go any deeper. The house without a basement. You will want to go to the center of your house or a room with no windows for this model home. The bathroom would be the best place. It would be a good idea to keep a flashlight and a water bottle with you. Thank you. I'm Virginia. I'm Stella. And I'm Hayla. This is our tornado model house. We
014will show you what to do and where to go if a tornado is coming near you. One way to save yourself from a tornado is to go to the lowest part of your house. One way to know a tornado is coming is there might be sirens slash alarms on your phone or TV. These are all facts to help reduce a tornado's impact. We decided to make a model house. As you can see, the model house has windows that are high, so when they crash, they will not crash on you because they will crash on the top floor and you will be on the bottom floor. And this house has a room, and when you are in the room, the tornado will not harm or hurt you. This is why we built the tornado model house.
015We made this model house so we can show you the best way to help you know how to stay safe. Bye. Thank you. This is the Hurricane Trek reporters. This is reporter Juliana. Reporter Ainsley. Reporter Carter. And reporter Zachary. Mr. Miller, we bought you all the time we have. Yep. This hurricane was really bad. Okay, guys, I'll tell you what we'll do. We'll put these videos up on our website, too, so the world can see them. They're already on YouTube. But I want to thank everybody for being here. I like the singers too? You guys did a great job. Please everybody come up. Come up to the front please. Great job everybody. The most deadliest hurricane ever was Hurricane Isabel. And you can turn around and face the audience as well for a big round
016of applause. Great job. Thank you guys. thank you everybody thank you the teachers really appreciate the time and the effort that takes a lot of time and preparation dr nichols i think you have some students at watkins that can help you with any weather related updates that may come your way in the future i am calling this this week's class the next weather call i have okay next on our agenda as we move along under recognitions i see our wrestlers have made their way back So we have our four-time state champion wrestling team, recognizing them this evening. Dr. Nichols, I will turn it over to you. All right, Ms. Swinburne. I'll try to do double duty here. Our wrestlers are here. They do not sing, as far as I know, although I did see some
017of them singing in the back. and are weather experts in their own right. New Kent High School hit a historic four-time, four-time, four-time, four-time state champions this year. And I will tell you, it's a phenomenal group of young men in the classroom and on the mat. So we have some seniors that we'll say goodbye to, and then we have some kids that'll be coming back and looking for the five-time state champions. But we want to honor them tonight. I think what's... uniquely special and I got to follow him this year all the way to states and we had every weight class so there are how many weight classes 14 I was doing 13. there were 14 weight classes New Kent had all 14 represented at the state level which was a first for us and
018it's pretty historic achievement so while not all of them made it to the individual state champions they all scored giving us our fourth state title. So just that's important to know. But we do want to honor five individual state champions tonight. And the way it works is we start in the lightest weight class. And I think we'd have to add all these together to get to my weight class, but that's a different story. So our first state champion tonight comes in at 132 pounds and is a multiple state champion. And that's Mr. Trace Ragland. All right, moving up in weight at 138 pounds, we have Patrick Jordan. And I don't think I saw him unless he's right behind that pillar there. But this is one of our seniors who will be leaving us, and he
019will be wrestling at Virginia Tech, and that is Evan Holloway. In his place is Kyle Gibson. 21 state champ, 122 state third. That's right. All right, we have another senior coming in at 160 pounds. So we are four-time state champions as a team. He's also four-time state champion as an individual. And that's Nicholas Vapiatis. And just to add, I asked him before he came in, he's also the prom king. Rounding out our state champions at 170 pounds with a very emphatic win, slam, toss. I don't even know what to call it. None other than Dominic Baker. I mentioned that Evan Holloway is going to Virginia Tech. Nick Vapiatis is going to the Naval Academy. And then Mr. Baker is going to Campbell. I also want to thank Mr. Goodbody, who is our head coach, who
