001Josh, do you want me to I'm sorry, Mr. Gford. Facebook and other things. Today is Wednesday, June 14th for posterity. It is 6:37 p.m. and we are ready to reconvene in open session. Uh first of all, if you don't mind, if you'd uh join me uh standing to say the pledge of allegiance and for a moment of silence, please. And thank you. I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands, one nation under God, >> indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. Thank you all so much. All right. Uh, we're on to certification of close session. Uh, Miss Pritzer, >> Dr. Kelly, >> yes. >> Miss Jonathan, >> yes. >> Mr. P. >> Yes. >> Mr. >> Yes. >> Mr. Rick House. >> Yes.
002>> Thank you so much. Um, we are now on to close session actions. Mr. Superintendent, are there any close sections? Any actions coming out of close session? >> There are, Dr. Kelly. I recommend that the board approve student discipline case 6A as discussed and presented in close session. >> So move. >> Do I have a second? >> Second. >> All those in favor on student case 6A, please say I. >> I. Any opposed? Uh 5. Um any further uh any other items out of close session? Thank you so much. We're now on to adoption of the agenda. Uh is there any motions? >> I move to add any necessary action items to clarify schoolboard salaries from the past and those moving forward. I also move to add an action item approving the renewal of our
003superintendent's contract. >> Great. So, uh, sounds like three additional action items come section 12. >> Correct. >> Do I have a second for that? >> Second. >> Thank you. Motion a second for the agenda as revised. Uh, any discussion? >> Uh, then all those in favor, please say I. >> I. Any opposed? >> No. >> Uh, 41. Uh, we have an agenda for this evening. All righty. Uh, so we're now on to the consent agenda. And the consent agenda includes the minutes from the prior schoolboard meetings, review of monthly claims, and approval of personnel recommendations. Um, just a friendly reminder, I don't remember exactly our headcount from every meeting. So, if you uh weren't present for a given meeting, please make sure that you indicate as such so we can sever the minutes. Um, do
004I have any motions as it relates to the consent agenda? >> I'd like to pull the minutes separately, please. >> Pull the minutes separately. That's right. I forgot your trip. Thank you. That was very genuine. I I forgot. Uh, great. So then, may I have a motion um that excludes the minutes? >> I move to approve the consent agenda as presented with the exclusion of the approvement approval of minutes of prior school board meetings. >> Great. So, I have a motion to approve 6B and 6 C. Do I have a second? >> Second. >> Great. Uh, any discussion? All those in favor of approving consent agenda items 6B and 6 C, please say I. >> I. Any opposed? 5. The consent agenda B and C are approved. Uh, may I now have a motion for
0056A, approval of minutes from the prior school board meeting? >> I make that motion to approve. Minute prior school board meeting. >> Thank you, Mr. Renhouse. Is there a second? >> I'll second. >> Great. Uh motion and a second. Any discussion as it relates to the prior minutes? >> Uh all those in favor of approving the prior minutes, please say I. >> I. Uh so that is 4 Z and one abstension. >> I will abstain not having been here that time. >> Thank you so much. So we are now through the consent agenda. We're now on to public comments and this is the point in the evening where we invite members of our community, meaning those living in Fluana, our staff members, those who had business in front of our board, etc. to come forward
006and uh share their thoughts for up to three minutes. We ask that you do so with the quorum and not uh not speak to or identify individual board members. We just ask for general kindness. Uh, and we have up to three minutes and there will be a timer there. Um, is there anyone who would like to come forward and be heard? >> Uh, and please, if you will, uh, name and address. >> Uh, thank you for letting me speak. I have my phone up here because I just want to get some information correct that I wanted to set up. Uh, my name is Gary Davis. I live at 147 Justin Drive, home, Virginia. I live over in Syc District. Um, first before I get into what I would like to speak about, I would like
007to mention that the FA County High School Fluo EMS education students and staff will be holding a blood drive tomorrow for the Fitzgerald 7 and our Fluo um Dakota Rick student that had passed away. Um, that will be tomorrow at the county high school at 9:00 a.m. 3 p.m. and also on June 24th at the same time, but that one's going to be at the Lake Montello Fire Department. Um, I was also asked to mention that they will be accepting walk-ins on both days and so far they've collected 250 pints this year and the students need 51 more pints before June 30th to maximize their scholarships they are earning. So I would ask the community if they can go at some point tomorrow or on the 24th to donate blood that way these students can
008maximize their scholarships that would be appreciated by everyone involved. Good evening board members, teachers, staff, administration, and all the students and parents here and online watching. My name is Gary Davis and I'm a father of five students ranging from a rising first grader to a rising senior. I recently took a tour of Central and Carisburg elementary schools. Tonight, I will focus on Central Elementary. During the tour, Principal Barnaby was incredibly gen generous with her time. She expressed her gratitude for the hard work from teachers, staff, and acknowledged her support that she re receives from parents and the community, emphasizing how much she values them. Please note that any statements I make tonight are purely my personal opinions. I spec I specifically chose to visit Central Elementary as I had previously spent time there with my
009oldest children 9 to 10 years ago and now I have the opportunity to do so with my younger ones. It's interesting to note that much had not much has changed in the age gap between my children. Central Ele Central Elementary would benefit from upgrades and renovations including updated bathrooms and additional spaces for specialized or group instruction among other things. All five of my kids have sung the Love and Any language song at their concerts. So to my surprise, I discovered the music classes are taught in the auditorium. There should be a dedicated classroom for music like the ample space carries for pass for its music class. When I was in the army, whenever we had to say something a high ranking official didn't like, we always caveat it with with all with all due respect.
010So, with all due respect, I'd like to know how often board members visit our schools to see the conditions for themselves. And if you do, why hasn't anything been done with the bathroom across the main office as central? Although the bathroom is clean, a strong urine smell comes from underneath the tiles. The only solution to this problem is to renovate the bathroom. No parent or decent person would want >> Sorry, Mr. Davis. We're at 3 minutes. We will have a second round of public comments. We appreciate your time and thank you so much. >> Thank you. >> Is there anyone else who would like to come forward and be heard? Hearing note, I'm going to go ahead and close this first round of public comments, but please do remember we have a second round at
011the end of our meeting and um if you would like to be heard either for the first time or again, you're invited to do so. So, thank you so much. >> All righty. We're on to delegations. Uh board members and community members, those in attendance, I just want to remind everybody that um a renovation of Abrams Academy has been on Capitol Street for several years. And just this past year, my first year here, the county um took on some debt to support that renovation. And one of the steps that we have taken is to go through a competitive bid process to ask for architecture engineering firms who might conduct a feasibility study. Um gathering input from the community, different stakeholders to present to this board a uh a plan or at least or a range
012of plans that could be considered for that nomination. So following that competitive process and that involves stakeholder input as well who actually ranked independently the uh the proposals we have selected uh crab I'm going to let them introduce themselves I call them crab tree work but Joshua Bowers is here he's going to present to you um really the the steps and the timeline and I'll just stop there and welcome Mr. Great. Thank you, Dr. Dre. Thank you all for uh hearing us this evening. We're going to be as brief as possible. Hopefully Josh can keep up with me on going through the slides. And uh that is by the way the best name ever, Josh. And uh so the um so we're >> Thank you, Mr. Ger. >> Um we're going to go through and
013uh talk a little bit about ourselves, but most importantly talk about the process of what what's going to happen over the next six months. Okay. Um so starting off, we'll start off with the permit deduction. Um so we are a 70 person firm and uh we have over the last 37 years we've done about four billion worth 4 billion square feet of educational spaces all throughout the Mid-Atlantic. Um that's uh Virginia, Pennsylvania, West Virginia and Maryland and Delaware. Um we feel that we are a leader in in Virginia as far as the amount of school work that we've done both on elementary uh middle school and um and high school. What's important and we'll talk a little bit about this is our community community oriented approach um you know and client oriented approach is that
014as part of this process we want to make sure that we are very much engaging the community because this building is very important it's very important as a community from the history standpoint and also the function that a government serves. So next slide. So uh this is an example of uh some of the things that we provide as far as services go. Um so on the left hand side you know we as a firm provide architecture cost estimating grant writing um educational planning security uh interior design. Um on the bottom right you see some things that we consult out for because we are an architecture firm but the engineering side is structural mechanical plumbing acoustics food service. So any of those services um even though it's included in our fee would be another firm would
015be engaging to help us through that through that process. So we've um we've done over 200 studies and that is that is a a wide variety of studies that may be a entire school division. Uh so examples would be handover Brunswick, uh Buckingham, uh you know, um Giles, you know, we we've done the entire school division. So studied every single building. We've also focused on single buildings. Um and this is um and obviously this is an example of doing a single building with the Abrams Academy. What's important is that when we provide you the study so we'll go through all the the components but everything that we give to you will be also not just paper but also digitally um and what's important is as we help you develop the costs you know what what
016is the you know what's what's the most important what needs to be done what needs to be done from an academic standpoint from building improvement standpoint is we will provide you everything in Excel format a a software that pretty much everybody has um it's non-proprietary and that way you can go through and edit so as as you map out the next 5, 10, 15 years and you're doing your pieces, you can say, "Oh, yep. We we completed the roof and now you can take that off and the software will automatically update." Um, plus we'll also try our best to project. Um, last couple years has been a challenge, you know, just project costs. Um, you'll do our best to project because as you're sharing things with uh with the county and say, "Hey, you know,
017we need to do this much work and it's going to happen in in 2025." is really fantastic and supervisors love when we can now give them and say, "Hey, this is what how much money we're gonna spend because these are these are the improvements we need to make and they can plan for it in their budget. Also, um so the next three slides are real quick. Um this is just a handful examples in the last 10 years of elementary uh middle and then high schools uh that we've completed. So so the we don't just do studies uh we do actual design uh planning for schools all throughout the Mid-Atlantic. Uh so the what's important is that the information that we're giving you is real data from you know that we that we've observed um and
018and costs um and uh and and really make sure that we're doing the best that we can to give you the right data. Uh so the team uh so you can see that uh the grad team which includes myself, my retired superintendent and a handful of folks in our Charlesville office. Um and from an engineering standpoint we're looking at CMTA um who was based out of Richmond Dumbar also out of Richmond ECS and then um uh TRC who does civil engineering the firms will be on as needed bases uh CMTA will be assessing mechanical electrical plumbing systems fire protection uh Dumbar from a structural standpoint and then civil we need if we want to look at are there any additional improvements uh because what's the academy is more than one building you know there are
019multiple buildings and how can we best serve our students students and our staff. Uh so project understanding um you know this is a master plan study you know instead of looking at the entire the entire campus um you know what's important is that we we want to make sure that we engage um and that's and that's going to be whether it's surveys whether it's you know it's inerson interviews with uh with you as a school board with leadership uh with teachers with students what and the community want to do is we want to make sure that we are properly master plan this for what the what the best use of this building is um is it Is it alternative education as another function? Can we can we start to celebrate some of the wonderful history
020the building has had? You know, what are the desires of the community? And then that will help us really to kind of map out what the vision is for the facility. Uh so we will be analyzing the building challenges as one or two uh challenges in the in the building and we'll make sure that not only we're going to provide cost estimates but also sketches um and send in a short and a long range plan for everything that is that is part of the part of the study. Okay. Okay. So, study process. What type of shape are your buildings in? Um, I just heard a gentleman talk about uh one of the elementary schools. That is good to understand um is is what what assets um and what and what liabilities do you have in
021any in any of your buildings? Um how to use them? How to use them not only during school but then also before and after. How do they get used on the weekends? Uh you know, how much space do you have and how much space do you need? Um is is a big key. you know, with um with the use of the school that is not a hey a we're going to put 25 students in the space and this is how we're going to use it and it's going to be an English class and that's the function. Um you know with uh you know with with an alternative type of school you know there is a lot of diversity in every type of classroom then you have a lot of really great teachers that that provide
022that service and then does your building support the educational program. This is always a big question is does it currently support it and what would it look like in the future? um if we were to make modifications to best service to best service the program and that's figuring our path forward the uh I love this shot that is not me it's actually one of my partners on a u that's a that's one of the parks in West Virginia uh so visioning uh the why and the who help us with the the how and the what uh so the why the goals the needs uh the space the age who the community uses schoolboard administration faculty students u you know help us then figure out the how, you know, the the curriculum, the program, the what,
023the spaces, um how are they used, the technology, all those pieces you can figure out. And that's part of the visioning process really in order for us to best tell you how the building can be used, this is a critical component to that. Uh so the next the next slide is the six components to a study. So regardless of whether we're analyzing the entire school division or we're looking at just your one building, these steps process define the goals, you know, gather the information, analyzing that data, determine your needs, you know, the um the develop options and provide recommendations that happens regardless regardless of the size of the project and and one building. This is this is a large scope for for any one building or any one space. The three-legged stool is the facility
024needs, the educational needs, and the space needs um to help us really provide your best your best options and recommendations. >> Um so establishing the metrics um and standards, you know, what we're going to utilize is the best practices um and really providing benchmarks for what are our true goals based off of um based off of the information that we're provided. We're going to talk about facility condition index and also the educational um matrix in in the next couple slides. So stakeholder engagement. This is one of my favorite pieces. Um this is an opportunity for us to is to engage you as a schoolboard leadership uh the community, the teachers, the students um to really kind of best map out um how we can we can better use utilize the building. Every building can always
025be used better. So the question is is what how do you currently use it and what can we do to make it better? Um so the uh there's really kind of two two good ways. um is one is in person. Um what was interesting is that co really changed how we how we think about uh engagement. Um and so so we have the inerson uh meetings which can happen at the Abrams Academy, can happen in this building or we're kind of giving a similar presentation saying this is what's going to happen, how to use the facility and how would you best like us to possibly change it to be able to make it um and then also the next slide talks about something called mentter. Um, so Mentometer is a program that we started using
026when we when we went to the virtual land. Um, because we still want to be able to engage the community and the teachers and the students. Um, has anybody used Mentometer before? Ah, this is super awesome. I love So, so we we often we we engage folks and we have a presentation like this and we say, "Hey, what what do you think?" And we give them a survey. We give them a paper survey and then a month later, two months later, or never do that, we give the information back out to the community. What I love about mentter is whether it's a virtual or it's in person is everybody can pull out their personal device. Okay. And we can have questions on the up on the on the presentation. your first question like this was
027at uh John Gandandy in handover was what what if the true attributes what what do you think of when you think about an elementary school and some of the words were fun exciting safe colorful really really fantastic words and as people vote on their personal device whether it's computer whether it's with their handhelds it shows up on the screen you know if they vote and there's you know which what do you want to see as far as improvement goes as they're literally voting live whether it's in person or it's virtual, they can see that information. Then we can post this on on the school division's website to be able to share this with the community. I I love this program because it's so interactive and it's live. People get to see right now what the
028thoughts are. Um and so I'm literally a fan of this program, but it's it's a great tool. So establishing the guiding principles. Um so the definition of a guiding principle you know is the principles or concepts that guide an organization through its life in all circumstances you know irrespective of the changes and the goals and strategies. So so one of the things that we need to do right off the bat is just develop our guiding principles you know that is a quantitative uh statement that develops the basic design you know for us as the architect or for planners to help us really kind of maximize what is the future use of the building. We can absolutely tell you, okay, the roof the roof leaks, the HVAC is is past a slave, the lights don't work.
