001Good evening. I would like to call the order of the June 8 2026 work session at the York County School Board Thank you for being here. We're gonna move right on into the agenda. We're gonna start with the capital projects presentations. Dr. Carol Would you like to introduce our presenter? Yes, sir. Thank you. Mr. 5 itch this evening We have mr. David Kilburn associate director of capital plans of projects to give us an update on our capital projects Mr. Gilbert. Good evening Chairman Pijovic, members of the board, Dr. Carroll. I am pleased to be here tonight to give you your capital projects presentation. So TAB high school continues. We're working closely with the design reviewers at the county. There's a lot of fine details that we're working on. We are doing some preparatory acts and
002some isolated progress this summer within the building. And then I was just wanted to elaborate a little bit on some of those design review things, stormwater, power easements. Those are the kinds of things that we're sort of working closely with them on because there's a lot at TAB high school. Then we'll move on to DARE Elementary School, the parking lot and bus loop expansion. So this one didn't quite materialize the way that I had hoped and dreamed for us to be able to start this summer, but we are on our second round of submissions with the county, and we were able to address every single thing that was pointed out in the first submission. That was submitted last week, but because we are now stepping into summer this week. We can't pull this off during
003the summer and then we would be impacting the start of the next school year. So we are planning on still going out to bid, awarding that, but we'll actually execute this project next summer. We are, however, though, going to be at Dara Elementary School replacing its building automation system. That purchase order was issued last week and we are meeting with the contractor this week to do a pre-construction meeting and then our internal team is also spinning up to do things on their own, both with that contractor and independently. The Grafton Complex turf field, that research review is underway. We actually met with them today. Working very hard, but I will tell you that this is a complicated topic and they're having a difficult time finding a lot of research reviews to present to us So
004they have found a number of them They they gave us some of that information today and what we asked them to do is to go back to The actual researchers who did these studies and ask for more information We want to get fine-tuned on the details and Newport News Water Works is in these meetings with us So we're getting feedback from them as we're getting it from the research reviewers as well So we did have that meeting today and we have another meeting scheduled for June 30th. The division-wide facility study. Work session two is now complete and so the the consultants have gone back and they're accumulating a little bit more data for us. That work session actually did include the county administrators. What we've discovered is that some of the issues that we're dealing
005with today and will continue to deal with in the future because of growth, it's just it's not stopping, is going to require a lot of collaboration. So some of the ideas that we have and ideas that they have will come back to the table with them and further those. And after we do further those and come up with some more details, that's when we'll come and present to you. The Bruton High School HVAC replacement, that design is also still underway. They are coming back this Thursday, the 11th, for a second site visit. But they have reported that there is significant progress on that design because it is a true one-for-one replacement. There's minor upgrades that we're doing to try and make the building even more efficient, but it's allowing that design process to move even
006quicker. Bruton High locker rooms. We are heavily involved in this quoting process. We really want this project to start and finish this summer But again as we are stepping into summer this week There may be a little bit of bleed over into the start of the school year So we are working extremely closely with the athletic director the principal the coaches to see you know, where can we work together? Where can we collaborate to either streamline things or what can we sort of sacrifice for those first couple of weeks of school? Still make the school Functional but finish the project at the same time. So we are working very closely with them The Queens Lake roof replacement is also moving along quickly That purchase order was issued a little over a month ago now and
007we will be meeting with them at the end of this week on their their design so Again, this is a very similar project to tap middle school Coventry Magruder. It's the same roof system that we're going back with So it's a tried-and-true system. They just have to apply it to the actual footprint of Queens Lake Bethel Manor additions So we received that grant, and we are anxious to get started. What we've learned this week is this will not be a quick process. So they had their first webinars to give us the guidelines on how this money can be used and the actual step-by-step process of building your actual project application and then the different review steps that it has to go through with the federal government. And it truly is just not a fast process.
008It's like a webinar per month as we move forward. and they are allowing up to eight years to complete your project. Of course, that is not what we want. We know that we need expansion, but until we truly understand the guidelines by which this grant has to operate, then we just have to keep learning at their pace. However, I want to make you aware of a new situation. There is a program by the federal government concerning public schools on military installations, PSMI. So Bethel Manor is a perfect example of this. It is a public school operated by York County School Division, but it is on federal land. So what the federal government does is when they're making staffing decisions and they're including families with children, they need to be looking at these schools frequently to
009determine the impact on the local community. So Bethel Manor was visited by this group about three weeks ago. So they are coming up with their own set of recommendations. They did their own assessment on the building that we facilitated. We have not received that report yet. That's supposed to come to us within the next two to three weeks. Then we get to review it, submit anything back that we want to rebuttal on. And then they have to finish doing the rest of the schools. There are about 160 schools on this list. So they will not finish going through the rest of the schools throughout the country until sometime in September. And we won't actually know the results of what they want to do for us until January. So this PSMI program and the grant that
010we've already received are going to come to fruition right about the same time, but again, it is a very slow process. So I just wanted to make sure that you knew this was happening. That is my presentation for tonight, but I'm welcome to... I have a question. So the PSMI that you talked about and the actual grant... that we've got from the federal government. Are you saying they're two separate things that will work together? That is what we're hoping, and that's why we've been waiting on those guidelines, those classes for us to take. So they could come in and have a completely different recommendation. We've done some research on the before and afters, some projects that they've already completed. This started back in 2011. And so this is they did a review in 2018 and