020also needs to be in the picture and is trying to hide. What happened to all the blonde hair? What's that? Blonde hair. Congratulations again. Congratulations, gentlemen. And we'll pencil them in for next year, right? It's going to be a fight, but I think these guys are ready. Excellent. Thank you so much. Thank you, gentlemen, for coming out this evening. Really appreciate you representing New Kent High School so well over the years. Thank you so much. Thank you. Great job, guys. Next on our agenda, still under recognitions this evening, recognition of Teacher Appreciation Week. May 2nd through May 6th, Dr. Nichols again. Absolutely. And we started this evening at 5 o'clock with a very special ceremony where we announced our Teachers of the Year. And for the first time, our staff support members of the year,
021and many of them stayed with us tonight. So if you are here and I call your name, please join us up at the front. So our Teacher of the Year from New Kent Elementary School is Ms. Carly Branch Adams. So our Teacher of the Year for George Watkins is Ms. Megan Southwood. I have to leave. Our New Kent Middle School Teacher of the Year is Renee Montecavo. And our High School Teacher of the Year is Hannah Burton. We also named our Division Y Teacher of the Year, who was Megan Southwood. She will go on to the state competition and hopefully bring us home another state title. So congratulations to our Teachers of the Year. Thank you. Thank you so much. And as I said before, this is the first time we've done a staff support,
022support staff of the year award. Our support staff is always critical, but during COVID, they really showed how critical they are. So this is year one of support staff of the year, but it will be one of many. So we do want to recognize them if they're here with us tonight. So from MidKent Elementary School, we have Mr. Bill Hendricks. From George Watkins Elementary School, we have Linga Richards. You're fine. Let's get you on camera too. So we did the ceremony on camera. New Kent Middle School, we have Leticia Washington. And from New Kent High School, we have our lead nurse, Julia Lovelet. And while there is not a statewide contest for support staff of the year, there was, we think we would win it. Our support staff member of the year announced earlier tonight
023is Ms. Julia Loveland from New Campus. So it is Teacher Appreciation Week. Last week, we spent a lot of time celebrating our teachers, but we want to highlight the best of the best tonight. So thank you guys. Thank you again. Okay, our next item is Recognition of School Nutrition Employee Week. Ms. Haney Morhaime. Madam Chair, Board Members, Dr. Nichols, between preparing healthy meals for our students, adhering to strict nutrition standards, navigating student food allergies, and offering service with a smile, school nutrition professionals are true heroes. On Friday, May 6th, we celebrated School Lunch Hero Day. We enjoyed taking this opportunity to recognize our school nutrition team for the work they do every day and the difference they make for every child who comes through the cafeteria. And we have pictured all of our teams. They
024all had their superhero shirts on and we had a great time delivering treats and celebrating the hard work that they do every day. This year they've served 332,690 meals so far. That's a lot. And we appreciate them and definitely enjoyed celebrating them. So thank you. Thank you so much. Thank you, Annie. And next on our agenda. Recognition of Children's Mental Health Awareness Day, Dr. Katina Clark, which is May 7th, 2022 for Mental Health Awareness Day. Good evening, Madam Chairperson, members of the board, Dr. Nichols. It's my pleasure tonight to do two recognitions. The first one is recognition of Children's Mental Health Awareness Day. And so each year in May, the month of May actually, is recognized as Children's Mental Health Awareness Month. And so on May 7th, it is actually Children's Mental Health Awareness Day.