029Those are those are the easy things for us to tell you. What what we what's not as easy to say is when we speak with the teachers, how is the space actually functioning? What challenges do you have? Well, you know, when you know, one of the challenges we have is the students have to go all the way down, you know, down at the [clears throat] end and down the floor to be able to use the restroom. So they're gone for 15 minutes out of the class day or there's no adult potties and and so you know we have five minutes in between class and we need a run to be able to get to use this restroom. There's only one for all the teachers. Um you know so let's let's take in and the next
030slide starts it. What we'll do is we'll establish those guiding principles of you know in this case with collaborative learning you know daylight in the classrooms you know the project budget you know these are all principles that become the filter and the metric as we're going through the entire study. So I promise one more will stop. Um so the uh so as we're looking at the facility analysis, we want to make sure next couple slides, we want to make sure that we're looking at the architecture, you know, the engineering of the building. Uh you know, what is the building envelope? Um we'll talk about that in a minute. You know, the what would it take to bring the building up to today's current code? Because the building was obviously not built in 2018. Uh so
031which is which is the current Virginia code. Um so you know, what would it take to bring it up to current code? Um, and what does that mean? Uh, safety and security, which is becoming one of the pinnacles of of the challenges that we have in everyday building. Uh, you know, the the balance of providing natural daylight and safety and security. It's a great conversation to have. Um, so what we'll do is to determine the opportunities that you have and also the constraints, you know, for the best scope of work. So um so what we'll do is we'll do a full analysis with the building envelope looking at you know thermal comfort look at daylighting what technology do you have you know any sustainable elements that we can pull in the building and what is
032this so example is you know can we start to introduce solar panels you know get done at the high school you know into Abrams to be able to help put money back into the grid to lower our cost you know those are you know what is the inter quality of the space those are all things that we want to look at as part of this assessment so the next slide shows the facility conditions. What this shows is it's a it's a real great graphic of one to five. Okay, so one means oh my gosh, we need to replace it yesterday and five means it's it's you 15 or plus years out. So this gives you a really good idea and then we not only show you when we believe it should be replaced, but then
033also what is the pros cost based on when we think that's going to happen. So if it's in year 10, you know, again sharing that with with the county supervisors, here's what we project to be the cost, you know, for that. So if you do it less time it may very much cost less um for that piece. The next show slide shows the educational program development. So that said we are going to do a full study of each space how it is utilized and what challenges um do you currently have? Is there enough case workers enough storage? Are the bathrooms close enough? Is there daylight? Um and really give you an apples to apples comparison of each one of the single one of the classrooms. And then what we'll do is we'll give the on
034the next slide we'll show you you know not only the the spreadsheets showing each space but then also how does it lay out in the building and are the spaces where they belong. You know if you're in an office environment you know this is that you people go often end up in the the space that is the empty space you know whether it's a cubicle or an office. It's not necessarily the space they belong you know but it's in it's a space that is available. you know, so as we're looking at the building, do we kind of do a cart shuffle and move the classrooms around to a different space that may be a better function for for that uh for that particular program. Uh so option development, we want to we want to rightsize
035um any option that we have and so every option we're going to provide priority. So what we don't want to do is we don't want to go and spend a whole bunch of money painting and replacing the carpet and the tile and and and doing all this and then have the roof leak, you know? So we want to make sure we're doing things in the right order. Um so that way that is that it gives you the best value whether it's renovations if it's additions you know for a security vest we'll give you the cost the schedule um and show how it's going to be the best fit value for you as a school division uh then this next slide shows you the graphic okay so we'll show you the option you know and then
036a clear graphic of how each one of those would get impacted inside the building and that may be the building it may also be part of the campus or or an adjacent adjacent building to itself. So in the next slide we show that we want to do is establish the ed program early the community needs and the educational program and really demonstrate how our options are going to be better serving the building and better serving the students and and the teachers and each one of those will be wrapped around a budget clearly show you what the cost impact is going to be. So last slide um is shows you what what this could look like. Um so one of the questions that we often get asked is what gosh what is the uh what is
037the timeline for a study? Um, and here's what we found. Uh, so what we found is three months, less than three months is too fast. We're not we're not collecting the right data. We're not going and really doing the due diligence surveying the building. We're not getting all our eyes and tees crossed. Uh, we go greater than six months and you lose steam. Kind of lose the community, lose folks, and they're saying, "When is this ever going to start? When is when is something's going to happen?" So, what we're showing is we're showing a this is really a six month schedule. This shows us going out and doing the survey. um you know getting you know putting that into into digital format. Uh we're doing the research of the history of the building um along
038with then holding virtual meetings and inerson meetings you know in the community and that's something that we'll talk about what does that look like? Is it um is is it or do we have you know there's a really great opportunity to have meetings inside of Abrams to really show people that have never been inside the building. is a beautiful, beautiful building and it's really an asset is what can we do now to show it to them and say hey let's let's make sure we preserve this asset um you know and so we'll do this analyze the data and provide options um and then and then you know get into more discussion maybe provide additional options and then provide the final study so we're looking to wrap up the final study sometime in November of this
039year or earlier but so we found that three to six months is really kind of that great that great window of time for our study okay so that is I try to be brief because I know you have a long agenda tonight. So, are there any questions, thoughts, concerns about anything that we presented tonight? >> So, I have a couple questions. I'll um [clears throat] I'll admit that some of them are going to be directed at the superintendent or most of them just like so one, this is fabulous. I'm excited about taking care of that building and preserving it for the the long run. It has some great history. It's in disrepair and it needs help. So, I'm fabulously happy about that. I'm thankful to the staff for getting us to this point. And that
040six-month timeline is honestly surprising and great. So, I'm I'm happy for all of that. My questions for the superintendent are one at we've we've spoken before informally about partnerships with the county and what our demands are for building space. And we know that we have unc we have older buildings in unconventional configurations in terms of which grade levels are in which buildings. Do we think that it is time to to start thinking about an RFP for somebody to help us make take stock of our capacities and the buildings that we have so that we are preserving and protecting our assets. Um, in terms of buildings, like do we need this at at a um division level? >> I I' I'd like to consider that a little bit. I'll give you a quick answer, but I
041would like to revisit it. I think it's probably time for us to start thinking about something like that in terms of imagining what a vision for accommodating growth could be. Um, this in particular isn't just to back up at a high level. This renovation was on the approved CIP >> and so county has committed some funding to it as part of an initial step. We have procured a firm to come in and do a feasibility study and to present options graphics of vision for I'm imagining what might be some different phases of work or at least options related to what could be the next step would be for based I'm not you might want to answer this but I think the next step would be for the firm to get a better feel for the
042scope of that for in that study and to actually present a contract this board would see and have a chance to approve before any of that happened. >> Is that >> No, it answers my question. I just wanted to put it out there as where I'm I watched this presentation. I had it on my that's what I was looking at on my computer because my eyes aren't as great as they used to be. Uh, and I kept thinking, man, this is great, but what if we included all of our buildings in terms of like figuring out what we need to do because I know that we're, you know, I I see building I see housing units being built and then I worry about capacity, but obviously not for today. Uh, two is and probably for
043you and also for you, how do we do this smartly while engaging the community but not presenting security risks by putting blueprints everywhere? How do we not make our buildings soft targets by having information out there? >> So with this specific building or or in general? >> Yes. >> Um so so again when we present to the community, we don't necessarily have to show floor plans um and we are not a big advocate of putting floor plans on online um just because it's it does create a a challenge you know the potential challenge you know for for a facility. We can talk about spaces and we you know one of the things is to talk about how do we use a space um and even allowing people to go into certain spaces but there there
044is a pro kind of protocol we definitely want to possibly work with the sheriff you know and and other groups to really engage to say hey this is what we should and should do but I am not a big advocate of putting floor plans matter fact if you look at our website we have no floor plans because we've eliminated all school floor plans off our website um probably about 10 years ago yes I completely agree with Yeah, it was just as I was seeing the hypotheticals, I thought, man, I don't want anyone to have that. So, thank you for that. I just wanted to as first time seeing this, just starting to think through the implications. Uh, and then finally, as a a request, um, I am hopeful that the community meetings that we hold
045that we'll find a way to advertise them as as board meetings as necessary or check with legal, etc., so that our board members can attend without having to worry about um three appearing in the same place at a time. I would love for all of us to be able to partake in this without considerations about whether or not it's a called meeting. >> Sure. >> But for me at least, thank you so much. Like this is really useful context and I'm super excited to for that building to get the attention it it deserves and is is earmarked to have. >> Other board members, >> Mr. hours. Um I couldn't help but notice you allowed a day for a site inspection there um at the beginning on your grad. Have you seen the building at all?