011now we're here in 2026 so they could work together depending on the rules of each each program We haven't gotten there yet to actually know so if they did something in 2018 and they had done a review Wouldn't they have seen that we were in need then and want to help us to what we found out is that we didn't make the list in 2018 It was an oversight. That has been corrected. Okay. And then my other question is, with this eight-year potential, that wouldn't look like starting construction and then just dragging that out, because that could not happen. And it could depend on the scope of the project, right? If it was something where someone's trying to rebuild an entire school, depending on the size of the grant that they get, we're looking to
012build a wing. based off of the grant that we got. So no, we would not plan on it taking eight years. We are anxious. We have our, you saw my napkin drawing as I call it. So we have ideas. We're ready to coordinate with the county and do a request for proposal and engage contractors. But we just have to wait for them to basically let us and tell us the rules. So once we start, it wouldn't be start, stop, start, stop then? Correct. It's establishing all those rules ahead of time. And then getting your your actual project plan approved and because Bethel Manor is right there on another reservoir We're anticipating having to work with the federal very closely My concern on that is the sadly the typical bureaucratic slow walk on things and I'm
013encouraged to hear that you all want to get moving on this as soon as possible and I appreciate you giving us these updates and Would like to continue getting updates with everything you know when when you have the webinars and what you learn from those webinars to inform the rest of us I think that would be Beneficial absolutely. Thank you. Mr. Kilburn I hear a lot of delays in these projects, and I know you and your staff are staying on top of those things. Where are those snags coming from? Is it on our county side or it's our design side? Where are we standing with that? With TAB, I think I have to take a little bit of the ownership on that one. We did make a lot of design changes, and it was to
014optimize both the function of the school as well as the instructional needs of the school. So stepping into the role in November, looking at those changes, we made significant changes, but also reduced the cost significantly. So when we made those changes, that delayed the design process. So TAB, I think we can explain in that way. For the parking lot itself, I think what we're seeing is that we're actually sort of overtaxing our resources. We're sending all of these projects to people who have term contracts or they have the cooperative contracts. So we're hitting them with multiple projects at the same time. And so then we have to pick and choose and say no I need you to work on this one this week and I need you to prioritize that get it out next week
015But that's what I'm seeing is that we're having to balance And board members, excuse me. I'd add on with we when we talk about the dare project not about delay but You'll remember the whole purpose of that is to expand the ability for dare elementary to take on more students So and we would want to give parents some fair warning on that. So as we look at this and if we're looking at next summer, in January we're probably gonna wanna take a look at the schools that were affected in that second part of the redistrict plan from a couple years ago. And then if there's still a need, which I anticipate, then we'll continue and notify parents at that time of the plan that you've already voted for and get that ball rolling so that
016they get plenty of notification. we know that we would have the contractors lined up, that that work can be done in that summer, and then we'd be ready to go as far as shifting those students up towards there. But that affects four different schools, so that would be an overall good thing for us, space-wise. We could also push for some of these to be done during the school year. However, that... Costs a lot for the school not just in effort and struggle but financially so one of the reasons that we're sort of restructuring our CIP program to go out to bid and Then start later start the next summer is to hopefully drive those costs down and still get it done Do you think those contracts can be fixed priced or they're gonna have contingency
017built in for starting next summer? And do we have enough money to cover those contingencies? We're fairly confident in the numbers that we have right now. There will be contingencies We don't like to do projects of this scope without contingencies But that will be part of the discussions when we go out for bid is that we recognize the the delay between today's costs versus next year's costs All right. Thank you so much. Dr. Koepp. Mr. Kilburn Okay, we are gonna go and move on to the budget update. Dr. Carroll. Yes, thank you, Mr. Povich. As you know, we are trying to get a final budget out of the legislature and the governor. Mr. Bill Bowen, Chief Financial Officer, will provide a status update on the Commonwealth's fiscal year 2027 budget. Mr. Bowen. Thank you, Dr.
018Carroll, Chairman Pievich, members of the board, Dr. Carroll. Hopefully I have a brief update for you this evening. First of all, I wanted to recognize that there is a budget resolution on the agenda at this evening's business meeting. This was done for a couple of reasons. We do have a final budget. We haven't received our final numbers for FY26, and those have been incorporated in the budget. We don't have a budget, final budget for FY27, so we know we're gonna have to come back together. Hopefully that's gonna be done in early July, that's our hope. But what we wanted to do this evening is to bring this resolution to you to recognize and memorialize some of the non-routine state actions that we've seen this year, both in 26 and in 27. Because oftentimes we look
019back When we research compensation, for instance, we try to figure out how things are done. And so my successor or anybody else in the future that wants to look back several years will try to understand, like in FY26, where the state approved an employee bonus, funding for an employee bonus, and then provided school divisions the flexibility to either issue that bonus in 26 or in 27. So we have decided that we're going to issue that in 27. But what's going to happen with that funding is that it's going to end up in our end-of-year fund balance. And that fund balance is going to revert to the county, and so we're going to have to request those funds to come back. So it's going to look like on paper that the county was funding the bonus
020when in all actuality it was a state-funded bonus. So those are the kinds of things that we wanted to talk about and also recognize in the resolution. so that we can memorialize that. The second thing, as I said, the General Assembly has yet to finalize a 27 budget. What's unique about this one is while we have seen delays in the typical timing of state approving a budget over the past four to six years, this one's being pushed up close to the end of the fiscal year. So it had us a little concerned early on whether or not we might have a budget by June 30. Now, personally, I think we're going to get there. I don't think there's going to go beyond June 30, but... In case it did, it would create some challenges for
021us. But what we know now is that the House is not coming back into session until the 18th, and four days later, the Senate's coming back into session. And so that is going to push us right up against the end of the fiscal year. So I think in an effort to bridge that gap on May 18th, the governor... did something also out of the ordinary, which was to ask the Senate finance staff, I'm sorry, not the Senate, the Secretary of Finance and his staff to revise the state's revenue forecast. Typically what happens, and historically what's happened, is that that work is done in the fall. And then through that fall revenue forecast is when the state, when the governor presents his budget, builds his budget, and then the General Assembly forms its budget to run