025And this year, the move is really to increase not only the awareness of mental health support that's needed for students, but also the acceptance so that it is not seen as something that's wrong if there are students and families who are in need of mental health support. So I wanted to make sure that we recognize that. And then also tonight, I am here to recognize National School Nurse Day. And one of our nurses, Julia Loveland, was honored this evening with the. support person of the year for the high school. And as you are aware, our nurses really have done a magnificent job every year, but most recently they have taken on a tremendous task of keeping all of us very safe from during the pandemic. And so I'd like to recognize the nursing staff from
026all of the schools this evening, from the high school, Julia Loveland and Patricia Van Foffen, from the middle school, Bethany Sherman and Susan Bell. from Newkin Elementary School, Amy Coyle and Karen Fish. And lastly, at George Watkins is Debbie Harris and Lindy Duncan. Thank you. Thank you. Yes, they all do a great job. Okay, I think we'll keep moving along. Next item is the consent agenda. Board members, you've had the opportunity to review the items listed on the consent agenda, including minutes from previous meetings, bills and payroll, monthly financials. We're not going to do the superintendent's recommendation regarding personnel. We'll do that after our closed session. Board members, do I hear a motion to approve the consent agenda as presented? I move we approve the consent agenda as presented. Okay. Thank you, Ms. Barber. Do
027I hear a second? Second. All right. Thank you, Ms. McPhee. Any discussion, board members? All right. Hearing no discussion, we'll go ahead and vote. All in favor, say aye. Aye. All opposed? No opposed. The motion carries. Next item is our citizen comment period. We have four speakers that have signed up this evening. Before we begin, I'd like to thank again everyone for coming this evening to speak. Please note that comments, again, are limited to three minutes. Once the timer sounds, please promptly finish your comment and return to your seat. It is customary for the school board not to make a comment during the citizen comment period. Please make sure that your contact information is provided on the sign-up sheet if you would like someone to follow up with you. And again, thank you for coming
028to speak this evening. Our first speaker is Mr. Ron Voigt. Good evening. I'm here to enlighten you on the overwhelming need to return to basic education, the necessity to stop attempting to indoctrinate our children, and immediately stop the attempt to co-parent. Please permit me to remind you, as the school board and as superintendent, you are serving at the pleasure of parents, grandparents, and citizens of New Kent County with the ultimate purpose of the academic education of the students. Unfortunately, in many situations, you seem to have lost your way in this matter. Allow me to remind you as the board, you are the decision maker. I am discovering, however, in many situations, it falls on the superintendent to call the shots while you remain silent. You are not elected to be spectators, but to be the
029voice of your constituents. I am convinced that far too often, The tail is wagging the dog. For example, why are you not the committee reviewing textbooks that fall outside of the State Board of Education selection? Why are you not the committee reviewing the books of parental concern in our school libraries? Why are you not conducting spot visits to the individual schools in our system to assure proper policy? and procedure is being exercised. See, in 1991, U.S. high schools, for example, were ranked number one in the world. By 2009, the U.S. had dropped to 18th. Today, education in the U.S. ranks near the bottom in almost every area of academic study in the world's developed nations. My question is, What are you doing about this egregious fact? Let's try and stop pushing the ideological agendas of
030CRT, SEL, Harmony, and lessons on sexual perversion and get back to the basics of solid academic education. As my old soccer coach used to say, get out of the bleachers, get on the field and play to win or leave the team. We, the parents and grandparents and citizens of New Kent County, are in it to win it for the children. There's no quitting us. We're not going to stop showing up because we know that righteousness and truth will prevail. Thank you for your time. Thank you, Mr. Voigt. Our next speaker is Ms. Wilma English. Hello, I'm Wilma English of District 3. Thank you again for your service. We continue to pray for you. I know this is not an easy job. However, I want to bring your attention to something I felt led to share.
031In Deuteronomy 23.5, it says that God will turn the curse into a blessing. And I feel that we have been dealing with this controversy of Poet X since last October. And it was, it's a curse into a blessing because it shed light into things that needed to be exposed. And it exposed a couple of things, actually three things or four, if we can get to them. It exposed the fact that CRT in disguise is, it has infiltrated our New Kent school system. Even though you continue to say that it's not here, it is. The other thing that it exposed is that the so-called review panel was a farce. There was no transparency. There was no citizen participation. Those of us who really opposed this book and of Hispanic heritage had no seat at the table.
