001[Music] All right. The date is April 29th, 2025, not 2024 as it says here on this paper. The time is 1804 hours. And I would like to call the Frederick County School Board special called meeting to order. We have an agenda before us. Do I have a motion for approval? Mr. Chair, before we proceed with that motion, I just would like to request that Mr. Miles Atkins participate remotely. Uh, Mr. Atkins is requested to participate in the meeting remotely for a personal matter specifically due to a work commitment in Dallas, Virginia. Second. All right. So, we have a motion and has been properly seconded. Any discussion? Hearing none. All those in favor signify by saying I. I. Any opposed? That motion carries. And just for the board's awareness, we're making every effort to make contact
002with Mr. Atkins as we speak, so he may jump in um at any moment. So, we've had some technical difficulties reaching him on his end. So, that's all I have, Mr. Chair. Thank you. Outstanding. Okay. Again, we have an agenda before us. Do I have a motion to approve? Mr. Chair, I move we approve the the agenda as presented. Second. We have a motion has been approved and seconded or motion has been made and seconded. Is there any discussion? Hearing none. All those in favor signify by saying I. I. Any opposed? We have an agenda. Madame vice chair. Thank you, Mr. Chair. I move the county school board of Frederick County, Virginia enter a closed session meeting for the following. Number one, to review and discuss administrative appointments pursuant to Virginia Code section 2.2-3711, paragraph
003A.1. and two to review and discuss the prospective candidates for appointment to the Frederick County School Board seat for the Gainesboro District pursuant to Virginia Code section 2.2-3711 paragraph A.1. Okay, we have a motion to go into close session. Do we have a second? Second. Motion has been made and has been properly seconded. Is there any discussion? Hearing none. All those in favor signify by saying I. I. Any opposed? We are now in close session. [Music] All righty. Madame vice chair. Thank you, Mr. Chair. I move the board reconvene from close session. We have a motion to return. I have a motion to return from closed session, and it has been properly seconded. Any discussion on the matter hearing? None. All those in Oh, do we need to call the role on that one? Just
004on the certification. Oh, okay. All those in favor signify by saying I. I. Any opposed? We are back from close session. Mr. Mr. Chair, I moved that to the best of each board member's knowledge, only public business matters lawfully exempted from open meeting requirements under the Virginia Freedom of Information Act were discussed in the closed session and only such public business matters as were identified in the motion by which the closed session was convened were heard, discussed or considered by the school board. We have a motion and do we have a second? Second. Have a motion and has been properly seconded. Any discussion, Madame Clerk? Miss Martin. Yes. What? You're just certifying that we haven't Oh, that we Okay. Yes. Mr. Bell. Yes. Mrs. Sturdivvent. Yes. Mrs. Klene. Yes. Dr. Erskin. Yes. All righty then.
005And Mr. Chair, we have one motion out of close session. I move to approve the personal actions as recommended by the superintendent. Second. All right. All right, we have a motion to approve and has been properly seconded. Madam clerk, call the roll on that one. Dr. Erskin, I. Mrs. Klene, I. Mrs. Thurivan, yes. Mr. Bell, yes. M. Martin, yes. All right, that passes. All right. Now, did you want to make a presentation before we got on with the second portion of it? Mr. Chair, thank you very much. I would love to. So I'd like to call up Mrs. Christy Cybert as she steps into the role of assistant director of finance. She sure served as the FCPS payroll supervisor since 2018. She was previously an accountant for FCPS for two years and a payroll and
006finance specialist for 10 years. Prior to her time at FCPS, she was an accountant for Trex company for 5 years. She also holds a bachelor of science and accounting from Shepard College, a master's in school business leadership from Wilks University, and she is also certified administrator of school finance and operations through ASBO International. Please join me again in welcoming Mrs. Chrissy Cybert as the new assistant director of finance. Good evening, Dr. Humber, members of the board. I just want to take a moment to thank you for this opportunity and I look forward to continuing to work with the finance department just in a different capacity. So, thank you. Awesome. Congratulations. Thank you. Congratulations. Alrighty then, Mr. Chair, just as a point of order just before we go on to the next item, can we try