022that fall forecast. So what we're doing now is we're revising the forecast late in the fiscal year. And then what would happen the following fiscal year if we hadn't updated? the revenue forecast now, we would have done one in fall of 25, and then the revenue forecast gets updated again in the fall of 26. And there are changes and amendments made to the current fiscal year as well as to the next fiscal year. So what concerns me a little bit about that process is the fact that typically, and what we've seen over the past six years is we've seen the state economy very, very strong and robust. So we've seen additional money come to us. in the current fiscal year, and the bonus is a great example. The bonus was not in the governor's budget
023when he released it in December. However, he had some other tax initiatives in his budget. But with the General Assembly reversing those tax initiatives and seeing additional revenue, they were able to propose this significant bonus to everybody in FY26. I doubt we see something like that next year because they're revising the forecast right now. And so in revising that forecast, they've identified another $1.5 billion in state revenue over the two years. So what that means, we have a budget gap right now of about $1 billion between the House version and the Senate version. We've identified another $1.5 billion to this revised forecast here late in the fiscal year. And hopefully we've resolved the issue and the General Assembly can come back together and then we can have a budget before June 30. That is our
024hope. But we'll have to wait and see how this progresses in the next couple of weeks So once the Senate or what the Senate and House approve a budget there'll be of course another calculation tool that the Department of Education will issue That usually takes anywhere from seven to ten days. What will largely depend on whether or not we get it sooner than that is the communication that might be occurring in coordination between the General Assembly staff and the Department of Education. Hopefully they're talking and everything is just set to go. They're just approving the revenue, and then we'll be able to finalize things. But if it takes us seven to ten days to get that capital, that means it's going to be into the first week of July probably before we see it. Timing
025is critical at this point because as Dr. Carroll has mentioned, one of his priorities has been if we see significant revenue as a result of the final budget, that he would like to increase the state compensation or compensation for employees, and that is highly likely that we can at least increase it a half a percent, maybe three quarters of a percent. But to do so requires a lot of coordination, reconciliation, updating worksheets by the finance staff, and then we have to turn that over to the HR staff for all that information to get loaded into the financial system. And there's a lot of reconciliation that occurs on their side. So it's not an easy process. It just takes time. But the timing is that in order for us to have all that information in the
026system ready for the first payroll, can we do it based on the... the lateness of the state approval and then potentially the delay of a CALP tool. So that's kind of what we're facing right now. But I did want to update the board real quickly on the changes and where we stand in the differences between the House and the Senate budget. So on the standards of quality accounts, most of them were largely left untouched. On the House side, there was an additional $755,000 for special education add-on and then $147,000 on the Senate side. The Senate also includes $338,000 of additional sales tax. This is where we see the biggest change on the House side is this one-time flexible payment. This is one-time money only for FY27. It's almost $3.9 million. That gives us a lot
027of flexibility to do one-time things. We do have a need for some textbooks, and we would certainly use a significant portion of that for textbooks, but we also want to match that bonus, and we would also use funds for that to match the bonus that we're going to provide in 27. And then on the Senate side, they're increasing the state raise, compensation increase, from 2% to 3%, and that would provide us another $743,000. There's nothing on the House side for increasing compensation. And then in the lottery and early childhood care accounts, there's nothing on the House that's been proposed for these accounts, but on the Senate side, $94,000 for at-risk funding and then $63,000 for additional breakfast funding. So in total, we're seeing an additional $4.6 million from the House and almost $1.4 million from
028the Senate. What we understand, now we don't know what we're going to get, but what we've heard and what we're hopeful is that we get both allocations, a combination of both. So we'll have to wait and see where we end up. That concludes my report this evening. Happy to answer any questions you have. Back for a second to that screen, the one right before you ended. The lottery and early child care account. So if I understand correctly, the governor's budget is proposing $118 million. Is that correct? Correct. That bottom line. And you're saying that the Senate, sorry about that. My computer decided I wanted to put these pop-ups. So I'm trying to find what that number was. Okay. So lots of crazy things happening. Anyway, let me look on here. So the state's saying they
029want to give, the Senate's saying they want to give us, or the House is saying they want to give us an additional $4.6 million on top of that. Correct. And the Senate is saying they want to give us an additional $1. 3 million. Correct. Okay. I just want to make sure I was understanding. Typically how it works is that, you know, the House passes their budget, the Senate passes their budget, and then they negotiate on a consolidated budget. You usually don't get both of those items. It's one or the other. It's usually one or another or a combination of the two. Right. So we've heard that it could be a combination of the two or it could be both. So we could get Senate's money and the House money. So we're just waiting to see
030what that final number is going to be. Sorry, I have one more question. What is our contingency plan if, I know you're optimistic, I'm not so optimistic about them coming to some kind of agreement on this budget? So this question came up, thank you for that question, because this question came up with our finance group. What if we don't have a budget by June 30? Again, personally, I don't think that's going to happen because I just think the party would get crucified. But if it does happen, the county has approved its budget, so they've approved our local funding. We could use that local funding to continue operations, so we wouldn't have to shut operations. If it was a prolonged budget approval. then we would have to probably talk about things. Like, just remember, we're carrying
031that bonus money also into FY27, so if we had to do something, we would have the bonus money, which is state money, and we'd also have our local funding. We have some flexibility, we do. So, Mrs. Goodwin, to add on to your question, so yes, that's an additional 4.6 under the house, but please note that 3.9 of that is one-time money. And that's where we would maybe have some comfort in adding to the governor's budget, which is what our budget is based on, except for the fact that the House is so heavy on one-time money and the Senate's on recurring. To reconcile that, we just have to wait and see how they reconcile it. Yes. Thank you. Thank you. Appreciate it. All right, we're gonna move with the FY2327 strategic plan, early literacy screening. Dr.