032That's wrong. Talk about lack of inclusiveness. You talk about diversity. I'm a picture of that. And yet we were not informed. We were not included. You have to defend Poet X no matter what. Because if you remove that book, you then have to remove other books that are in the system. And we were determined to take a stand for this book in spite of the fact that so many of us were against it. Because, again, this is just, Poetics was the canary in the coal mine. But we are not aware of what's going on. It also exposed the fact that you would rather listen to a minority in this community that is a little woke than the majority of the Nukent citizens that are traditional. and conservative, and that are not appreciative of the fact
033that this book was sexually explicit, it was anti-Christian, anti-Catholic, whatever you want to phrase it, it was. And instead of listening to your constituency, you decided to double down on your agenda and on an indoctrination tool. You have ignored our concerns. and we have not answered our questions no really um listen to our concerns so where you stand and we are watching this english thank you for your time thank you our next speaker is mr tom miller well i'm sure that you enjoyed the program uh leading up to the meeting and i can assure you that we enjoyed it probably even more I addressed SEL and ESSER III funding, so I'll not repeat that earlier. Even a cursory review of SEL material will tell you that it's a backdoor to CRT, critical race theory. It's
034become very controversial, and I ask, even though your official duties do not include curriculum review, much to my astonishment, I would ask that you take a look at what we're doing in SEL before we do it next year. Look at the middle school, look at the elementary school and the high school. So if you're not going to do curriculum review in total, at least go to the trouble of taking a look at that. It's not going to go away being a controversial subject. I can assure you of that. Many of us have been attending your school board meetings for almost a year. I'd like to make a few observations for your benefit and the public. I think many of us agree that you have little interest in hearing from the citizens of this county. You
035would not allow comments at the work session, and you changed your policy of allowing seating minutes from one speaker to another, even though it happened about three times. You would not vote on masking, stating, well, CDC and the state has spoken. We didn't elect CDC or the state or the superintendent. We elected the five of you to represent the constituents of this county. You hide behind statements that it's not our policy to comment on addressing personnel matters. You didn't address the comments of the citizens until we brought it up and then finally the superintendent did because that is your policy. But we don't hear from you. We don't hear the school board comments and what we bring up. I made a couple suggestions on cell phones. I polled the Chesterfield County cell phone policy. It's
036very straightforward. Did any of you do your due diligence before that was brought up at the last meeting and look at what some of the other divisions were doing? I really doubt it from the questions that we heard. I suggest that at a minimal, you at least put the word cell phone in your policy so that teachers and citizens and parents, when they search for that word and can't find it because it's defined as an electrical communications device, just change it. Just put the word cell phone in there so everybody can find it. It's not hard. And I ask you to relook some of the other school divisions policies. They're much better than what we have here. In my opinion, you sent a clear message that you have little interest in constructive criticism. In closing,
037I make the following comment. Thank you, Mr. Miller. When power goes to your head, it pays a short visit. And our next speaker, our last speaker this evening is Mr. J.B. Benson, who has left. Okay. All right. Thank you. That completes the citizen comment for this evening. Next item, we'll move into new business on the agenda. The first item is the annual special education plan and grant application under essential goal one, Dr. Katina Clark. Long time no see. Good evening again, Madam Chairperson, members of the school board, and Dr. Nichols. I am here tonight to bring to you the annual plan. Each year, the school division is required to present the plan to our local SEAC committee and to the school board for review. So it has already been presented to our local SEAC committee
038for their input. Tonight, I am going to talk to you again about the proposed use for the funds. We have two sections in our annual plan, and you all have a copy of that. One is Part B, Section 611, which is the amount of money that the federal government and the state provides to us for students in K-12. The bulk of our funds in New Kent County all goes to salaries and benefits for our special education staff. As you'll be able to see in your documents, our employee salaries and employee benefits take up a considerable amount of the share that is allocated to us from the state. And then the other part of our funding goes towards purchase services, which we use to provide additional speech services for students who are homeschooled and or in
039private schools. And then we also provide through contracted services, hearing and vision support for students who need that as well. The positions that are funded through the first part of our plan are three full-time special education teachers at New Kent High School, one full-time special education teacher at New Kent Elementary School. One full-time instructional specialist for special education, one full-time social worker, and then three full-time special education paraprofessionals. The second part of our annual plan is Part B619, and those are the funds that are allocated for early childhood special education. It's a very small amount, but we do use that amount to partially fund one full-time paraprofessional that's assigned to the early childhood special education at New Kent Elementary School. So that is an overview of our annual plan, and it will come back again
040in front of you tonight for approval. Dr. Clark, you mentioned SEAC a couple times. I'm sorry. Can you, just for the folks watching in the audience and a reminder for the board, what is SEAC and who's on it? So SEAC is our Special Education Advisory Committee, and each year... We have parent representatives and also staff who represent the schools in the district and then representation from student services. And we meet at least four times a year to discuss needs of our students with disabilities and also to provide resources for our families. Thank you. Thank you, Dr. Clark. And board members, as Dr. Nichols said, this does come for a vote later in the agenda. Okay, our next item is the transfer request for New Kent High School band uniforms for the 2022-2023 school year. Ms.