007one more time to get Mr. Atkins on the phone? This would be, I think, the sixth try we've had to try to get him in some capacity, whether it's you, Dr. Hummer with your phone up to the mic or or something. Doing it right now. And I have texted him numerous times, too. So, I hope he's okay. Yeah, me too. This is not unlike this is odd. Miles. Oh, good. All right. We got you, man. We were trying to call you. Everything okay? Oh, yeah. Okay. All right. Are you ready? Yeah. Okay. All right. So, we just came out of close session and we're getting ready to discuss. Well, the board's getting ready to discuss the appointment of the new school board member. I wish I was uh going to be in close session, but
008that's okay. We tried five times. Yeah. Did you hear that? Hey. Hey, Miles. It's Diana. We tried five, I believe, five times via phone and multiple text messages. Wow. No, I've got bad reception out here at the airport, so I figured. But I'm in a good spot, so thank you. Okay. Yep. No problem. Okay. So, at this point of the meeting, we're at unfinished business. Um, I was quite pleased with the number of candidates that stepped up and and and asked to be a part of this. Um, it it's a it's a interesting job to hold and there's a lot of things that go to it. So, I appreciate everyone who has participated in this process and thank you all for uh showing an interest. So, at this time, I am going to ask for
009nominations for the new board member that will represent the Gainesboro District. Um, if we could everybody please give the name of the person that you would like to nominate and we will see what the pleasure of the board is. So, while is Mr. Miles is on the phone, why don't we or Mr. Atkins, why don't we start with Mr. Atkins if you would like to give us your nomination. Yeah, let me uh grab my notes real quick and I will uh do that. It it was really hard to decide on who to nominate for this. We did have a lot of great candidates. Um and I discussed that last night on the phone with Dr. Erkin. Um, definitely no easy task. Um, I think though if I'm going to nominate somebody, knowing that we have
010all the construction coming up, we're looking at another middle school. Um, we definitely are in the midst of putting a fourth high school together. Um, I think uh the person I'm going to nominate would be uh Christian. Um, and I'm sorry about pronouncing his last name. Uh, but I know he introduced himself as Ski. Christian uh, Mars Stumpinski. Maralooi. Maralooki. I'll take it. I'll take it for the win. Okay. Thank you. Mr. Erskin, I'd like to nominate uh Marina Caruso. Another great pick. Madame Vice Chair, I'd also like to nominate Marina Caruso. Miss Martin, I'd like to nominate Christian March Sluiski. Okay. Mr. Bell, I'd like to nominate Marina Caruso. And me being last, um, I am going to nominate Miss Caruso as well. So that is four votes for Miss Caruso. I think it's
011up for discussion. So that that that was the nomination portion. So you're going to go ahead and close nominations and then open up as a roll call vote. All right. So we will close nominations and u, Mr. Chair, there's a motion to close nominations if a motion could be made and seconded. All right, Mr. Chair. Yes, I would like to make a motion to close nominations to uh for the appointment of the Gainesboro uh school board position. Second. Second. Motion has been made, properly seconded. Any discussion? Yes, Mr. Atkins. All right. Um well, so I know that we were talking about um the difference is in our candidates here. So with uh Miss Caruso, I had her high on my list. Um you know, she shows pride within the community. Um she wants to build
012uh pride within the school system. She's talked about empowering parents. uh talked about advocating for staff and teachers. Um and you know when she came up she was definitely uh confident and talking. She was high on my list. Um I think she'll be a a great member on this board and I think she'll represent the Gainesboro district well. Um like I said, I nominated uh Mr. Marshall. Um, however, um, I know she will be an asset, as would he, um, toward, uh, this board. So, um, I'm comfortable with either one of these, uh, candidates. So, um, I just wanted to say thank you, um, to my fellow board members for looking over the materials, um, the resumes, going through the interviews. Nobody wants to do this. Nobody wanted to replace Frank. So um you know
013thank you to my fellow board members for um considering all these candidates. Thank you. Any further discussion? So if I understand the motion correctly was to close nominations. Correct. Correct. And it has been properly seconded. All those in favor signify by saying I. I. I. Any opposed? All right. So, that motion has passed. So, now we call for a roll call vote for We'll make the motions there in front of you. Since you have numerous candidate nominations, go through the motion that's there in front of you, please. Is it this one for each candidate? All right. This one. Mhm. No, it's this one, right? So, it's the it's the second one. Second. Okay. All right. So, do I have a motion to conduct a roll call vote for each nominated individual? Mr. Chair, I move