032Carroll? All right, Mr. Pelevich, thank you. So making her way to the podium is Dr. Kristen Bolin, Associate Director of Elementary Instruction and Academic Programs. And she'll provide the board with a summary of the student performance on the spring 25-26 Virginia Language and Literacy Screener System, the VOWS. You'll remember she's already. reported out in the fall and right after the winter break. So this is your third report on valves this year. Dr. Boland. Thank you. Good evening, Dr. Carroll, Chairman Pievich, and members of the board. It is my pleasure to be here this evening to share with you some information about our spring performance on the K-2 valves assessment. As Dr. Carroll reminded you, you may remember that I was here in December and in March to speak about the data from the fall and
033mid-year administration. And tonight I'm here to talk about how our students performed this spring. So in this presentation this evening, I'm going to provide a brief overview of the VALS assessment because you have already seen some information about that assessment before. I will review spring risk band score ranges because those have changed a little bit since we last spoke. I will then share with you the K-2 spring VALS data and talk a little bit about the next steps and how we're going to be utilizing that data to shape student instruction. So just as a reminder for you, the purpose of the K-2 VALS assessment is to identify those students who are at risk for reading difficulties. Through a series of subtests, we measure critical literacy skills that we expect all students to acquire in their
034primary years of instruction. Could you describe what those critical skills are? Thank you. Sure. If you refer back to the earliest presentation from the fall, you'll see a complete listing of all of those subtests. We didn't provide that for you this evening, but basically we're looking at assessments that look at student encoding and decoding of text. So how students are able to interpret and read text that is in front of them, how they're able to comprehend that, and then also how they're able to make sense of sounds that they hear in words to provide that in writing. You're welcome. This assessment, in addition, helps us to monitor student progress throughout the year, and it guides the instruction and intervention decisions that we make for students and track in our student reading plans. I'll remind you
035that all students who participate in the assessment are placed into one of three bands of risk with the low risk band designation meaning that students are at low risk for reading difficulty therefore they're going to continue to receive that high quality grade level instruction that we provide in all of our classrooms across the school division Moderate risk students will receive more targeted explicit instruction at their specific areas of need, again, based on those subtests. And often that's the teacher or a paraeducator providing some additional support within the classroom. Students who are identified as being at high risk for reading difficulties will receive a student reading plan. And additionally, will receive two and a half hours of literacy instruction each week in the form of a more intensive intervention. Question are those low-risk students are they
036considered reading on grade level is that the determination and so There's not a perfect comparison in terms of how we classify students as being on level for reading. Certainly a student's VALS score is a component of how we determine that a student is on grade level or above grade level for reading. But we tend to look at other indicators in addition to their performance on the VALS assessment when our teachers are making that determination. So they may look at a student's overall writing performance, for example. They may look at other assessments of oral reading fluency that happen throughout the course of a quarter. Thank you. Sure. Okay, so as I mentioned during the March presentation, you might remember that the risk band score ranges on this assessment increase with each testing administration. So when we
037look from fall to mid-year, and now again from mid-year to spring, you will see that there is a change in risk band. So for example, I've highlighted here for you the moderate risk ranges. and you'll see that there's a steady increase in the scaled score ranges across the year with fall scores ranging from 604 to 629, mid-year moderate scores increasing to the 631 to 646 band, and spring scores rising further to the 651 to 663 range. So now we're going to use those first grade risk bands to look at a sample first grade student. So you'll see those scores across the bottom. So in the fall, the student earned a scaled score of 635, which placed the student in the low risk range during the fall administration of the assessment. By the mid-year screening, the
038student's scaled score increased to 640, demonstrating approximately five points of growth. But because the risk band scores also increase at mid-year, the student is now identified as being in the moderate risk range for developing reading difficulties. Now in the spring, the student has gained another five points, earning a scaled score of 645. Even though the student continued to make progress at each interval of the assessment, the spring benchmarks increased again and as a result, the student is now identified as being in the high risk range for reading difficulties as they move into second grade. So, as you can see, the assessment becomes more challenging throughout the year and the risk band ranges also increase within each screening window as well. So for us to better understand student growth and instructional needs, we have to look
039closely at those instructional indicators that we talked about from those subtests because those instructional indicators help us to track individual students' growth over time, and it helps us to highlight areas where students may still need some additional support and assistance. Now we're going to take a closer look at our school division data across our K-2 grade levels. So this slide here highlights some positive movement across all K through two grade levels from fall to spring. Across kindergarten, first grade, and second grade, you will see the percentage of students identified as low risk here represented in the green increasing with time from fall to spring. And you'll see that at each grade level. The most notable gains were seen in kindergarten and second grade where that low risk category grew substantially from fall to spring indicating
040that more students are ending the year on track in early literacy development. But overall, these results demonstrate positive student growth for our primary learners in the school division and suggest that both our general classroom instruction and the intervention programs that we're providing to our students are affected in moving students out of high-risk categories and moderate categories and into a low risk. Now we're going to take a closer look at the high risk and low risk bands. So here you see the high risk band. This was demonstrated in purple in the graph. So we carried the purple over here for you for ease of understanding. And what you're looking at here is that decline in high risk performance for our kindergarten, first grade, and second grade students. Again, you will see that number trending in the
041right direction with less of our students being identified as high risk across each grade level as they move from fall to spring. Significant because we remember the assessment has gotten more difficult and the score band has increased, the range has increased. Next, you'll take a look at the low risk band performance for students across the K-2 grade level. That was represented in green on our larger chart. And we want to see our low risk numbers increase. And that is exactly what has happened. Again, notable growth for our kindergarten and second grade students, showing that as students are receiving that high quality instruction in our classrooms. and appropriate intervention were able to move them out of high and moderate risk status and into low risk. Now I'm going to share with you a slide that you