041Haney-Morheim. Madam Chair, Board Members, this is a request that has come to you in the past, specifically in May of 2019, and it was approved. I believe we had some turnover and, of course, the pandemic and a lot of things have happened. But Mr. Hess is here now, and he's done a lot of work in preparing for purchasing new uniforms for our band. And I believe we have a picture of the uniform that they would like to purchase through a cooperative contract with JMU. They are looking for $40,000, which we're recommending this evening for the purchase of these uniforms. Most likely we will order them as soon as possible. There may be an opportunity that we have to come back to reappropriate these funds, but we wanted to be able to get these purchased as
042soon as possible. Dr. Nichols is modeling our current band uniform. He did not wear it. And this is our new and improved modern uniform that hopefully will bring us far into the future. This uniform was purchased in 1997. I was going to say, I think we've gotten our money's worth out of that. We definitely have. And like Ms. Borha said, we tried to do some performance. We had a little turnover. The prior request was $31,000. We are asking for $40,000 this evening. That should get approximately 80 uniforms. There might be an opportunity even for more growth within the band, and we will potentially at that time come back for an additional 20 uniforms. But right now we feel this is sufficient for our request. Thank you for your consideration. Thank you. Any comments or questions,
043board members? Just glad I get new uniforms. Definitely long overdue. Yes. What's the typical lifespan of a band uniform? You know, I don't know based on that one. 22 years. It shouldn't be that long. But I mean, normally. Honestly, Ms. McVie, if I do not know, we can certainly ask Mr. Hess that question and get that information to you. It's definitely longer than the athletic uniform just because of the amount of wear. We've definitely far exceeded that. I want to say the last I looked at it was like 15, 10 years, somewhere in that ballpark. I have the next item. All right. Yes. Moving along under old business budget update, Ms. Morhaime. Madam chair, board members, we are coming this evening with a budget update on where we are and where we hope to be
044moving forward. Mr. Miller, the next slide, we'll just give a brief overview of kind of the steps that we've been. This is a repeat of our last update with the addition of the April 27th board of supervisors meeting. Mr. Hathaway at that meeting recommended to the Board of Supervisors a transfer of $1.2 million to the schools, which is $800,000 short of what our $2 million request was. Since then, hopefully here in a little bit, I'll head over to the Board of Supervisors meeting, and I believe it's being presented this evening that our transfer would be $1.8 million, which would be fantastic if that happens. Our original position request, we just included those again for your reference for our original requests. And then we are moving forward with our recommended adjustments at this time of $200,000.
045which includes the Navy Corps cadet teacher, the mechanic, the elementary teacher, which we did switch from one of our growth positions to one position through attrition. And we're reducing the part-time clerical position at New Kent Elementary School. Just to be clear, most likely, logistically, we will be cutting that entire part-time position to balance the budget. consequences of additional reductions. If we are meant to have any further reductions, we do. The team did take some time to work through those. It was I'm very eye-opening and happy that I'm not presenting that list this evening, but I will say that these are the consequences. If we do, you'll see no increased CTE offerings, increased per-people ratios, specifically at the elementary school level, decrease in customer service level in all of our school buildings. Potential shifting of the
046burden of the transportation for our out-of-zone daycare providers, not fully funding new school staffing needs, and potential reduced levels of custodial support during our summer programming. And just to be clear. the one point with the 1.8 million we would not have to do these cuts but when we were faced with the 1.2 million we looked at what it would take to balance it and while we did not put positions up there these this is what would occur as a result of it they would be positions and it would cause some great strain on the school division so we just wanted to kind of show what those additional reductions could lead to with the 1.8 million we are able to keep our per pupil ratios where we need them, have the transportation in place, have the
047level of custodial support that we need, and fully fund our new school. So do we think, since they have not presented the budget yet in the state, do we still have the potential to get the difference of the $200,000 shortfall potentially? Absolutely. I think so for sure, Mr. Mead. Originally, it was between maybe $50,000 and $330,000. And I think it will fall somewhere in between there. So I do think at that time we can revisit this list. I know the mechanic position is one that we've talked about with the county that would actually cause more expense at the county level and the school level. So I think that would be a no brainer, making sure to try to squeeze that one in. And of course, always we're looking, especially right now, just in and giving