046>> Yes. Um I'm really familiar with the building and uh we also took a tour um of it, but yes, I've been I've been in the building >> and yes, it while it may have had a day on there, there's way more than one day of survey for that building. >> Yeah. Well, I know it's at least 50 years old. That's that's when I went back to the school. I don't know how old the building is. 1939 >> 079. I feel like we just did the last meeting, didn't we? >> Didn't we have some trivia last last month about this? >> There is a um there is some signage there that I about six years ago, Mr. Winkler and I worked on together. The metal the metal sign. >> The historical sign. >> No, not
047not that sign. There was no there was no letters that said Abrams Academy and the school didn't have the money to pay for it. Mr. Winkler and I worked on something. So when you guys take renovate that I'd like to have that signed back if I can get it back. >> So you want to take you want to take possession of it or you just want it preserved? >> I want it preserved. I' like actually probably get to Moselle or someone like that. They're the ones that really work with me on it. But I just don't want it to get to get tossed. >> Yeah. What what I would say as a general statement is that any item in the building, we want to make sure that we preserve everything. You know, it's it's really
048fantastic, especially when you look at renovation to kind of preserve those elements and maybe put them somewhere else. You know, maybe they it's maybe that goes into the the cafeteria where another space not into the trash. So, yeah, any any building of historical value preserve as >> Thank you. If there is any recordkeeping that we're doing beyond our minutes in order to like line item, these kinds of things, it would be nice if that was um listed in notes so that we make sure that it's taken care of. >> Uh other board members. Well, thank you so much. >> Yeah, thank you. >> Thank you. [clears throat] >> Thank you. Thank you. All righty. So, we're on to 9A reports from the superintendent. Dr. Gats, the floor is yours. >> Okay. Thank you, board members.
049I'm gonna begin these. You have my report up here and I'll address that, but I I'd like to come to the podium and I'm thrilled to introduce you and our community to the new assistant principal of Central Elementary. He's here tonight. PJ will join us up here and get welcome to come up as well. >> PJ Pilitinski is uh joining us with 22 years of experience in Virginia. He's I'm going to let him introduce himself to the degree, but he comes with wonderful experience. He went through along with several other candidates went through a a pretty thorough process uh panel interviews interview with the the sitebased administration. I was involved towards the end of that and he comes with great recommendations from the people he's worked with and several of whom I know and trust
050and I'm delighted to have him join our team. Delighted to have been able to support the position and happy that PJ is going to be a part of it. He is a hokeie and uh where he played baseball and wrestled. He's been uh at the elementary level. He's been at the high school level. Uh but welcome. >> Thank you. We're happy that you're going to be at Fluca. >> Yes, sir. I appreciate coming immediately now from >> Yes, sir. Yes. >> I'm going to start actually a couple weeks early. Uh good evening. I had no idea I was going to get an opportunity to speak, so this is all from the cuff, but I just want to say uh Dr. Gratz, members of the board, thank you so much for this. Thank you. Thank you
051so much for the wonderful opportunity to continue my administrative career here in Flana. Um it just seems like an awesome community you guys have here. I have to let you know these two women have been absolutely phenomenal during my transition period. Uh extremely helpful uh nothing but positive and you really they didn't have to do much to sell me to to want to come here. This is just a fabulous place. Um also um it would be remiss of me if I had not mentioned how helpful everyone in your central office has been. any person that have need help with from technology to getting my email to to being in meetings, they've been unbelievably unbelievably uh helpful, engaging, um Mr. Stribbling, Miss Field amongst others have been absolutely great. And I just want to tell y'all
052I'm so excited to um become a part of this community, to make an impact on this community, and I plan on being a mainstay here for years to come. So, thank you again. I hope you all great evening. Thank you for being here. Thank you. Gene becomes that much more exceptional. It's hard. It's hard not to be great with these two ladies. >> Dr. Gretz, do you want to photo up or anything? >> It'd be great. We'd love it. >> Uh do you do you all want to partake in any photos that may that >> I'm very coachable. Whatever you tell me to do, I'm going to do. >> Um maybe the the leadership there um in a photo for posterity and what have you. >> Are board members interested? So they're doing it here
053we normally do. >> So all right. Sure. Why not? >> First position like this up and involved in. >> Sure. That's great. And then uh maybe someone can use your phone so it can be transferred to Facebook or whatever you guys like to do with these things. I just wanted to make sure we didn't miss anything. >> Why don't you all come down here? I guess we'll do it this way. Okay. >> We'll get to shake your hand and say hello. Yes, sir. >> Hey, it's so nice to meet you. >> Yes, sir. Looking forward to it. Hey, very nice to meet you, sir. PJ, very nice to meet you. I'm >> PJ. >> Oh my god. Now, shoot. I'll never forget. Let me straighten up my Where do y'all want to be in this
054whole >> Probably the center, >> the bell, the ball, so to speak. >> Put a lot of pressure on me. So, this is the first >> You guys want to close your colleague here? Uh, I'll stand in I'll stay in the back and I'll tell her >> this like a teenage girlfriend I can show it to you. >> Is that a teenage girl thing? >> Thank you so much. Yes, sir. Very nice to meet you. Happy to have you on board. >> Yes, sir. Nice meeting you as well. >> Thank you so much. right there. Just don't >> Okay, you've had a Thank you for that. If you've had a chance to see the report, I won't highlight everything in there, but I'm happy to address any questions that you have. We do have record
055numbers of students that are enrolled and participating in summer school. Um we also have lots of students enrolled in the kids college opportunity or partnership with the community college. There's a lot of summer work going on. Um, I didn't I didn't put this in there necessarily, but I did want you to know that there's a lot of conversation, and you're probably already aware of this, a lot of conversation at the state level about uh accountability and accreditation and what's going to go into that, how that's going to happen. I have had an opportunity just in the last week to meet with the brand new state superintendent, uh, Dr. coons and the new chief of staff who is Dr. Jeremy Reley who was formerly superintendent Gman and they have been coming out to each region they
056came to region five on Monday uh to get feedback from superintendent and to have what I believe is a really really good authentic dialogue. uh we met in Louisa and then on Friday of this week as the chair of the region I'll represent region five we will be meeting with Dr. Again, all of this related to accountability and some of the issues and concerns and the suggestions and considerations that we all have around. So, I just want you to be aware of that. >> Um, may I? So, you know, when you were use words like accreditation, accountability, uh, one, I'm I'm really quite happy for our I don't know how many years now, seven, nine, something like that, continuously being accredited. I'm nervous about it because of the problems that we share with surrounding divisions.
057Like our absenteeism and everybody else's, to be frank, is atrocious. So, I don't know if that's something that can be or will be discussed at those meetings and or if that's something that we can take time this summer to work on because I'm really concerned about it. >> It's it's definitely something that's being discussed. The nuance with with attendance is it's not the purview of the Virginia Department of Education to decide whether to continue to include chronic absenteeism in that model. Um that's the state board of education. It's really something that will be discussed, advocated with uh policy makers, legislators. >> Yeah. And to be clear, I'm less worried about it impacting accreditation and I'm more worried about the fact that it exists. Yes. Yes. So the the second half of my comment there is
058one of the issues that's being discussed is um well it's kind of multifaceted but >> okay >> Virginia is one of the only states that doesn't include attendance at school education anything related to attendance at school participation in education program in its definition of uh abuse and neglect. others do. So when the statute indicates abuse and neglect, it'll give some specific things that are eligible for we we don't include that. And it's very difficult for schools, schools aren't responsible to wake kids up and to brush their teeth and get them dressed and get them to school. When you look at our specific, all this is going to be presented to you next month. when we look at our absenteeism, chronic absenteeism and the high levels in the primary grades, I mean that that really does
059speak to the I think the challenge of a metric like that being used in accountability that really is holding a six-year-old responsible for something that the six-year-old doesn't really have any control of, meaning the way it's being. So, that discussion is being had. It's it's it's a difficult thing to influence with Dr. Coons, but it is something that we're discussing because that's a state board of education. >> Yeah. And and to be fair, like I I apologize that that it's on your mind and that it's forthcoming in meetings, what have you. I I can tell you that wasn't aware where it was being presented next month. And so I'm sure there's another couple things I'll mention this evening that that you're working on and and or what have you. So, um, I apologize in advance
060for that, but it's a serious issue and >> the, you know, I think if we were to chart chronic absenteeism from, you know, 2018 or something precoid and then look at the COVID intervention and then see, um, my guess here is this county and everywhere else, absenteeism skyrocketed during COVID and has not settled back to pre-COVID error levels, which is really concerning. Um, but again, as you indicate, this is not, especially at the primary level, this isn't the student's fault. Kids aren't skipping. It's that we're having difficulty making um gains at the home level in order to get them in the building. And again, it's not the school's >> school division's responsibility to wake the kid up in the morning, but it is um frustrating in our efforts to provide a quality education if they're
061not sufficiently in the room every day. >> Yeah. Yeah, it's the the whole the whole nuance to the use of chronic absenteeism. This came as a response to a change in 2017 to the state accountability model that engagement became one of the factor meaning uh holding schools holding classrooms holding school divisions accountable for providing engaging experiences for students. uh that's being measured in Virginia with chronic absentee and you can you can make a case that there's an onus on me as a classroom teacher to engage students and by engaging students that may or may not influence them coming to my class coming to school. I I don't think the correlation is direct enough to support that being the metric that we say that school has this absenteeism rate so it must be an engaging school
062much less down in the classroom. I think the bigger issue of whether or not it's in the accountability model, the fact that there are a lot of kids that are out and we aren't able to impact so many of those >> probably indicates to me and I'm just I'm off the top of my head this thought about [clears throat] >> probably our partnership with the courts with I'm not interested in people being put into the court system but also We're writing letters. We're making phone calls. In many cases, we have staff managers driving to homes to try to get students. Ultimately, there has to be a partnership between all of us involved. I think that's going to kick in at some point. That's really not there. But as a bit of a >> Yeah. No,
063I mean >> it's a good >> I I appreciate your thoughts on it and I'm not trying to um either scoop you from next month or or or anything. I just I it's one of those struggles where we seem not to have a lot of success um in in trying to enforce or correct truency. And I know that there's partnership with the courts, partnership with the families, partnership with social services, but it's a it's a meaty issue and it's increasingly important. It is uh and that as a as a factor in accreditation this year is just been decided. >> Oh. >> So it is or it isn't as >> a threeyear average. Was it just this year? That's the the difficulty with presenting to this board accreditation data accountability that is a lot of these
064decisions are being made literally as we sit here just just very recently the use another one is the use of growth meaning the use of growth in third grade from one test to the next that issue has been discussed just resolved. So these are the but a lot of the tracking data and the um the tests have been revised such that we don't actually have tracking data. So have they decided to use the tracking growth mechanism in the accreditation decisions? >> They have the the waiting of it and the way it's used is what's really >> been discussed and I I should say I can speak for the state. I don't think it's for a conclusion that it is. >> I do think that there I think it both. But I think uh you know
065for me one of the difficulties is there are I think there are voices that see that want to number want to take everybody on the field and have them run the 40 yard dash and report whether they did it this time or not. And then there are others who are saying especially if you are educating uh historically students of poverty a lot of times that that they come to kindergarten with different exposure to literacy and numeracy and those things and your ability to take those kids and recover those gains. While it may not reach that mark, the gains that the teacher was able to make with that child are astonishing. And so I'm hoping there'll be a marriage of the two. Let's report all of it. Let's report the gains and the growth. Let's report
066the the specific data. I don't know why that it is an ongoing discussion. No secret there's been some uh I don't know what to call disruption. But at the State Department, it's just been there's been a lot of turbulence. I think they're really doing a good job of restoring communication with localities with building a partnership for decisions like this. It's just taking a little time. They're working really hard. >> No, appreciate you for that. >> Absolutely. We're installing base detectors. I mentioned this before, but just this summer installing the high school and the middle school. >> U maybe you can mention the last one. >> Yes. >> She doesn't get enough attention. >> Brenda Gillum was a finalist for a very prestigious award given by the Virginia Association of School Business Officials Cardinal Award. And
067I I do think that is uh really worth paying attention to. I congratulate I think she should have won. But >> our division is lucky to have you. >> I'm sure very competitive process a lot of people. It is it is a big deal that you would be part of that. Uh, and then I know that we have a lot of student success. Um, every time I turn around, I can't look at a newspaper or look at Facebook without seeing um, our fluos doing wonderful things. Obviously, we just had a graduation and uh, you'll have to correct me on the numbers. I think I heard 258 graduates and threequarters of a million dollars in scholarships and grants to our our new grads. I apologize if that if my math is is off any. That is
068only my error and no one else's. But I am remarkably thankful and um proud of these Flucas for what they've done. I also heard that our baseball team made it to uh a single elimination playoffs um of late and so congratulations to them for uh their season and uh I would love to um begin seeing some more accomplishments being brought into this room so that we can celebrate with them to the extent possible. >> Great. Agree with all of that. I'm sure there are lots of um clubs and teams and accomplishments that I either just happen to not log on to Facebook on a given day or just don't get to me as an individual. Uh I'm happy to celebrate each and every one of them. And so any omission again is is my own
069just for lack of awareness. If if you hadn't had the opportunity to be there, I would suggest that people avail themselves the opportunity to watch the graduation on YouTube, specifically watch the validator institution. It was phenomenal. >> And uh props to David Small, Mr. Small who um made a wonderful video. I forwarded it about especially to friends who have kids who are featured in it. And uh it was lovely and and really refreshing to watch and so quickly put together. Honestly, it was uh it was funny to watch him do it live as he's creeping along with the camera chin height and then to see that pan uh present itself in the the actual video. So he clearly knows what he's doing and uh it it's lovely to see. >> I I don't have anything
070else specific. I'm h happy to answer questions. you you do have a link to the superintendent advisory committee minutes and that gives you the ability to see the kinds of questions that are being asked and the responses. So I encourage you to take a look at that. >> Yeah. Uh that link is 404. It may just mean that I need to log in as myself in the Google um format and I'll try that again later while logged in, but >> it worked for me. >> Oh, really? I'm not in a browser that's logged in as uh I'm on a public I'm on the public agenda and so therefore not not logged in. >> Okay, thank you for that. Um we have VSBA membership fees 9B. So these these fees um board members as you know
071this is assessed annually and moving forward with a lot of conversation about the relationship to the association and how that might look moving forward but one thing that I know has been considered is the uh legal assistance fee and our inability to extract that from the overall fee and that enables us to have all of that policy work Um, so we decided or it might be the whole thing, but we just received these and so I submitted to you. I think in the past you've decided to continue this membership. I certainly recommend that unless there's another option that you want to consider that I'm not aware of. >> So it so it's all or nothing. Is that correct? >> That's right. and it's 6,700. How does that align with what we've paid in the past?