042haven't seen yet this school year. So this is taking a look at student performance at the fall, mid-year, and spring data points. So in the fall, you can see that the percentages of students who were identified as high-risk NYCSD already was significantly lower than state averages, with kindergarten at 18% in comparison to 28% across the state. And you'll see similar numbers for our first and second grade students coming in. But this data chart also demonstrates the growth of our students across the spectrum of the school year from fall to mid-year into spring. You'll notice that spring data has not yet been released by the state, but our school division has continued to maintain relatively low high-risk percentages with kindergarten at 10%, first grade at 11%, and second grade at 13%. Overall, these results are statistically
043stable and demonstrate continued progress throughout the year, reflecting that strong impact of literacy instruction and intervention. I have a question regarding the percentages and it's easy to follow Durham percentages, but do you have a ballpark figure of the actual number of students because these are individual students that we need to be addressing to make sure that they're rising out of the at-risk? That's an excellent question. So we do, and we actually track this data by individual student and by school. We track the movement of each individual student. So I can say, for example, at Bethel Manor Elementary School, we know how many students are newly identified as high-risk. we know how those students are moving across the grade bands. One of the things that we saw, and we saw this in particular with first grade,
044at first grade we had the highest number of students who were new to the school who entered as high risk. So that definitely impacts our data. So the cohort's not exactly the same as the cohort in the fall, but we're tracking and we know who those students are and how to best meet their needs. We can provide total numbers for you if you would like to see that of high risk. I think overall we're around 60 at kindergarten, 70 at first grade, and around 85 at second grade, ballpark. but we can provide that more specific information. That's great because two students may be 10% or 120 students may be 10%. It's hard to tell by percentages. Exactly. Thank you. Okay, so for the first time we're able to share longitudinal data with you. You might
045recall that the VALS assessment was only administered for the first time during last school year. So one of the things that we have promised you that we would do by the time we came to spring was share our data in comparison to last year at this time. Again, recalling that there is a degree of transience within our school community. So the cohorts are not perfectly the same as students move in and out of the school division. But I think what this slide does highlight is the consistency of our student performance in the school division. We see changes within a percentage point at first grade. And again, that is a smaller cohort of students than we saw in last year's first grade class. The actual number of students identified is almost exactly the same as last
046spring's first grade class. But again, because it's a smaller class, that does represent that one percentage point gain, even though the overall number of students impacted doesn't really shift. But we see that stability, we see that consistency, and we believe that the work that is taking place in our classrooms each and every day with our teachers and our reading specialists is powerful work that's moving students forward and keeping us well below the state percentages of high risk performance. So looking at this particular. the kindergarteners in 2025 are basically your first grade in 2026 and your first grade in 25 become your second grade in 26. And I understand there's fluctuation with students there. Yes, yeah more or less and that's why it's so important for us that we actually do drill down that data and
047one of the things that we look at when we analyze the data is how many of these students are new to us, where are they coming from, are they taking VALS for the first time, do they join at some point in the school year and we receive their data but we didn't have the opportunity to provide intervention. Those are all things that we look at and then we take that information and craft those individual student reading plans and that's done as you'll probably recall with our reading specialists, our classroom teachers and the families meeting together to make sure that each and every child who has any risk for reading difficulty has that addressed in a plan that's just right for them. In the future, actually for this also, quite frankly, coming from being a classroom
048teacher and English background, I would really like to see that breakdown of this number of students are new and so they were not part of the cohort last year. These students... are ones that are transferred, the kindergarten last year or the first grade this year, what improvements did we see on them or are we seeing a stagnant line that we need to take a look at something better or something that addresses that issue more? Yeah, I appreciate that feedback. It's very granular data, but we do have that data and I think we can probably take a look at a good way to share that information with the school board. Thank you. So this slide highlights the division's strategic next steps to strengthen literacy outcomes for all learners. So first, we are going to use data
049to ensure that timely reading interventions take place right from the beginning of the school year. We know where our students are as they're ending their time as kindergarten, first, or second grade students, and so we're going to be able to utilize that subtest data to And all of the insight that we've learned through this assessment to help craft a plan for individual student needs that can take place right at the beginning of the school year before we even administer the fall valves assessment next year Second, we plan to strengthen oral reading and spelling instruction within the literacy block across our classrooms. Those areas trend-wise did have a relative weakness for us. And so focusing on that approach we believe is going to give students some very consistent and targeted support across small group instruction within
050their classroom setting. Third, and we're very excited about this, the Virginia Literacy Partnerships is going to be unveiling some new progress monitoring tools for us next year. Again, this is the second year of administration of the VALS assessment, so they are constantly growing and evolving as well. And we believe that those tools will be even more aligned than the tools that we've already been using to progress monitor. And so we think that those assessments will be able to be fully implemented in a way that provides us with really timely and actionable feedback so that teachers can shape both instruction and intervention for students. And then finally, we'll be providing some site-based professional development for school teams. So accompanying this presentation and board docs, you may have seen that there is an executive summary that breaks
051down the data further by school and by student reporting category. So when we look at that, we are able to identify schools that might need a little bit more support or particular grade levels within a school that may need a little bit of support. And so we plan to leverage our coordinators and literacy coaches. as well as our relationship with the folks at VLP to help support the professional learning needs of our teachers next year. Looking at the spelling application within the literacy block, does that mean we're going to be bringing back? basic spelling tests and spelling bees and encouraging the classrooms to do that and maybe participate in the national spelling bee You know marathons that they have the contest it worked in the past just like phonics worked in the past and then