014that we conduct roll call vote for each nominated individual. Second. Motion has been made and properly seconded. Any discussion? Hearing none, now let's make a conduct a roll call vote. Madame Clerk, well, we can say all those. No. No. So, if I may, Mr. Chair. So, what's going to happen now is every board member is now going to share which candidate they are voting for. That's the roll call vote since you had two nominees. If you just had one, you would just vote and say, did we all in favor say I. So, you start based on where we are with the the what direction to start in. Yeah. Reference on which side to start. Choose. Uh, Miss Martin, Christian Marchi. Okay. Marina Caruso. Marina Caruso. Marina Caruso. Mr. Atkins. Atkins. Oh, hey. Like I said,
015both these candidates are are topnotch. I I've got both of them as a check mark here. Um, the reason, you know, I chose to go with my number one seed if this was the NFL draft, uh, with Mr. Marshalooki. Um, was just because we have a number of construction projects coming up. Point of order, uh, this is just a vote. um discussion is finished and and that's great but we that the question was asked so that's why I'm I'm still going to go with Mr. Margalooi. All right and the chair will vote for Miss Caruso. So the roll call vote would be passed for Miss Karina Miss Marina Caruso. Okay. It is. So, can I have a motion to appoint Marina Caruso as the new Gainesboro District? That So, yeah. So, now it's already done
016because that was the motion. Okay. Yep. 42 was Marina Caruso. Giving too much information. Right then. Okay. So, she is now the official. Yes, sir. Well, I would like to congratulate her. [Music] Um, do we have any board member comments? Uh just a thank you to all of the candidates that came out and expressed their interest. Um and congratulations to Marina Caruso. I look forward to working with you. Yeah, I uh Mr. Chair, Mr. Atkins. Um like I said, you know, there there is a lot of work to be done. Uh Mr. Cruso is high on my list. Um and this was a tough decision. I was talking with Mr. Erskin or Dr. person last night um on these decisions and um yeah, she's she's a a great candidate with a lot of uh pride
017in the community and like I said, wanted to um little pride within the school system. I think that was uh very admirable. Uh I look forward to working with Miss Caruso. Um I think she's got a lot to offer the Gainesboro district and um I am excited about the direction this board is going. So, thank you to everybody who came out. I if you guys feel strongly about being the Gainesboro representative, please um remember uh that the elections are in November and uh please run. I hope Miss Caruso um wants to keep her seat and she does put her bid in as well. So, thank you to everyone up on the board uh for your time um your care in this matter and I appreciate everybody out there and our new board member, Mr. Caruso.
018So, thank you. Any other comments, Mr. Chair, just very very quickly, just so the the board knows, I'm going to go ahead and reach out to her. We'll set up the swearing in. We'll set up some orientation. We'll get her all the materials and information she needs before the May 20th meeting, as I mentioned. And so if there's any information you want me to share with her, of course you guys can reach out to her at your will. Um, and then we'll we'll go from there in regards to getting her what she needs. So, and uh, Dr. Hummer, could you uh, let everyone know when she'll actually will she when she will officially sit at the day? It'll be at the May 20th board meeting. Thank you. Unless she doesn't get sworn in for some
019logistical reason downtown, but we don't see that being an issue. Any other board member comments? Um, one more time, I would like to thank Frank Funes for everything he did when I started my process to run for the school board. He was the first person that I met and had a lot of talks with him. I I I found him to be a great individual and I really enjoyed talking to him and I wish him nothing but the best and he is truly going to be missed. Um, so with that said, do I have a motion to Oh, I I apologize. We have one announcement. The announcement uh is the next school board meeting is May 20, 2025. Now, do I have a motion for adjournment? Mr. Chair, I would like to make a motion
020to adjourn the meeting. Second. Motion has been made, properly seconded. Any discussion? Hearing none, all those in favor signify by saying I. I. Any opposed? We are adjourned.