072Do you know if it's significantly different? >> It's always that uh calculation. I I don't know what it was last year, but I'm sure it was comp. >> Yeah, >> I I mean I think it was about seven grand. Like that's what I've like that's what I would have asked or would have said if you had asked me. Um, and so the implication is if we don't, so it's on the agenda tonight for adoption. If we don't vote to adopt it, that means we no longer have the legal services and therefore all of our policies need to be updated ourselves through some other means. >> We pay $10,000 a year for policy services. >> Is that separate from this? >> This is legal assistance, not strictly policy. And the the consideration in the past was
073and you you did that with your attorney, Mr. King, what his office would charge to do the kind of work that's being done here with our policies would would be much much higher than what the pay would be. >> Uh any questions from board members? We'll have a an opportunity for a motion if someone so chooses as well as discussion during that. >> I don't think it's any surprise that I wouldn't support the VSBA. I wouldn't support the new VSBA. Ironically, there's a gen board association now board alliance, a new organization that just founded this year. Um, but because of principle because it doesn't matter whether it's a organization is leaning this way or this way. They're both in my mind taxpayer funded lobbying and the taxpayers don't have a decision and where their money
074goes. We just we make that decision for them to lobby on things that don't if you're on if you lean left the VSBA the alliance is >> I don't know if that's pointed at me or not. I I don't identify as leaning left per se. >> Anybody if you lean left the alliance would be lobbying against you. If you lean right the association's probably lobbying against you. So I don't agree with either. I also know that a gentleman just sat here and said that the bathroom at Central smells like urine and there's $6,700 sitting there that we're probably we're paying for legal assistance that we're probably not even using. We just have our own lawyer here that we're paying to do the job that we needed to do. And I would submit that $6,700 will
075take care of probably a lot of flooring in the central bathroom that may smell like your I haven't that bathroom's needed remodeling for a long time. So if I just I just don't see this as as money well spent regardless of whether it's the VSBA or not. We've had this argument for the six years I've been board >> and it >> if we don't adopt this we will have to find our own means of updating policies or this is completely separate. What we found last year when you asked me to research this, the response from and I I'd have to dig it out, but the response from the BSBA was that we could not parse out those services. >> If you don't do this, you can't do that. >> Got it. >> And my my
076concern, I haven't been a part of those conversations with you really historically. My concern just as a superintendent is is really our inability as a staff to assume all that policy work. we don't have the expertise to do it much less the time or the people to do all of that. I would just want to be able to recover that whether it's through the day or another. >> Do you know what other organizations do? I do this all the time where I work at the department is larger than the planet county public school system. The leader of that organization says you I'm delegating you responsibility to work on these policies. this subcommittee is going to work on these policies. You're going to bring them to me. We're going to have buyin on them from the
077employees and then we're going to take them to legal and then we pay them to make sure that that they can be defended in court. Um I just feel that we've just grown accustomed to um paying somebody to do this and I I don't think that every school system in well I know that not every school system in Virginia uses a SBA. >> That's right. >> Um and I I've asked this question every year. others. I I don't know of any that don't. I believe you that there are some. I know that there are school divisions that have their own attorney on staff because a lot of this seem right. >> Oh, I know we can afford that either. >> Yeah. >> Um I just there to me it it there's always another way. In
078this case, I think a better way. Um, and I've know people that write policies for, you know, like public safety related policies, super important policies that don't have an organization directly for them. >> And um, I just again not going to support it. That's totally okay and of course, but um so what I think I'd like consensus on in order to direct staff accordingly is one, so regardless of the outcome of tonight's vote as it relates to BSBA, um if two other board members are interested, I would like to know more about what other divisions do and what alternatives are to the legal services, like where else could we theoretically source them? Um, if not, I'm probably uncomfortable relying on staff um, who are not BR attorneys or JDs to to write legal policies, but
079I'd like to know what the other alternatives are if other divisions do or don't use VSBA for this. Uh, acknowledging that we probably can't afford a staff attorney, but I would like some factf finding so we know what our options are for moving forward regardless of the outcome of the vote tonight. What do we what do we do now when we have a policy that's presented to us and we want to edit it? We want to amend it. We amend make those amendments and then who do we send it to? >> We would probably send it to um Brad King. >> No, the BSBA. >> Elizabeth. >> So, if we make if we make an amendment to their policy, we don't send that to Brad King. We send that back to the BSBA. It depends.
080I mean, I haven't been involved in a ton of that. Euing. Sorry. >> I I don't know. I I beg her pardon for using her first name. I was I couldn't get there. Elizabeth Euan. >> But but one of these I mean we we've definitely found issues with policy. We going to talk about one tonight. >> Brad King would have to defend that. >> Yeah. So the issue would be typically >> our attorney Brad King for exposition sick. If the issue would be if you get a policy from the BSBA and you want to make substantial changes that involve changes to protocol, changes in the way you're thinking about things, I I would suggest that that probably Brad or if you're writing a new policy or new regulations, if you're just amending something since you've
081already paid for service, I would probably just have >> I guess my point is is we have attorneys writing in in in an issue that we'll deal with. people helping us with policy >> that another attorney may have to defend and I just I just don't understand if I was our schoolboard attorney I want I want responsibility for all of this since I'm the one that have to defend it well I you know I don't want to speak for Mr. King. I I did at your request I did run on his best last year and I'm paraphrasing, but I think I think he'd be more than happy to take this on his what he's going to charge us for would be extra. Okay. >> And and that was by his own admission that the cost
082would far exceed the VSBA cost. >> We know what we pay him by hour. Yeah. >> Okay. Um, are there two other members who are interested in factf finding in order to figure out what other divisions are doing so we might be able to learn from them? >> I agree with much of what Mr. Poland says. I would add that I don't find the VSBA particularly um advocating for teachers. Uh, and I've looked into this money thing for years now. I I I'm not interested in pursuing it any further because I get shut down every time that it's uh we we're over a barrel and it's the most costefficient thing to do. But I'm not a huge fan. >> Is there anyone else on the board? >> I'm also, you know, not a big fan
083of BSBA um >> just because we're paying a lot and I don't see what we're getting out of it really. Um that being said, we need to know something by July 1st um on this so we determine now or we have to come back for another meeting. >> Yeah. So I think my my request was regardless of the outcome of the vote to to do some factf finding so we're better informed for next year for whomever is on the board next year. But I it doesn't sound like there's three. So, we'll just deal with the um action item accordingly. Unless you're unless you're a yes, that's at most two and I won't speak for Mr. Key. >> Okay. So, no staff effort in exploring alternative options. There's not sufficient um interest on this board. Um,
084I will note while we're on the subject of VSBA that I received an email from the VSBA indicating one, hey, none of your people have signed up for a Thursday um uh one of their one of their training sessions. And then two, I believe the potentially scare language was, "By the way, you're on the hook for presenting something or other." Yeah, >> I I can address that, >> please. Uh the the event is the conference on education. It's an annual event that's held every summer. I've never seen an email like that. I don't know if those have come out before, but initially I believe it was intended to probably just alert you to the fact that you're being highlighted one of our programs. >> Oh, highlighted not that we're respon read like I was respon
085we collectively were responsible for presenting. members who are presenting. >> We do. >> Yeah. >> And that is just a Thursday from 9 to 2 or something. >> So >> that's on the four. >> I think the intention was to say a Thursday. >> Nobody signed up for this and you have staff that are presenting. They're probably trying to generate interest in signing up. I don't think it was any kind of scare tactic. That said, I've never seen an email like that from the ESBA to a school. >> Yeah. >> They have it all the time. I just I haven't seen >> I mean I was taken aback um just by the language not not necessarily the content but the way that it was presented to me read a little more a little less professional
086maybe than I would have preferred. So um that would have been on what's that sir? >> Just delete them when I get them. I've never actually I didn't write I didn't read it. >> I uh I open and read every email that I get in that inbox. It is a public inbox. It and so I read literally everything that comes in. I may not reply to everything if there's too many, but I read them all. And just because there's staff going there, it seemed as though the date was uh July Thursday, July 13th between 9 and 2 p.m. If any board members are interested in attending that thing, I am in no way endorsing condoning anything with VSBA. I share some of the considerations earlier stated, but if our stats going to be there, I
087will try to attend to to the extent that I can with my professional life. >> Uh will you are you attending since staff are presenting? >> I I will. Yeah, I'll be there just to support them. And I I've presented at that before. In fact, last year Von Hill senior and I presented together our partnership with the >> local sheriffs. And can you remind us what the what the subject matter is that our staff are presenting? >> So we have a program that uh called sources of strength which is uh specifically at the middle school is being highlighted. It's a peer support program really and it was featured in the uh showcases of success which is a document that they put together and so they were invited based on the description in there. It's a
088suicide prevention program but certainly much more than that u to present. >> Lovely. >> So that's how that happened. >> Great. Thank you for the background. And I just I saw the email as as I said in my like morning email reads and just like >> the way it's set up is the conference on education there will be a speaker. I'm not sure who it is this year but typically will be a speaker and then there'll be several tables 30 plus tables and each one of those will be a program or an initiative or something that's happening in a school division. And the attendees you can choose which table to go to and there'll be a 35 minute presentation go to another table four five or even six of those. It's exhausting to do as
089a presenter. You have the option the opportunity to see different things. That's that's the setup. >> Great. Thanks for the clarification. I just >> I said middle school program isn't middle school. It's a high school counsel department that's doing the presentation. I'm sorry. Oh, >> and then um >> yes, >> do we have professional budget for this board if people are inclined to go to these things? >> And so we can just reach out to Miss Kryer to to do that if anyone is so interested. >> Okay, thank you for that. >> I think we're on 9C BSBA policy updates. analysis. >> So there quite a few of them in here and I typically don't go through all of these with you in a public meeting. Often a lot of the changes that are written
090are semantic sometimes and that's the case here. Um the accept I mean I'll just highlight a couple of changes that I think are a little bit more substantive than that. >> Please. The acceptable use policy now includes >> Hold on. What is an acceptable use policy? Which one should we bring up? >> Question about that. I'm glad you're bringing that one up. >> So, uh, which number or letter is it? So, we can bring it up here. >> The comment about Tik Tok. >> Yes. Mhm. Uh >> wanted to make sure you were aware of that. That's response to the law passed >> essentially saying that none of our school >> gone of our school issued schoolboard owned devices can have apps or services related to these cut areas. Mr. Gford, any comments there? you
091weren't prepared to make it down if you were aware of this policy. >> The only thing I would make note is that um 10-centent holdings actually is affiliated with our sports games. So um we have to be mindful that um if you take you know for this policy literally um you would have to consider not offering rocket le because rocket le [clears throat] >> yeah to the extent that it is um legal to make that exception and that's a question for the attorneys plural as necessary. Um I am an advocate for uh kids who wouldn't participate in organized sport otherwise to have an opportunity to do so on things like esports and so I would like to be able to preserve that and if we can do so with the spirit of the law and
092in compliance then I would prefer to make sure we make that exception fairly explicit. And again, Rocket League for everyone, that's the one where you have a car, you're in a dome, and you're kicking a soccer ball with a little car. It's not, there are no humanoid elements to it. There is no nudity. There is no violence. And I suppose any uh any maturity level would come from whatever communications teammates have with one another or with with their opponents. But uh and if we want if we need a further description of what Rocket League is, I'm sure uh Mr. Gford or uh I forget the young man that that runs the esports league, but I'm sure they'd be happy to come in and demonstrate. >> Yeah, I thought it was white, but I didn't want