052sadly phonics was kind of thrown out now that it's coming back in would that be one of the applications that could be utilized So I appreciate that approach. I think one of the things that we're looking at is ways to integrate the spelling application authentically into the text that students are reading. So what that might look like is the Alkanon sound boxes. So as a teacher's providing that small group instruction, making sure that we aren't relying so much on decoding that we don't take the time to make sure that students have the opportunity to. to take those sounds that they're hearing and translate that into written words in a way that makes sense so that they're really understanding the spelling features and patterns within words and how to actually construct the sounds that they're hearing
053so i think it's probably going to look more like an integrated approach you're welcome i just wanted to make a comment um i remember when we were rolling out vowels and the concern because it is a more rigorous assessment compared to what PALS was like. And you've done a great job, you and Christina, I know she was initially the one having to roll that out. You, your team, and the teachers have done a really great job because these are some really phenomenal results when you look at compared to the state, you know, 50% lower than our average state. reporting so I think that that that's really really good and to see that our students are decreasing and getting more in the low-risk band great especially given that this is a more rigorous assessment so that's
054very encouraging I appreciate you saying that and I think it does highlight the hard work of our school administrators our classroom teachers our reading specialists because they are the ones with the students each and every day making sure that student reading plans are being followed with fidelity and that students are receiving that instruction that they need so thank you for pointing that out And I do want to thank you too because again it's only been two years for this and all the work that you put into it the teachers the reading specialist it's good to see these reports it's still a learning process it's a lot to learn it's going to evolve over time it's all new it's something that was thrown at us and we've got to learn from it and I understand so
055thank you. Thank you. Thanks. Dr. Paul I just also want to say thank you for making this process so understandable. It started two years ago, actually a little bit longer than that. And really, we understand this data really well because of you guys. Congratulations on such great results to you and to your team. We really appreciate what you guys do. I want to ask you quickly, like, we compare data to the state. Will this data ever be available to us on a local level, how other divisions around us performing right now? I do think there is a way that we can pull some of that regional comparator data. I will need to check into that. If that's something that you're interested in, it certainly is something I can look into. I think there is a
056way that we can get some of that data for within the region. Thank you so much. You're certainly welcome. in the WHRO spelling bees for a middle school every year when they're offered and I think I think we've probably participated for at least four years in those I was gonna mention that to you I forgot that when I was speaking yeah we do we do participate in WHRO I know we participated in that I just didn't know if we were do we had the B's in each classroom for each of the students. I know when I taught full time at TAB Middle, the English department on a regular basis did that. But I don't know if it's across the board for the schools and across the board for the division. So I think the important
057thing to keep in mind is that what we're speaking about here is the instruction for our youngest learners. So these are kindergarten through second grade students. So most of the spelling bee programs wouldn't start until later in elementary school. And some of our elementary schools have had students who do participate in whether it's a class or a school wide spelling bee. But it's not universal across all. Yeah, students at all ages can learn to do that. And it does reinforce the coding and the decoding. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you, Dr. Bowen. Appreciate your presentation. You're welcome. You're welcome. We are moving with the FY23-27 strategic plan family engagement. Dr. Carroll. All right, thank you, Mr. Paivich. We will now hear from Dr. Brian Fries, Associate Director of Student Services for Elementary, who will provide
058a summary of family engagement activities in the York County School Division for this school year. Dr. Fries. Good evening, Mr. Paivich, board members, and Dr. Carroll. It's my pleasure to share a family engagement update for this school year with you tonight. You'll recall that I presented in January providing a mid-year family engagement update on our activities so far. So the data that I'll share with you tonight is current through the end of last Tuesday last week, so we may have some additional end-of-year events come through. So the numbers may change for the positive on the margins, but this is a pretty comprehensive reflection of our activities for the year. So tonight I'll remind you of our family engagement framework, share family engagement data with you, and then share a little bit of information with you
059and the public about summer opportunities for family engagement. So for our framework, I'll remind you of our strategic plan priority of collective commitment, which is what family engagement falls under, making sure that students, staff, families, and community members are invested in our student outcomes and then actively engaged in our programs. We define family engagement NYCSD is that intentional approach in this case specifically to ensuring families have a voice and believe their feedback input and participation is meaningful and valued so When as I shared with you in January when we capture family engagement events We're focusing on opportunities where there's meaningful voice meaningful dialogue and interaction Not simply spectator events. Those certainly have a purpose in a place and we We celebrate those as well, but these family engagement events that are in our numbers tonight
060go above and beyond the spectator experience. And then we've described six purposes of family engagement, and you can see those there. Our primary purpose and what we encourage our principals and schools to do is to make sure that as many of their events as possible are empowering our families to support student learning, but there's certainly an opportunity to support student safety and wellness. some opportunities to connect students and families to services and support and Then those three on the bottom really should be occurring and all of our events maybe not as the primary purpose But as a secondary so that they're involving students and families in decision-making again fostering those positive two-way communication and relationships And building positive relationships with our families, so I'm excited to share some data points with you tonight Just a
061few that we've collected so You'll see that we've had 116 total family engagement events this school year with an estimated attendance of over 28,000 family members at those events. I won't go through the dashboard piece by piece here, but you can see we track by primary and secondary purpose, the event schedule, a breakdown of elementary, middle, and high school, and then also what our target audience is. We have tracked these data points since the 22-23 school year, and what I'd like to highlight for you is that we are up and have held 36 more family engagement events this year than we did last year, so that is 36 more opportunities for our schools and school staff to connect with students and their families outside of the school day. That attendance number of over 28,000 is