048Allison a little more hiring time for elementary school teachers. Gotcha. Most likely that will come after we approve. Most likely after we adopt our budget. Because we don't think until June, right? Yes, sir. And what that would look like is we would bring in additional appropriation. So we would actually amend our budget at that time and appropriate both the revenue and the expenditure side. We had a health care update. Meeting with McGrif last week, it was a little bit painful. We worked through some pretty significant needs. We worked through some of our renewal information. They will continue to work through that. They received bids back. And it wasn't very pretty. So we're going to strategize and do some things a little bit different in our health care plan next year. The good news, the bad
049news is that we won't have any reductions in our general fund budget for health care like we had hoped. The good news is that the small portion that we would have to increase above what we had budgeted, we believe that we'll be able to fund through our fund balance and our fund 208 for our self-insured health care plan. And that recommendation will come to you on May 23rd. Matt Davis will be here to provide an overview of that and his recommendation along with our support moving forward. Just some expected changes so that you just have a heads up of what might come. We're looking to streamline our plans and simplify our wellness options for employees. And also, we will see an increased employer and employee contribution for next year. But we're going to... Re-imagine our
050plan, look at it a little bit differently, try to make our high deductible plan a little bit more attractive for employees and have some education on that plan as well. Dental and vision, no changes. So that's good news. We just wanted to revisit one slide, but one side, there you go. The salary and benefit adjustments that were originally in our recommended budget. Dr. Nichols, our team, we've worked very hard to make sure that we hold all of these items harmless. These are very important to us and for staff. And so we just wanted to include these again in today's presentation to let you know that with the 1.8, we are able to still do all of these things for employees, changes with minimum wage adjustments and so forth. Next steps. Next meeting, May 23rd, we'll
051have Matt Davis here, like I mentioned. We'll have our final recommendations to you, and we'll ask you for approval of our budget at that time. And we hope that the Board of Supervisors will adopt the budget. at their May 25th meeting, and then we'll come to you at a later date to ask that you adopt our budget as well. And hopefully, after the Board of Supervisors adopts their budget, we will have a state number so we can come back one more time and not two more times. But that is actually highly doubtful. We'll probably have to come back again when the state number comes through. One of the things to Mr. Meade's question about additional state revenue, one of the conversations that we've had, and if we're able to do it, we would bring it.
052forward for conversation would be to potentially do an additional step for teachers. The market, you've seen tonight the work of our students and our teachers and our support staff. If we can do more, we may bring that forward as a recommendation to do an additional step beyond that 5% for teachers. So which would require us to do some maneuvering and some cuts on our side, but we're working on that as well. So depending on the revenue, Navy Corps of Cadets likely would not come on board until the following year because we need to recruit students and we're getting very late in the school year to do that. Kids have selected courses and all of those things. So we may do some shifts, which we would bring to you and put together a recommendation for that.
053But it all depends on revenue and all depends on. Things getting approved. And just one comment, Dr. Nichols, with the step increase, the additional step for teachers would be for eligible teachers who were hired before the year that we did not include a step increase for teachers. So that would be the last two years as teachers would not have that additional step. So explain that again. So every year, every year we strive to give every step, you know, every teacher a step on the scale. In 2020, we were not able to do that. There were no salary increases. So the, what happens is compression and you have a new teacher come in and being on the same step that, you know, a one-year teacher would be. So we, that one year we kind of lost
054that. And so what we'd like to do is go back and honor. that step for those employees so that there is that separation moving forward. It would have restored the step they did not get. Okay. And then they'll back on the scale with everybody else at that point. Yes. I think that's important if we can do it at all possibilities, because, again, at 5%, we're behind the rate of inflation, and we really need to do whatever we can to recognize the hard work of our teachers and staff. I agree. And our steps on the teacher scale. They range from, you know, they're on average about a 1% between each step, a little more compressed at the beginning, a little more open at the end at 1.4. So it would be about a 1, 1.1% additional