093to misname um anyone today. >> It sounds pretty clear up there. I'll be interested to see if it doesn't count. >> Yeah, I'll definitely research that. So, that that's just brand new. So I wanted to highlight that before we >> Yes. How many uh school sheets open we have? It should be too many >> administration maybe. >> Devices. >> Uh sorry Mr. Gford. >> It's like 40. >> We weren't allowing these. You weren't allowing people to download Tik Tok on the devices before, were we? So, school issued cell phones are staff and staff have admin rights for their phones. Um, so they can access or download any apps that they feel they need or use a job function. Um, so that mean they could download Tik Tok or WeChat if they feel that they needed
094to do their job. But >> never heard of WeChat. Yeah. And I I guess a question is as we're like talking through this, is there is there a world in which an administrator actually does need Tik Tok in order to see something that happened on Tik Tok that's related to the school division? >> Yeah, that has been an issue. >> And so to that end, can we seek legal guidance as it relates to allowing for those occasions? It's not that I believe that people should be on TikTok at work, but like if there's something posted that is visible only through that app, how on earth are we going to know about it unless somebody with a cell phone has has access? >> And again, it could be done on their personal, but if it's work
095business and necessary for >> why would you want to do that? Me personally, I I have a I have a work phone that I do work from because the minute I do an investigation on my personal phone, now my personal phone could be subpoenaed and I don't want my personal phone. >> Oh, no. No. Not I'm not encouraging it. I'm trying to articulate that if it's workrelated business and they need the capa they need the capacity then we need to make sure that we have legal guidance and and exceptions. Um >> that's a good point to do that. >> Okay. Yeah. I think these things are better done by people with law degrees. >> Sure. >> There's an optional policy included here so I don't want to gloss over that. Um, it's related to board
096member participation in remote participation in committee meetings. >> I'd really like the board to take a look at that because on first read, I am not in favor of including it. Uh, I intend a committee meeting uh remotely all the time. >> BDDL >> I'm sorry. And what what committee meetings? >> It it'll come up >> part of the facility committee. It could be an online facility committee. >> Specifically, I do the special education advisory committee >> and I almost always attend remotely. So do probably most of us. >> So what was your what was your issue with the the >> My issue is that this optional policy says do not conduct any meeting uh remotely. Well, go ahead and read the first paragraph. I think we'll do it. >> Uh, I'll do my best
097here so that everybody at home and in the room can see it. Except as provided here after or as otherwise permitted by law, committees of the school board and committees created to advise the school board, do not conduct any meeting wherein the public business is discussed or transacted through telephonic, video, electronic or other electronic communication means where the members are not physically assembled. There seems to be a footnote one. This policy is applied strictly and uniformly without exception to the entire membership of the committee and without regard to the identity of the committee member requesting remote participation or the matters that will be considered or voted on at the committee meeting. >> I guess my question is are they referring to a the school board or are they referring to the subcommittee? So not sub
098not not exclusively subcommittees of the school board. So this would be like if a curriculum meeting happened and somebody were out of town but wanting to participate or any of the committees that we have and uh given it's optional and given the fact that we we as members obviously have our own laws as it relates to being physically present but I don't I don't feel [snorts] compelled to put up additional barriers to our staff in order for them to participate in things that that take extra time of their own lives. Um I don't know why somebody who is on a a committee that happens in the evening um couldn't do it from home as necessary. >> We have parents and community members appointed to committees and they would have to be physically present according to
099this policy. Is anyone um compelled to take this up or or vote to adopt this given the implications of um >> Well, my my question now is why did the BSBA write it? I I can't speak for the VSBA and I I will tell you why I think they and that is that there are some localities I just there are decisions that were made in board board meetings that were virtual that are now a couple years later being challenged as not being done legally. I'm not doing it that well. >> It seems to be in the ether that that remote decisions are are being challenged here and elsewhere. >> So I think that's probably why this showed up and why it's optional. But that's >> this is fine. I mean they're not these committees are
100not doing it's not even public anyways. You know what I mean? Like you go to a >> curriculum committee. Okay. The public's not showing up for that. It's not publicized. It's >> I agree. And I don't remember I mean I attended one recently in the middle school. I don't remember there being virtual attendance, but if one of our leaders happened to need a vacation week or a sick day, but was willing to provide their own evening time to do that. I don't see why we would want to bar them for for physical presence. My assumption with this is that it only refers to schoolboard created committees and sanctioned committees. That's my assumption. But even with that assumption, >> I am not in favor of this. >> I'm disincclined to to be honest to see it
101again given first read and lack of interest. But um is there anyone else who would like to take more time with this and have it back on the presentation and do a formal vote uh one way or the other? >> Everyone I've seen enough of >> everyone's happy enough h this being the last um interaction with this document. I'm almost like Perry, you know, the either eliminate this part of it or or eliminate the whole thing, this policy. >> Well, optional is enough for me then. Uh, Mr. Pollen, you want to see it again? >> No, I just I I just think it's ironic the importance of the VSBA and the policy to us immediately after >> removing the policy. >> I mean, this is the unique. This is the first time I've seen an
102optional policy from the BSBA, like explicitly optional. I mean, I suppose that we we always have our own um option to to reject something or what have you, but I believe this is the first time I've seen anything presented to me as optional. >> But most of them are in response to something in code language. This is Yeah. So it with the decision if that's true to just pull this next time to be clear there is a policy on here and it is >> is it a policy on policies? >> U it is a cross reference policy that does not need to come to you next month either if this one's not. >> Which policy would that be? And that is um BDD >> bravo delta delta electronic participation schoolboard meetings from remote locations but
103that's in schoolboard meetings >> but nothing changes with that policy except in the reference it as the new one if you adopt it. If you're not going to adopt a new one you don't need to change this. Um, I would also then be in favor of dropping BDD, but then also somehow keeping sufficient record of it of the fact that we did not adopt the changes so that when they revise it again in the future, we don't ultimately accidentally grandfather that one in the institutional knowledge on this board will change every two years according to retirements or otherwise. So to the fact to the extent that we can keep the institutional knowledge. Um does anyone want to see BDD next meeting? All right. Then I would say strike the strike the two for now. Um
104what other ones are um important enough to go over individually here in the moment? >> I I don't know that there are any that you need to go over individually unless there are questions or comments, things you want me to research. I think everything else is is either just semantic or >> All right. Well, I'm excited to see or I don't know if excited is the right word. I expect to see 4 8 12 15 16 17 18 19 minus 2. So 17 next time and some updates as it relates to to 10 cent on the electronic devices. Uh, cool. >> Thanks. >> All right. So, we're on to 9D, parent resource guide. >> This this item, board members, is for you to see the first draft of the or I should say the draft
105in progress of the parent resource guide for the fourthcoming school year. There really aren't any substantive changes in here unless they would be changes that you made in your policies that would then be reflected in here. an example if there's anything that was done and you can see in the document where what has been added uh those changes in there there is one inaccuracy in there I've already Dr. Strickles has already fixed it if you see that the the chairperson is noted to be M Johnson instead of Mr. Vice chair excuse me Mr. then we'll fix that until page. So really any any I mean I'm happy to go through this as well but you see it every year and it really just educates parents about the policies and the way those are implemented in
106schools. If you have any questions I'm happy to answer them. Any part of this you want to look at in more depth. I don't think any particular items uh struck me, but I can tell you for a number of reasons. I've um been in contact with a lot of parents of late and I'm hearing about um just communication generally. So, I'm curious about our strategy as it relates to disseminating this and making sure that it is accessible. I know that we have places on the website and what have you, but can we um can we make sure that we do a thorough um social element to make sure that it gets out to the public? >> Sure. >> Yeah, it's we we've moved in away from paper copying things like this unless that is requested.
107>> Yeah. So, I know that we have, you know, email channels. I I assume that there are some lesser used text channels. We clearly have a Facebook website that we're broadcasting this on. So to whatever extent we can do our best to make sure that is broad reach. >> If you if you look at um well I don't have the page number. I guess it's page six. There's signatory pages in here that every parent has to to sign. So every year um every parent is exposed to this document whether it's in back to school night or >> I don't think it's six. I don't know what page it is. Three, four. >> That's one right there. >> Oh, I see. Yeah. Yeah. It looks like um >> Mr. Gford has it up. >> Six. >>
108Yeah. For some reason, those ones aren't numbered, but you get it. >> So, but yes, we'll make sure that it's that it's widely descended. >> Thank you. and any feedback anybody has for how we can do that better. Always open to improve communication. >> I can tell you that I am probably near the least sophistic maybe not I don't know but I am I am not a particularly um I don't do a lot of social certainly the wrong person to advise but I'm sure there are uh staff members who who are considerably better at this than I. >> Okay. Well, thank you. That that's all on that unless you have questions. >> Think we're up for the budget. >> Uh oh, no, that's a resource. And I was like, shoot, if we get a 74page
109document on this year's budget, we're in trouble. [laughter] No, I'm about um so we've this is what we had at the end of May. We've since run um June payroll that payday is next Tuesday and we've also run the July written in June. So at this point they're just working on the accounts payable side. Um there's a lot of on the surface it looks like there is a um large surplus. Um but a lot of this is related to revenue that we're not going to receive. Um more the biggest piece is that $1.7 million in construction funds. So part of that is going towards the Aram's renovation. It will be um automatic carryover. We have received those funds. So they'll the county has that money but um it will be automatic carryover for next year
110for that portion of it. Um one of the other things that we've talked about as a staff at this point I'm anticipating we're going to be right around $2 million in carryover. Um and I had to go back and look at that because that's definitely a little bit higher than I would have liked for it to be and there's a couple of causal factors for that. The biggest one is we have about a million dollars in unfilled positions. If I go back and look at positions that we budgeted at the beginning that we never filled and then we had some positions where people left in the middle of a year. And if I total all of those up, it's right around a million dollars. And >> so that's inclusive of two counselors, two social workers,
111and a psychologist position that we were no longer able to fill. Yeah, it's um I can have my notes here. >> I'm hopeful that the seven to 13% staff raises will help remedy the fact that we can't compete enough to to hire these. >> I I I mean, I do think some of it is a factor of what we're experiencing, but I I think a lot of people, you know, when I talk to my colleagues, we're all seeing the same things. Um we had in terms of unfilled positions we had three school psychologists, three and a half counselors. Um we had a mainten a half a maintenance worker, a half of a mechanic, a half of a study teacher, a half of a elementary literacy. Um multiple school bus drivers in and out. Um one
112um really three quarters of culinary teacher that about nine and a quarter positions right there. Um the other thing that we're seeing is a dramatic increase in leave without pay FMLA. Um I went back for several years. If I go back to 2020 and we had um about $50,000 in leave without pay. This year we've had $135,000 without pay. So without naming names or or or any judgment, is is this related to like a mini baby boom that we've had staffwide? >> In some cases, some cases it's um it's illnesses in the family, someone's spouse, that sort of thing. Um we've seen a number of those. >> Um so that I mean that but that's a real big factor in what we're seeing um at the end. And I it's we knew that anecdotally just
113because of you know you guys see it when paperwork kind of comes across your desk and then we went back and said what's the actual figure and that's when I I was a little bit taken back when I saw the actual figure as where we are right now. >> Uh you said um potentially two million. So, what we've been doing for the last month or so is looking at any of the requests that we've had throughout the year to see is there any way we could do this now. >> Um, one of the big like the um the revamping of the system in here to make that so the audio visual system in the boardroom. So, that's something we've ordered equipment for. I know Mr. heard some of his staff were in here the other