062up over 10,000 participants from last year and more than double. family participation from two years ago. So certainly want to recognize our principals and school teams, teachers and staff. We know that these family engagement events, each one of these is an opportunity outside of the school day, so that requires time and resources invested. And also to thank our families and community members for taking the time to pour into those family engagement events and show up when our schools are hosting those. So really happy to celebrate those opportunities that families had. Speaking of opportunities, family engagement for us does not stop in the summer. It's a year-round opportunity. So as part of our summer offerings, we have several family engagement opportunities. I won't go through each one of them, but just to highlight a couple. Bite
063of Reality is a financial simulation. If you haven't had a chance to participate, I highly encourage it. Teaching students real-world budgeting and financial literacy skills in a simulation. a set budget and get to go around and work on purchases and things. That's a great opportunity for students and families to work together on budgeting. We are offering one of those up in the Bruton Zone at Bruton High and then also at Grafton Middle. The STEM night that you see there is a partnership between the school division and NASA, so a wonderful opportunity for families to come out and not only engage with the schools but also with a community partner. And then the last two that I'll highlight, so Mariner's Museum, the STEM event there, we're actually going off-site and hosting that at Mariner's Museum. Students
064will have an opportunity to learn about the ecosystem in Mariner's Lake, as well as test buoyancy of boats. And then we'll wrap up the summer with Bingo for Books, which is always a popular way to engage our youngest learners and their families in some reading opportunities, so building off what Dr. Bolum shared about vowels. but in a fun environment also. So I just wanted to share those opportunities with you and the public. Those are also all available on our website as well. Registration is not required. We do encourage it so we know how many people are coming, but we certainly encourage anyone to show up who has an interest in any of these events. And so that concludes my family engagement update for tonight. I'm happy to take any questions you may have at this
065time. Well, I want to just comment on that jump from 2025 to 2026 with the number of estimated attendance by families that is pretty phenomenal I think as our schools are really getting intentional about not just whole school events, but specifically targeting and focusing in on groups of students and groups of families to invite in and really tailor that experience, that's what we attribute the jump in the numbers of the events, but also in the attendance, because when it's focused and meaningful for a specific group of families, then we see the attendance pay off. Do you find that, I mean, because, you know, families are busy, they're running. in different directions so even if it's targeted like that it can still be hard to pull families to come is do you do you see any
066one specific thing or maybe it's a combination of some things that that encourage them to get there like is it phone calls versus um you know a school newsletter or maybe it's a combination of all i don't know but i just wondered if you in your aggregation of the data come up with anything that you know, this seems to really work the best. Right, so we don't track the kind of invitation process, but what I'll say from elementary and middle school principal experience, yes, school newsletters are important, sharing those flyers are important, but really the more personal that invitation gets. So I think about our resource fair for our students with disabilities and the fact that we encourage case managers to make individual phone calls to those students and their families with that personal invitation.
067That seems to be where where we get the most because it's not just a flyer that somebody may overlook or think that doesn't apply to them but it's really the teacher calling saying hey I really think you and your student and your family could benefit from this experience and that's where we see the attendance numbers come from. Good job. Thank you. And when the kids get excited about it then they go home. Exactly. Oh yeah. I mean when we had to revise up. just about every engagement night that I went to this year, it was always a lot higher than they were expecting. Which is, I mean, that's a good problem to have. It is. It is. And like you said, when students are excited, I know when my daughter comes home and it's something
068she wants to go to at school, then mom and dad get excited to go as well. They're well attended because I remember going, and some of them it's tough to even walk down the halls because there's so many parents and there's students that are there. And that's great. And Dr. Fries, I just have a question about the slide. It's on a family engagement with all of the dashboard on it. Right there. On the bottom, on the target audience by fiscal year, I see the list on the right-hand side of all of those, but the last two are not listed. So I'm seeing those high numbers with the last one, the 48, 27, 52, and 57. Like, what are those actually? So the 57, the dark green on the end, that's the whole school, which you
069did not make it into the little arrow to drop down. So the bulk of our family engagement events are focused whole school, and so that's the reason for the large number there. Thank you so much. I appreciate it. And thank you so much for doing such a great job for our families, for our students. I know I've been participating in some of this, and they've been well-attended and well-organized above all. from the staff perspective and ours we really appreciate it thank you our principals and teachers and school staff get all the credit absolutely thank you thank you thank you doc All right, Mr. Privich, we are now going to stick with Dr. Fries as he provides an update on school nutrition balances and recommendations for meal prices for FY27. Dr. Fries. Thank you. Good evening
070again. So it's my pleasure to share with you some school nutrition updates as we close out the 2025-26 school year and head into the 2026-27 school year. So tonight I'll provide you with an update on the Virginia Department of Education's excess balance calculation, share with you briefly student meal price history and YCSD over the last 10 years, which will lead into recommendations for a student and adult meal price increase for next school year. And the approval of that is on the consent agenda for the special meeting following this one. So the excess balance calculation, school food authorities, so in this case YCSD, we're required to limit the resources we have in our nonprofit school food service account to no more than three months average expenditure. So essentially we are not allowed to keep more than
071three months of average expenditures in that school account. That's not a York County School Division rule. That's not even a VDOE rule. That comes straight out of federal regulations. So in YCSD, historically, any balance in excess of that three-month requirement that we have to keep on hand, and that requirement is essentially for if we had an operational issue, we could still fund food service and meals for students for three months. But any balance in excess of that, we've used to fund capital improvements related to kitchens and school nutrition. We can purchase kitchen equipment, anything focused on that school nutrition piece, not necessarily cafeteria. Improvements so not not paint or anything associated with just the cafeteria, but specifically the kitchen portion And being able to fund those improvements out of that school nutrition fund keeps us