055for those particular employees. Yeah. I am concerned as we move forward with the budget that for these adjustments that are unpredictable, and I'll go back to what Ms. Barber said with inflation, is... And I'll go back to transportation because that's one of our largest cost is that to me that's going to be a pretty challenging revenue adjustment that it could be potentially unpredictable, meaning if we're on the scale that we are now we're looking at $5 a gallon for right now plus for diesel fuel, whereas last year when we adopted our budget we were like at $3 and 50 cent a gallon. And so my concern is how do we make up that that revenue if that scale. keeps going up and we don't have the revenues to adjust? How do we do that and
056then still make it equitable for everyone else? Right. I think a couple of ways. One thing we try to do is to be conservative in our budgeting. We are pushing on that a little bit, especially with the cuts that were requested. You know, if we had to go much deeper, we would be pushing. I know the county was looking at taking out certain expenses out of their operating budget to fund one-time funds. So that's very dangerous to do. But those are the things that folks are looking at doing right now. So I think that's important when we're looking at our tax increases and things like that to make sure that we're able to cover those things. But I also think with our year in reserve, our CIP, additional potential growth in the county and new
057students coming in. I think we look at the ADM when the fall comes and see where do we really land because. I think really the other side of that Mr. Mead is that you have three years of not great data because we haven't really had normal for quite some time right so we know that that's a challenge and we are going to be looking at that constantly throughout the year and we may have to bring a recommendation to you mid-year for a transfer transfer into one of those line items But we do have plans. And I will say Mervyn does an incredible, Mervyn Hentz, our transportation director, does an incredible job of forecasting. So he gives us, this is what the next three months would look like. Even when we shifted the calendar change to
058be on the 15th, he said, this is how much I'll save in those two days because he has an average fuel cost per day built in. So we know when we're running ahead and when we're running behind. But you're right. Where we are now is test. It's going to be, you know, and I think, you know, to be fair to the public and to be fair to everyone else is that the reality of it is it's because of inflation and the way that our economy is right now. This is what delays capital projects. You know, there's no way we can do a $10 million capital project if we have to continue to fund just to survive on a regular basis to do that. And I think that's where. That's the net effect of where we
059are right now. You're talking about health care concerns as well, also moving forward. And I think that it's those tasks and it's very difficult to for for the public to get the big picture of that when they look at the everyday expenses of taking care of. the students on a regular basis and those miscellaneous things when you have to spend $100,000 for a bus and, you know, and you're doing all of those things, I mean, it adds up pretty quickly. And we're adding a fifth school Sunday. Next year will be a new baseline for us. There will be additional transportation costs there because now we're running in a couple different directions. But thank you, Ms. Morhaime, for all you do in trying to make the budget work in a very challenging year with not a
060lot of data, not a lot of information on both ends from the state and the county. So thank you. You're welcome. And we'll have hopefully a little bit more information at our next meeting. Thank you. Thank you. Our next item is the school board meeting dates. This is our second read, Dr. Nichols. Yes, and I did want to pose a shift or have a suggestion anyway. So we have the dates, which are coming up on the screen now. So we start our closed sessions at five o'clock. I do believe we can be ready for the meetings by 530 with the closed session. So I just wanted to, if the board is okay with that, I can make sure that the closed session personnel can be done in that time. And that gives us a 530
061start instead of six. I don't know if anybody has strong feelings on that one way or another, but just as offering that up as an opportunity, we will have fewer work sessions next year. Work sessions were really added in the past couple of years due to COVID and due to construction. And when you look at our work sessions and all of the things that we do, most of those things, knock on wood, should not be in our lives next year. So our regular meetings may be a little longer. So the 530 would give us an opportunity to have that extension and give us that time. But thoughts on that to make that change, we can make that on our sheet, but just wanted to throw that out there. Sounds good to me. Sounds good to
062me as well. So we meet at 530 instead of 530? Well, we're still going to meet at 5, but we're only going to be enclosed for a half hour and then do a 530 start time for the meeting instead of 6. That gets everybody home half an hour earlier. If it does take longer, we can always get back to closed. For those occasions, we can always reserve the right to do it. More often than not, we are finished in that time. Just trying to be more efficient with our time and a good steward. Any other questions? No. We will meet at 530 because our closed session will start at 5. What is going to happen is our monthly meetings will go longer because we won't have work sessions scheduled. Okay. We can answer questions at