114day taking a look at that. So any of those kinds of things that we could do. We did um vape detectors at the high school that had been a request. Um just a lot of those kinds of things um that have come up. >> Is there a dollar amount above which it's required to go through CIP? >> No. Like we're sitting on $2 million because we aren't able to afford our students three and a half counselors and three psychologists. Like could we somehow figure out how to get the urine smell out of the bathroom with the $2 million that was left over? >> The the issue right now would be that can you get the work done before the end of June, October? >> That's that was my followup is like what is the drop
115dead date for this? But what I would very much advocate for is asking that that money be put in CRM or a portion of that money be put in CRM so that we could do that work >> because that is something that you guys know has been in the capital improvements project for multiple years and it's just been pushed down over the course of time. Um but certainly we could we could look to getting some bids so that we would kind of have general idea of what the cost might be and then ask for that and fund balance at the end. >> Right. Question I have is um we the the new next year fiscal year's budget was a 2.7 million increase. Correct. >> Yeah. But you have to right off the bat we're fully
116staffed right now. I'm not talking about two million. I'm talking about one million. Um and also our um affordance from the county was 2.2 not the request was 2.7. >> That's right. That's right. So 2.2 million. If I could just make a contract still this. So we're in this is really an unprecedented time in terms of these I'm not even going to call them shrinking candidate pools. these non-existent candidates and it really puts schools and school boards in a position to have some discussions that we just haven't had before. Meaning at what point, you know, the the outcry from schools and from communities, ours too, for additional mental health support for students and we have these positions. So, I'll just I'll just choose the three and a half council positions. We have those. They're in
117the budget. They're funded. They're supported. At what point do you say about a position like that that's desperately needed? We We just can't find these people. We need to repurpose that money for something else. And you literally close the door on. That's that's not a position that school boards have been in, at least not in my three decades. >> [clears throat] >> I mean, >> so I think it's a new conversation. >> I mean, part of that makes me uncomfortable, right? So, like just because we can't find them now doesn't mean we should close the listing and re repurpose the money indefinitely. But for instance, if there are other external counseling services that we can hire, if we can outsource some of it, if we can whatever gets the people in the building andor on
118a screen to help our students, I'm all for. I would never support saying, "Well, we haven't been able to find a social worker for five years, so let's just close that that listing." I always want to recruit and and hope and try to find somebody. But in the interim, if we're going to go the whole year without somebody in that position, let's find a qualified professional in an equivalent certification or something that can actually help our students in the interim, but not like throw the baby out with the bathwater. >> That's what we've done. We we contracted we we've done those kinds of things where we could where where we could find people willing to do that. I don't um when we when we had the the meeting in in May regarding the budget, we
119made all these arguments we have to we have to have this money because of this and members of the board said we you know we told the board of supervisors you know specifically this issue this issue this issue >> we did. So, I don't like the I don't like the word repurpose because if if we made that argument then and we're not going to use the money for this reason, then we're doing exactly what the board may have suggested they didn't want to do a couple months ago. >> Yes. Um and >> well, sorry, what is the repurpose or what is that in response to? >> I use that word. I do want to clarify when I say repurpose, I mean through your budget process, not not down. I don't like I guess I'm saying
120that because we just saw an exorbitant increase in taxes and I don't people watching this as we heard last meeting are saying why or they didn't know and now they're hearing this and we're talking about re maybe reusing money and I just I just don't think it's a a conversation I'm comfortable having. I I think that's a that's a good point and I I do want to clarify that. Well, by repurpose, I probably shouldn't have said repurpose the school boards haven't been in a decision that a position to have to make decisions about these kinds of positions >> about vacant roles >> to repurpose the money to support someone else or even just not even ask for it. The point is to say you're going to end up with >> and this is a lot
121more than we had last year and this is a trend every year. uh end up at the end of the year with positions that you planned for supported that the county supported and then at the end of the fiscal year they're eight positions turned into 12 positions you end up with this unspent money >> uh Mr. key is softspoken and not near a microphone. So the question is, do we have any recruiting efforts and/or assistance in order to help us fill these? And I'm sorry, Andre. >> Yeah, that was pretty accurate. I >> I can I can give a quick answer to that and we can provide a longer one if you want to. There is a >> I did respond to that question that came really through the uh staff advisory. There's a lengthier
122response if you want to look at the minutes of that. Recruiting also is in a different place than I've ever seen. Um, the fruit of attending a traditional career fair is different now for school divisions, meaning we're really not seeing a lot of fruit from those. I think Flubana like a lot of school divisions well I should say a lot of smaller school divisions um has really weighed over the past five six seven years whether it's worth spending the money to send people to that there's a big one in Pittsburgh that people used to go to quite a bit and in my former divisions we used to get a lot of teachers from Pennsylvania now has the same crisis shortage that we do so you can go up and find all these teachers. So we
123my whole vision I take it too just deciding not going to spend money doing that. Um we're using a variety of print resources, digital resources. We do attend fairs. Uh there are fairs that are out there that we don't attend that we could attend. This is where I would probably need Dr. Sherman to give a full accounting of which ones we went to. Although I think it's my response. Uh but that's a I mean you raise a great everybody's trying to figure that out. How do we how do we market and promote and tap into what small candidate pool was out there because the old just go to JMU and set up a table and that that just doesn't doesn't do it anymore. I would say from my own perspective what this is worth just
124my experience when I was doing recruiting or directly involved in that in Jerusalem at that JMU I think when we first started seeing the shortage it wasn't anywhere near as cute as it is now but that's when school divisions who were able to started using incentive and I I'll never forget being at the the one at JMU and being next to Prince William where they were literally writing $5,000 checks to kids who would sign I mean the line to get to the press William table was out the door that nobody came to my news I think that significantly changed what those events look like and then just all the all the evolutions that have happened over the past five years with candidate roles with just the state of the pandmic has just change all that.
125Everybody's just kind of reeling trying to figure out what is the best way to tap into what little candidate pool is out there. Is it is it to revitalize our attendance affairs to go to specific ones? So, we've done that. We tried to target certain institutions to try to get a more diverse staff, you know, all kinds of ways to do that. Thank you. Appreciate that. >> That's very useful. Um, so I know that we have in our budget, and I'm excited for this in the event that we can actually hire someone, we have a director of mental and behavioral health that we're um supposed to be listing and and trying to hire for. Uh, I wanted to one uh click on that and see um where we are in terms of um recruiting for
126that role. And then two um to to Mr. Poland's uh point about repurposing money and and and that language. Um I would argue that if we are missing three and a half counselors and three psychologists, I wonder if we shouldn't think about or consider, are there other sort of like mentorship programs for for students who need help that like we should be tapping into that just aren't those particular certifications? That to me is not a a repurposing of money. That is a let's get the job done with the people we can we can get even if it's not the like Cadillac or my antiquated references Bentley or what have you version of that position. Can we still get the the need met through other means? >> And we're doing that where we can. One of
127the issues that we are running into is there's a state requirement for the number of counselors you have to have based on your student enrollment. That's >> that's 500 to one. No, the the ratio has changed a lot over the last couple years and I wouldn't want to speak it off the top of my head and we won't really know until the state resolves it budget this year. I was told that meeting on Monday that it might be July. >> Yeah, please remember that we do not have a fiscal year 24 budget. [laughter] >> Yeah. >> Um but I want to go back to some of the things that we've been that we've been working on. So, there were some safety concerns at Central that we've been addressing, black tops, asphalt, um, and also concrete
128walkway issues. We did pay the cafeteria debt. Um, we paid that for this past school year. Any >> that is that's a legal requirement. any any revenue that she if she's to get any payments in, then she understands that, you know, money is returned to us or applied to next year's debt. But it was in excess of $100,000 >> and we're statutoily required to pay that. Is that correct for the is once it's one year old, we are required to pay it >> and we are barred from um aggressive collections. >> Correct. It was $20,000 when six years ago when we first discussed um using collection efforts to get that moneyfold. >> Yeah. None of my statements were evaluated. I just wanted to make sure that everybody knew that one, we are required by law
129to pay that money after one year of it being debt. And two, we're also not allowed to to go through aggressive collections. >> Correct. Do you think that because this literally the year after we decided to use collections they passed this law? Do you think that there are people that's that now know they don't have to pay? >> Yeah. >> I mean probably a few more right now. >> Yeah. I mean we we talk about it every year for at least my six years. I mean now now they know >> and it snowball got >> Yeah. There's no >> Yeah. They've really limited I mean there were right or wrong there were things that we would do in the past to try to get the those funds back and you pretty much can't do anything
130but ask for it. I mean that's really who you are. >> Pretty please. >> But you can't you can't um we talked about before you can't do anything with the treasur's office. >> No, >> you don't you don't pay your you know your registration fee or you don't pay something down the hill there. You can't get your driver's license, put $100,000 in debt here, and there's no consequence. >> Well, I did want to confirm that none of our graduating students are having diplomas or anything withheld related to debt. >> Okay. >> You can't stop them going on field trips. I'm telling you, >> someone asked me about it the other day and I I cataloged it as like, oh yeah, asked this question. And so I just wanted to confirm every graduating senior would would
131not um every graduating senior will get their diploma. >> I did want to ask um because I I'm asking this because I know it's a big expense and and but I do feel like it's something we need to consider is there is about $660,000 that was budgeted for health insurance that was not expended because of those open positions. My recommendation would be that we do do a payment to the claim fund in that dollar amount um of what it's what was budgeted for health insurance but was not expended. Um we do have quite a few high cost claims this year. Um we do have funds in the in the fund to cover that but my concern is if that trend were to continue um then we might find ourselves in the red and our health
132insurance. I don't think any of us want that. >> Do you need three headshakes, thumbs up, or do you need an action item in order to do that? >> You need an action item. And in my mind, it's a budgeted expense. Um, but I because it's such a large payment, I didn't want to just do it. And somebody asked me later why I did that. Is there um are there three members on the board who are comfortable with Miss Gillum moving the money that is already budgeted for the health insurance into the collective pool to pay for not only this year's expenses but for the overall health of the system. >> How was it not expended? >> Because we didn't fill the position. >> So it's the pre it's functionally the premiums for staff members
133who are not currently hired. When I build people, when I build vacancies into the budget, I I I hold a dollar amount for insurance. >> I see. So, it's still health insurance related. >> Yes, ma'am. >> Got it. >> Yes. >> It is earmarked to pay for the employer side premiums for health insurance. >> Yeah. >> So, do we already know what insurance will cost in general next year? >> Yes, sir. We have a rate sheet for that. Yes. There was no there was no increase on the employee side and there was a slight increase on the employer side. >> Is is that what you meant the rate? >> Yes. >> Okay. >> So, we had been working under the assumption that it would be no more than I think it was 8.4% when we
134were doing our line items and I believe it came in less than >> it did. [clears throat] Um, so I guess board members, uh, who is comfortable or uncomfortable with, um, putting that money into the pool as it is or was directed? I mean, I I suppose the the upside of doing so is that in the future, we won't have to worry about further diminished bucket of money since we're a self-paid system. Uh, and that means in the future, we'll be less likely to need to move future monies in there. Uh, I would be comfortable because it is a health insurance expense and it was line item for health insurance and so I am I am comfortable doing that for the health of our health system. Uh, anyone else feel um compelled to utter a