072from having to fund it out of the general budget and also Keeps us from having to fund it out of the capital improvement plan as well I mean we've been able to make a number of improvements to our school kitchens over the past several years because of this excess balance So in February Video e updated how that excess balance is calculated. I won't walk you through the entire calculation, but they used to use operating months So even if we were only in school one day for the month that counted as a full month in that operating balance now They're using the actual average number of operating days, which they've set statewide as 23 They've also now in that excess balance included one-time capital expenditures so if we buy a $100,000 piece of equipment that is
073included in that Average budget calculation for the month. So the bottom line here is that our net cash on hand hasn't changed it's about 2.75 million dollars as of the end of Our numbers at the end of April But the excess balance has changed so by the previous calculation method prior to February We'd have just short of a million dollars to 981 thousand on hand By the new calculation method, again, net cash stays the same, but what the VDOE is considering excess is now only $374,000. So simply by the calculation change, that's almost a 62% decrease in that excess balance calculation. The excess balance, just for a point of reference, back in 2023, we had $4.2 million in excess balance that we had to submit a corrective action plan and spend down, and that's where
074we saw a number of those kitchen improvements. April 30th of last year, so right about a year ago, we were at $2.5 million. So we've been aggressively spending that excess balance to put all of that money back into the school nutrition fund. But we just wanted to make you aware. of the calculation change and again bottom line is that the net cash hasn't changed it's just what is considered an excess has So with that, I want to provide you a meal price history. I am not going to walk line by line through this chart, but what I'll show you at the bottom, over the last 10 years, we have raised breakfast prices by a total of 45 cents and lunch prices by the same. So in YCSD, the price of a school lunch today is
075only 45 cents more expensive than it was at the start of the 2016-17 school year. And then we do have occasional purchases of milk only. So, for example, a student brings their meal from home but wants to purchase milk from school. That total milk price increase in 10 years has been 10 cents. So I share this to show that we're really judicious and intentional about when we have to raise meal prices. We recognize the impact that that has on families. But I hope this conveys that a 45-cent increase total in a lunch price over the last 10 years show that we really do pay attention to that. So with that, I'll share our proposed student meal price increase for the 2026-27 school year. As a little bit of background, the Consumer Price Index has a
076metric or a category referred to as food away from home, so essentially food that you're not buying or cooking at home. That's increased 3.6% from April of last year. And VDOE has a paid lunch equity tool that we input our meal prices in, and they return a recommendation. And that paid lunch equity tool indicates a recommended increase of $1.15 for breakfast and lunch. However, VDOE and the division also recommend only a maximum increase of 10 cents in any one year. So we are proposing a 10% increase in the breakfast cost, sorry, a 10 cent increase in the breakfast cost and a 10 cent increase in the lunch cost, and then a 15 cent increase for those milk-only purchases. So again, being cognizant of the impact this has on families, we looked at what would be
077the biggest impact this would have on a family with one student. We chose an elementary school student for this example because not all of our secondary schools, specifically the high schools, don't all offer lunch on early dismissal days just because of the time of that. But our elementary school students, per policy, are offered. breakfast and lunch every single day that they're in school. So if an elementary school student purchased breakfast and lunch every day during the 26-27 school year at 180 school days, that would be a total increase to the family of $36 for the school year. Obviously, that's an example of a family with one student. We recognize that many of our families have more than one student in the division, but that would be the maximum impact to a one-student family over the
078course of the year. So here you'll see our current meal price comparison in that 25-26 column going down the proposed 26-27 prices and then showing a 10 cent increase for elementary, middle, and high again for both breakfast and lunch and then a 15 cent proposed increase for milk only purchases at all levels. And then our adult meal prices for any teachers and staff members who purchase meals. The VDOE's adult meal pricing tool, they incorporate student meal pricing to determine the adult meal price. So historically and typically when you see an increase in student meal prices, you'll see a proposed increase in adult meal prices as well. So we are proposing raising the adult meal price for breakfast by 10 cents and the adult meal price for lunch by 15 cents. And that concludes our meal
079price and school nutrition updates. I'm happy to take any questions you may have at this time. Do we still have the challenge that we have a number of accounts that aren't paid up at the end of the year for student meals? Yes, ma'am. So we do still have several accounts with outstanding balances. And so our process is that we are sending letters weekly to those families, and then we have set dollar amount thresholds at which the principal is making a phone call to the families to remind them, or our manager of school nutrition services, Kim Roman, is also making those personal phone calls as well in addition to the automated ones that go out multiple times a week and working with families on potential payment plans or trying to work to recoup some of those
080balances. How many or how much? Are we in the hole for with those? I don't have that number offhand, but I will get that to Dr. Carroll so that he can share it with the board. And as a reminder from some legislation changes over recent years, we do not withhold student meals. We don't take trays at the register. We don't swap out for an alternative meal. These are things that had happened in school divisions in the past. No cheese sandwiches? No, sir. Right. Yeah, and you know I think not not only from a legislative standpoint or a policy standpoint but just in what we believe about about serving and provide customer service to students and the Importance of meals we don't we don't do that, but that does sometimes leave us with absolutely. It's not
081the child's fault the issue to Pardon me Are we still, do we still have our hands tied with state law and how we can recoup that money or how we can ask for it from? Those accounts and arrears. Yes, ma'am. We are very limited Mr. Bowen and I have met a few times this year to talk about potential options, but we are what can we do and what can we not do? There is not much that we can do we have a there's a school division I'm aware of that's exploring attaching those Bills and working with their locality to attach them to personal property tax bills, but that is not something that we've explored but outside of goodwill and calling folks and encouraging them to pay, that is about the limit of what we're able
082to do. All right, thank you. Yes, ma'am. All right, Dr. Fries, thank you so much for your presentation. Appreciate it. Thank you. We are moving on discussion with the 2026 school board meeting calendar, and it is presented. Does anybody have any questions? It's pretty standard from previous ones, correct? It is. I didn't see any issues. Very good. One thing I'm going to note just on the bottom under the notes, we're going to have two border trades that are not determined yet. It's going to be one in October and one in February. So we're going to reach out to individually and just share our individual calendars and get those set up as soon as possible. All right. Any other input? No? That concludes our work session. We will have a short break, and we're going to
083reconvene for a special meeting at 6 p.m. This meeting is adjourned.