063the school where you can call the office. Just to recap, we're talking about 5 o'clock for our closed session, 5.30 for the regular public meeting. It doesn't require a public comment. It's a board decision. It's a proposal, a recommendation to the board. No, we are not at this time. So we'll continue. Board members, any other comments? I do have a question on the schedule. A couple of folks from my district brought up the fact that there was an overlay with the Board of Supervisors meeting. And I know that it's not that way through 2022. But as we look into 2023, can we ensure that we're not? duplicating you know so some people want to go to the board of supervisors and I think that's a great question Ms. Mcphee or a great statement we the
064board of supervisors has published their calendar from January to December of 22 so we've made sure rule of thumb is We are first and third Monday, and they are second and fourth. And when we get off that schedule for various reasons, we have that conflict. So we did look as far as we could on the Board of Supervisors and made sure we had no conflicts. I can make sure Mr. Hathaway has this as well. And if they do the same on their end for January through July or January through June, I think we can continue to navigate that. We really do try hard to do that. Well, haven't we talked about moving the venue there? Yes, we have. So if we did that, it would have to be on a different time anyway. So I'll
065make sure Mr. Hathaway has the January to June piece so that they can do the same. I'm sure they would. They don't like conflicts either. I mean, right now I would love to be at the budget public hearing and weighing in on that, but it just causes that conflict. But yes, ma'am, absolutely. Continue to try to do that. That's good. Good question. So does this require a vote then on this schedule? It does. Yes. Okay. Under the action item time. Yes, ma'am. This is the second. Because it's not on our action items this evening. It should be because this is the second reading. Correct. Okay. It should be. Okay. We'll move into action items for this evening, and then we need to go into closed session. So our first action item is to consider approval
066of annual special education plan and grant application. Do I hear a motion to approve the annual special education plan and grant application as presented? I make a motion that we approve the annual special education plan and grant application as presented. Okay. Thank you, Ms. Daskal. Do I hear a second? Second. All right. Thank you, Ms. McPhee. Any discussion, board members? Okay. Hearing no discussion, I'd like to take a vote. All in favor, say aye. Aye. All opposed? All right. None opposed. The motion carries. Second item is to consider the approval of the transfer request for New Kent High School band uniforms. Do I hear a motion to approve the transfer request for New Kent High School band uniforms as presented? I move we approve the budget transfer request for the high school band uniforms as
067presented. Okay. Thank you, Ms. Barber. Do I hear a second? Second. Okay. Thank you, Ms. Staskill. Any discussion board members? Ms. Swinford, I did want to, I got help from a band director on the uniform question. So I wanted to provide a more specific answer. 12 to 15 years is the lifespan of a band uniform. So I apologize. So we skipped a round. We did. We went two rounds. Okay. Sorry. Do I hear a motion then again to consider approval of transfer requests for New Kent High School band uniforms? I made the motion. Thank you. And the second was Nostasco. All right. That was our discussion. Any other discussion? All right. And a vote. All in favor, say aye. Aye. Any opposed? Hearing none, the motion carries. And our third action item is. Ms. Swinford,
068we can do this one of two ways. We can move the action item to the next meeting. There's no issue with that. We don't have a, or we can amend the agenda to add the action item. So whatever the board's pleasure is, we're happy to do either. All right. Do I hear a motion to approve the school board meeting dates as presented? Do we need to amend the agenda first? You need a motion to amend the agenda. So I will move that we amend the agenda to include a vote on the school board meeting dates. Okay. Do I hear a second to amend the agenda to approve an action item for the school board meeting dates? I'll second. Okay. Board members, any discussion? I have a question on that. Does that include the time piece?
069Yeah, we should add that amendment into it. I should have done that probably when I made that motion. So if I can restate that to include the schedule with the regular meeting starting at 530. Okay. Amended. And do I hear a second? Second. All right. Thank you, Mr. Meade. Any discussion, board members? All right. Hearing no discussion. We'll take a vote. All in favor, say aye. Aye. Any opposed? Nay. Okay. And the motion carries, four to one. All right. So now we need to go into closed session. Mr. Meade, do I hear a motion to go into closed session? I move we go into closed session. All right. Do I hear a second? I second. All right. And a vote. All in favor, say aye. Aye. All opposed?