135position? >> Of that $2 million is that $600,000 that we're referencing now included in that? >> Yeah. And my my two million is an estimate. It's kind of definitive number at this point of >> but is it inclusive thereof? >> No, it would that would that would bring it down to more like one side. >> So yes, the 600 would be part of the 2 million is what I'm hearing. >> I'm in favor. >> Anyone else? >> We've done this before. pretty much. >> I'm sorry. >> I remember 400. >> That was last year I think was 400. >> Anywhere between four and six I think in the past. Yeah. >> Yeah. >> That was after. >> Yeah. >> Uh so that is three. If if the superintendent or Miss Gillum uh feels like they
136need a board motion in order to do this, we can do it. You just need to tell us that that's the case. Are you comfortable with this as is? >> Yes. Is it It's something you budgeted. It's Yeah. I don't think you need to take action. You've already approved this budget. That's where it's >> Yeah. The other thing was I didn't know >> because we adjusted the >> the new rates and people changed plans. I couldn't have told you last month >> what would have been there because I didn't know what plans people were going to pick, >> right? >> Or people were going to be on plans or not be on plans. So, it um I certainly apologize that it's the middle of June, but that's kind of where we are in the budget
137world. Um one other thing I just want to mention um is that um there well there's two things I want to mention, I guess. Um there was a request to buy a van a new van for technology um a new used van. Um but I did not want to do that without also getting some feedback from the board if that was something that um >> do we traditionally buy many vehicles. Um and is that part of our was that part of our existing budget andor appropriation >> budget line for that? This need kind of arose um throughout the year, but my understanding is there are some pretty significant issues with the current van and it is not going to be roadw worthy when the inspection inspires that they cannot get parts to repair it to
138make it work. >> And will this exceed that correctly? >> Will this exceed the technology line which currently has 178,000 remaining? >> No. >> I'm not asking if you're buying a $200,000 van. I'm asking if everything else that we need to appropriate will exceed the budget line. >> No, in technology I don't think so. >> I mean, usually we purchase the vehicles out of transportation, but >> Oh, okay. Well, then the transportation line, which is 700. Yeah, >> that'd be a pretty fancy van. >> Um, no. I think the van the cost of the van was somewhere around 45. And so do you want do you need three headshake slashthumbs up here or how do you want >> I could kind of just like if you guys are okay with it I'm fine with moving
139forward but that was another one it wasn't in the original budget so I just want to make sure that we were okay with that because I know you've had some questions about vehicles in the past. >> Uh board members >> so it would come out of the technology line. >> It comes out of transportation. >> Transportation come out of transportation. Is there transportation money to cover it? >> There should be. >> I'm not I'm not hearing a lot of voices. Is this um >> if it's if it's a transportation expense and we budgeted the money in transportation for this current year, I'm in favor. >> You did not have a line in the transportation budget for vehicles this year, >> right? But we have $40,000. >> You should have $40,000 >> by the end of
140June there. I'm still fine with it. >> Thank you. So that's one. Is there another board member who's inclined to to speak on this particular request? >> What are the repairs that >> uh I was sent an email >> different you know right off you jumping in. >> Yeah. And and I I appreciate both the time and the um details here since these things should be done in public and and need should be um a threshold of need should be met in order to to do this. Mr. Gford, >> the age of the vehicle is just very hard to find parts when it needs to be repaired. >> So, uh Mr. Gford's not a microphone. So, I'm hearing that the age of the van is such that it is difficult to find parts when it
141needs to be repaired. I can give some specifics, Mr. Giver, if you wanted to, based on what was said by Dr. Strickland. It's a 1998 van with 145,000 miles on it. It has an electrical issue that prevents the airbag from working. That's the reason it's not going to be inspected. Um, there is not a control module for it. So, that that's why that can't be repaired. And then the AC does not work. for the AC are listed out. >> Uh so based on that, uh what I'm hearing with the airbag and the AC, I'm actually concerned about legal liability should that van be in an accident. And we have a non- workinging airbag. So I'm inclined to provide a second nod to do what we need to do given those circumstances. I wouldn't be in
142favor of it. Um, for me it sounds like ending year spending, but I understand the situation. Um, I think it's uh a lot of vehicles in the county that set and aren't being used. That's that's just my thought. Uh, anyone else before we move on to the next item? >> If I may. >> Uh, sure. Mr. Ger, >> the reason we need a a van of this type is because equipment that we have to use. We have used smaller vehicles and we can make multiple trips but it's you know a waste of our time and a waste of gasoline if we have to move say 50 computers and monitor to the high school for neighbors and move them build ones back then we have to do multiple labs. So there's things reasons why we need
143larger vehicles. For example, we just did the high school wireless replacement. You and I replaced all the access points in the building. There's over 180 of them. We had to take all the new ones over to the high school, bring all the old ones back. We had to move four ladders, some of which were longer than six feet. You know, we're talking 8 12 feet. We don't have a roof rack to put the ladder. We have to put it inside the vehicle. My Jeep does not fit a ladder of six feet, let alone larger than that. So, we need something larger in order to move the amount of equipment that we have to roll out. So, we're just asking for something larger to accommodate our need. Even a minivan doesn't really meet our need. All
144right. So there are two I will um [clears throat] wait about another 30 seconds here and if no third member speaks up then we'll move on to the next request >> or but our budget related item. >> I guess one question we have is 40,000 that's the cheapest that that's out there for that type of thing. >> We we have a vendor we deal with that does state contract pricing and um I mean if you try to buy understand what that's like right now. [laughter] But um he's assuring us that he's giving us he's given us a quote um and this is a vendor we just passed that state. Yeah, I would support other information. >> Yeah. And and for some additional context, so one that's that's three for that particular item. Um it is
145not uncommon um for Miss Gillum and team to withhold doing large expenditures till the end of the year for the sake of making sure that um we are budgeting our allotted amount. We have no we have no capacity to go over our existing budget and uh which is why we generally manage down to about a percentage or have carryover funds. it is just fiscally responsible to to make sure that we're largely in the black or well in the black before we make these sort of expenditures. Um and so this is not uncommon to get these requests at the end of the year. Um and I think a smart way to to manage a division. These are obviously large cost items and so it's important that we are read in and asked about them and it's
146important that we despite not having motions that there's um at least majority consensus. Um I just want to mention that um one of the things that we're facing right now is an increase in um death and I guess vandalism. Um so we've um tried to put some steps in place. Um it's mainly involving our vehicles. >> Um quite a few issues at the bus garage. Um and so we are looking at um we we've ordered more cameras. We've tried to increase the lighting. Um we may need to look at doing additional things with the fencing at the bus garage, but it's just um kind of becoming an ongoing issue. >> Are we involving the sheriff's office accordingly? >> Absolutely. Um and and where where we can, we're looking at um at our camera footage and
147that sort of thing. It's just it's just been very difficult. Um, and we are talking to staff about when you park a vehicle, make sure you got it under a light and, you know, we're trying to make sure there's a camera there and just be more deliberate about those kinds of things. Um, because it's just an ongoing issue and I've talked to some of my colleagues, it seems to be an issue everywhere right now. catalytic converters and anything with copper. >> We've been losing copper from our vehicles >> or metal like canalytic converters and that stuff. >> Yes. >> Copper out of electrical wise. >> It's awful. >> Yeah, Andrew or sorry, Mr. Pull, I didn't mean to be informal with you. You seem to be nodding your head. Is this something that you're um
148largely familiar with? >> No. Well, I am with this issue, but I was acknowledging someone else. >> Very well. >> I believe that's all I have unless you have other questions. >> Um I had two questions for you. Uh one was to double back on the director of mental health. Is that I know that you're not it's unfair to ask ask you all, but like are are we actively recruiting? Do we have interest? Do we are we optimistic that we can land an individual that can help lead our division and tell us what resources we need in order to help our students? >> We have applicants I think they're scheduling interviews next week. They have an interview panel. So forward with that. >> Lovely. >> Yes, >> that is remarkable. Thank you for the update.
149I am uh that was one of the things on this budget that I feel remarkably passionately about and I am hopeful that we can find some leadership to tell us what services we need and how we can best help our students. Uh and then last bit here obviously we we you you gave us a rough number of 2 million and then uh we've made some appropriations or at least acknowledge the fact that we're going to move money to the health bucket and also for that particular vehicle. when it's all said and done, there will be a there will be a number um that promises to be somewhere around 1.4 4 million just so this board not all board members have been here for the end of year uh process but uh the way that works
150is as of June 30 all the money unspent and please correct me if I'm wrong all the money that is unspent goes back to the county and it would require a vote from this board if we are going to ask for carryover funds or for them to allow us to use money for things like please give the money for the CRM to to fix the flooring in uh in that bathroom in the elementary school. If the board wants to speak as a whole to ask the board of supervisors to reappropriate that money elsewhere, it would require three members of this board to vote accordingly. And so whatever that number is belongs to the county. And then we would ask I I will note that I am a a private citizen as well. And so in
151the event that the board does not um make a motion to do so, I will still advocate that they redistribute some of those funds for things like the flooring in the elementary school as it's my understanding that that was delayed or pushed. And so as a citizen, I find it compelling. But, uh, if there are things that this board is interested in speaking with one voice as a board for the county to reappropriate any, um, carryover funds, then, uh, I would ask that you all think about it. And when would you need a motion by? >> We won't finalize the carryover bouts. It'll probably be October. We'll be we have one more final number. Um and then usually it's November when we go to the board of supervisors if they're going to make that request.
152>> Okay. So we have a lot of a lot of months here and a lot of accounting to do in the interim. >> And at this point like we have you see quite a few incumbrances on our budget right now. So at this point we're um we you know in some cases we've placed orders and in other cases you know like we found out well you can't get this and so we're eliminating that. I'm also working with governor school and project return who were the fiscal agents for me because they have >> prep also >> I'm sorry >> prep also >> prep is not embedded in our budget okay prep has their own separate budget um but those two are within our budget so they have carryover it impacts our budget as well so just
153trying to figure out what it is they're going to do with the remaining funds that they have so there's still a lot of moving parts um there's lots of big spreadsheets >> and they're also part of our health system right so it's possible that there are um cash flow things to come forth from both the Blige Governor School and is just >> Governor School is not part of our health. >> That's not part of our health. Which ones are part of our health? >> Correct. >> That's the only one. And so it's possible there's needs from them as well. >> Yeah. Um don't think so. Anyway, we're continuing to monitor it and and at this point I do want to say even if it is in that 2 million range, that's right around four and
154a half% which is not >> it's way bigger%. >> And when you think about I would I would actually contest that because every year I've been on this board, we've given back 800,000 or more >> and that so initially that seems like okay, we're doing a really good job budgeting. I'm not saying that we're not, but when you take 800,000, a million, 1.2 up somewhere up to maybe two two million, next year's budget will start with a number that we legitimately had maybe four and a half percent left over. We don't remove back out that four and a half% when we go back to build that budget. We leave it in there and then we ask for an increase. So incrementally, that's how we go from a $39 million budget to a $53 million budget
155in six years because incrementally that number continues to grow. As we give that money back to the county, they don't give it back, they spend it. So that money just continues to grow and continues to grow and continues to grow. That's that's how we see such a huge budget increase in my opinion, not just here, but down the hill. Well, I can assure you that we're continuing to monitor the budget and and when we don't have ESRE money in there, that budget's going to drop down below that 53. Um the I can also promise you that the raises that we did are going to substantially impact next year's budget. I also found out last week how much money we were getting from the state for this year. So, I want you to think about that.
156I I I work very hard to make sure that we're in the black and not the red, but it's very difficult when you don't know what the number is. If you if we didn't know as citizens what we were going to get paid, it's very difficult to do a budget and then go and then somebody go, "Oh, by the way, sales tax dropped. Going to take that back from you." It's it's very difficult to manage a budget when you don't know what's coming in. >> Yeah. I still don't know how much money we're getting for next year. No idea. >> Yeah, that is a black box. I would also argue that with these positions that we're not filling yet, psychologist and counselor positions, for example, um it may be foolish, but I I would rather
157set on the optimism on the side of optimism and hope that we can find novel ways to recruit and to get staff because these are the positions that really impact the lives of our students. So, I don't know why packing that in makes any sense if we can um continue to fight and try to try to recruit or to find other functional equivalents that that at least help our students and and help serve some of the same needs. >> Um you don't have anything in your packet 24 yet. Um we are we're currently um building everyone in payroll and um we'll then start generating mock payrolls and you should have a line out of budget at your July meeting if everything goes as planned. Um we do have um our software system is getting an
158upgrade so hopefully that won't impact some of the things that we're having to do this during this point in time. Um, the other thing that I'll mention is we did get um we did get fuel pricing for next year and it's substantially lower than we were paying this year. So, I'm very excited about that. Um, it I didn't bring it with me today, but it's it's almost half of what we were paying for some of our things. And we were able to get a locked in price for propane as well, which is huge. So, I feel like um at least in that regard, we should be in much better shape next year. and hopefully there's no crisis that makes that change um over the course of the the year. >> Thank you, Brena, for everything
159you did. >> Won't be under stress >> and congratulations on uh on being a finalist. I'm confident it is welld deserved. >> Thank you. >> All right, so we're on to unfinished business. Do any board members uh want to bring up any unfinished business? Uh, I would like to probably unsurprisingly um I we've had multiple and so I I don't know if this really belongs in unfinished or new and I'm comfortable either way. So um excuse me, but uh as it relates to to behavior in the schools. So I again I've been um talking with a large number of constituents and parents and teachers. Um, apparently you can't knock on five doors um in in Palmyra without hitting a a staff member's door, which is wild. Uh, just the the density. And that's what happens
160when you're the largest employer in the county. Uh, but one of the things in my discussions that I've heard time and time again uh relates to um behavior and and needs in the classroom. And I I I am struck by the fact that this board has um perfect visibility, if you will, to students who receive 10 days plus sus out of school suspension. Those are the cases that that we get to see closed. I'm not violating anything because it's broad brush. We we get to see, you know, long suspensions and potential expulsions if there were. Uh, but we have near zero visibility other than what we hear secondhand from others as to behavioral trends in our schools. And by that I mean we hear it, we hear it summarized, I believe and um listen to
161and um I'm shocked by some of the things I hear from from staff and administration both both at the door and in this room and I feel like we just don't have good tracking data. And so I don't know to what extent anyone else on this panel or on this board um cares to um agree with me or to move forward, but I genuinely think that we need good tracking data as it relates to behavioral incidents in the schools. I don't know if the right threshold is um uh a behavioral referral or some kind of request from for an administrator to um to help with a student case. But I believe that this board in order to do its job and understand the challenges in the classroom need to know how many referrals we're getting
162from each school as it relates to insubordination or how many we're getting um related to to fights or physical intera uh altercations that lead to less than 10day suspensions. And so I genuinely think that we need to do a better job holding ourselves accountable and to having better visibility. And if other if two other board members are inclined, I would like to ask the staff to produce a monthly report related to incidents in each of our buildings so that we can have a better handle on tracking data and um making sure you know I think step two from getting that information and having the data is then understanding what outcomes are like how are we closing the loop with the students and the staff. How are we supporting the staff and how are we supporting
163the students? Um I firmly believe in the adage of hurt people hurt people. I believe that behavioral incidents uh largely come from trauma and things out like in the students lives that students don't come to school and think I'm I'm going to be bad today. I'm going to I'm going to act up that it's not getting enough sleep because something's happening at home, not getting enough food on the table, etc. Like these things happen. And so I just don't know how we can uh pretend to have a handle on on student mental and behavioral health if we're we if we don't have some kind of um mechanism or tracking for it. >> Okay. Yeah, thank you. >> Sorry, I know it's a lot, but >> and I spoke about that earlier. We do have good
164data. We do have tracking data and we're mandated to report that to the state. So we do have that data. The question is how to get that into the board's hands and what you would what it look like um a recording of just the codes that are in power school related to the different I don't know that that would be meaningful but I'm more than happy to hear I have worked with boards in the past that did get a report of that basically out of powers school and others that didn't I'm happy to I would want a little more feedback on what you would want to I'm assuming you wouldn't just want a spreadsheet with a bunch of codes that you would have to reference to people, >> but [clears throat] we can do that.
165>> Yeah, I don't know what you've experienced in other divisions. No, I'm not interested in seven cases of code 390 because that's not actually meaningful or insightful for this board without a reference sheet. And so um whatever it is will be public and should be uh you know at a third or fourth grade level because that's what most information is presented at. So to the extent that we can get from me as an individual board member for at least the next six months here, uh I would like to see some kind of statement related or category that is uh decipherable and insightful as to what um the teachers are experiencing and and what the students ultimately are um being held accountable for. I don't know if anyone else cares to um uh cares to see
166these things. >> I would just offer the caution that behavioral data in particular is often skewed because it's often viewed that the teacher can't control her classroom, his or hers if there are a number of referrals and that doesn't reflect well on the teacher. So I I find that the data is often skewed in that particular area. >> Well, my part on that uh we already get a incident report on people that come before the board, you know, for discipline problems. Um we might not hear everything. You know, I would say minor, you know, smaller incidents, but um I imagine y'all already had that information. We do all of it for sure. Um I'll propose this. Maybe I could go to U find locate a report that has been used in localities where I've served
167in the past and send that to you. It would be part of a public record. go back into the minutes and just take a look at it and see if it's something that would be of any value to just as a starting point. I I'm certainly welcome to any step forward in in a way to bring visibility to this board of other of student behavior and and discipline. And um I mostly worry that that one and and this is an indictment on anyone and it isn't specific to any particular cases, but I am concerned that one if behavioral referrals are not um are not met by administration and and dealt with in a way that our staff could feel unsupported. And then two, I'm concerned that if students um are showing symptoms by acting out
168or having these incidents and we're not meeting them with the services they need to get through the the disease, like the behavioral incidents are a symptom of broader things. And so if if we're not then um meeting them with the services they need in order to overcome that, then I don't know how we could expect things to change for them. I I think that's well said and I I just want to add for what it's worth, I do think that a lot of those services in those circumstances are are the very services we've been talking about not being able to fill and a wider partnership to meet a lot of the needs that we're seeing now that are again unprecedented. I think it's more and a lot of times it's more than what the schools
169are equipped to do without those specialized supports. Do we have a have we ever gotten a price for day services? Region 10 used to provide day services. So for those at home and those in the room, day services are and and please correct me uh people who know more than me that are part of the administration. Day services are students having difficulty with things. There is a an expert in in the field of mental health that can provide group and individualized settings. uh historically region 10 were in the schools. I don't know the the former source of that that money. It may very well have been state funded. It dried up some years ago. Region 10 is not in our building and the students don't we never came up with a replacement. This is far
170be before my time on this board. But schools in Virginia didn't come up with a a replacement for those services. They were just lost. So like what would it cost our you know if I got three psychologists and three and a half counselor positions open and that's some odd amount of money. What would it cost to replace the day service from from region 10 or to partner with region 10? >> We're we're just now in the middle of I won't say negotiating just exploring a partnership to provide the therapeutic day. >> Yeah. to provide that very >> we know a little more about what that looks like and where those services come from. We'd be coming to you to talk with you about it. >> And any dissonance there between Dr. Gretz and I is
171the fact that we're not full-time employees and we don't get to see every conversation that you have or every meeting that you have. And so I thank you for having those discussions and I'm excited to hear more about it because we just need to we need to find ways to help them and we need to diminish the amount of incidents that we have in the building. >> Dig up some more details if you wanted. >> Uh you don't have to do it now, but I would like to see it in in this boardroom. Um, anything else people want to add on behavior or behavioral andor mental health? Because I believe they're two sides of the coin. >> Okay. So, uh, that was, uh, an item in new business. Um, I was going to bring up
172the the bathroom issue actually myself. I I had heard that that was the case and that the either CIP or CRM that that that it was on the fiscal plan and that it then got delayed a year. >> Well, it's the the way the capital improvement plan is developed in many it's developed with our committee Mr. Riven house served on that committee and then it moves this board. it's approved by this board, it goes to the county. Once it's approved by the county, it doesn't mean all of the things in there are actually funded. There's then another um process that the county goes through to decide which of those things are going to be. >> And so is it true >> this has been on that the one you have approved, it has not been
173funded. >> It has not been funded. Okay. And of course, you know, these scenes compete with other capital improvement in the county and other capital improvement items in our division. But I suppose that uh it is ripe for um request or advocating at the at the county board level um come carryover time. I and then the last thing is I know that some odd months ago I went to a curriculum committee and um was impressed with um the work they were doing there and was excited to hear next steps and how we can support them. And so to the extent that that's not yet on our agenda whenever they are prepared to share information I'm sorry did I say curriculum I meant testing I'm sorry uh the like the testing uh committee and so um
174whenever they are prepared to share anything I hope that we are welcoming to them >> and that is a big part of those discussions I reckon the start of the meeting would stay on the the newly added SGAA assessments and we have to get three times a year and what to do about growth which assessments I do think some of that is subject to change. >> Well, whenever it is finalized and or there are recommendations or there are ways that we can support them, I as a board member would like to to hear from them and um would like to help however I can. Um, I know that was a lot for me on new business. Um, having a lot of conversations and so there's a a lot flowing around in this rather dull brain
175of mine and so I'm afraid if I don't get them out they'll be lost to the ether. Um, any other new business. All right, then we are on to action items. Uh, 12A, approval of the music theory textbook adoption. Uh this is the digital uh work on music theory. Is that right? Uh >> I move we approve the music theory textbook recommendation. >> So there's a motion uh from Miss Johnson. Is there a second? >> Second. >> Uh any discussion on the music theory textbook? >> I've got a question before we vote. Has anybody ever looked at Have any of y'all looked at >> Yeah. >> Read it online? >> Yeah, it's online. >> Yeah, I didn't look at >> If there If there was something I had a concern with, I'd have it written
176down. >> So, Andrew is ready to talk about augmented sevenths and uh >> I didn't understand most of it to be honest with you. >> It's a hard I mean, it's I was >> first one I've never seen because it would be lost to me. >> It is a uh music theory is one of the things that really stress out the music majors. I spent a lot of time in band and choir in college and music theory is the uh is is the thing that weeds people out who think that they want to do that professionally. So it is it's complex but I think the textbook helps considerably. >> All right then all those in favor of adopting the music theory textbook please say I >> I. Any opposed? 50. We have a new music
177theory textbook. approval of the VSBA membership fees for 2324. We had a uh fairly vibrant and robust discussion on that earlier, but is there anyone who is willing to make a motion? >> Uh [clears throat] with reservation, I move to approve the VSBA membership fees for 2023 24. >> Uh is there a a second with or without reservations? a second. >> Uh this is a time for discussion. Um it is clear that please >> Johnson I would say this is your last year. >> I know crazy although no see what happens. >> Uh I would caution uh in that I I think it is fiscally reckless to not have this um service available. We can explore I I offered to explore other options earlier. it didn't seem as though there was consensus. So, it is
178either this or um really we're in the wind here. So, it it sounds like uh there are a few things that this board agrees on. Uh one of them being uh we're not thrilled about this vote. Uh that said, uh all those in favor of um excuse me, of approving the VSBA membership fees for 2324, please say I. I. I. All those opposed? >> No. >> 32. Uh, we have adopted the BSBA membership. Duce. We are now on to approval of the title 1, 2, 3, and 4 A application. I don't know if there's um anyone to to speak to this or if there are questions from the board. >> Well, these were presented last month. No changes here. I'm happy to plug into specific ones, but um or if there questions or you want
179to look at specific >> I've read them for years and I'm uh confident to recommend the approval of title 1, two, three, and 4 A applications. >> I'll second. >> I have a motion and a second. Is there any discussion? >> All those in favor, please say I. I >> I any opposed? They are approved. We're now on to 12D approval of SLEOU. >> This is the school law enforcement program that we discussed last month with just a renewal of the >> Is there a motion? I'll make a motion we approve the >> It's all right. It's It's hard to read. So, I have a motion to approve the SLE MOU. Is there a second? >> I'll second. >> Is there any discussion? >> All those in favor, please say I. >> I. >> Any
180opposed? 50. The SLPOU is approved. We have three additional items that were added to the um action items. Um the first one being the I don't remember which order you said it, so I'll let you. >> Sure, I'll take it over. Um in order to clarify schoolboard salaries from the past and moving forward to the future, I have two motions to go with that. The first being that I move the Fluana County School Board ratify the the salaries it established and paid to its members for the 20134 through 2022 23 fiscal years as well as the salaries paid to the chairpersons for 2017 18 through 2022 23 fiscal years as set forth in attachment EA A with the correction of the chair's salary for 202122. 22. >> Dr. Gretz, do we have capacity to show
181this on the screen since it is referenced in the motion and an exhibit and therefore part of the public record? >> How would we do that? Mr. Gford, this is a >> I'm sorry. >> Who has the document? >> We just email it to you. >> It's a shared document. >> You have to share it with >> I beg everyone's pardon. Uh, this needs to be shown in public and so we're gonna um pause here for a moment until we can get it up. Uh, Josh, do you want to pause your share so that you're not broadcasting your email? >> Okay, >> sure. Sure. >> So, we'll get this um hooked up here and um Okay, headed your way. >> Perfect. So now we figured out how to share files uh midstream. So we shouldn't
182lose that uh institutional knowledge the next time that we need to do this. What was it? SBOAB or something. >> SBOAB. >> We need to make sure that we can do that in the future. Great. So, if we pull up these numbers here, um the specific thing I want to call is the uh line item for the chair on 2122. You'll see that that number is 6919. The chair changed hands during that year. And so, um that is just a clerical error. We will revise this. It will be reposted with the revised number. That is an action item for um all the administration here. Uh but that but we have a motion. Uh honestly I forget if we have a second yet so I'll ask for a second >> if there is one. >> I
183second it. >> So I have a motion and a second. Um any discussion? All those in favor please say I. >> I. Any opposed? 5. Um, thank you. And that will be uh in board docs and in the public record accordingly. Um, I believe there was two more items. Um, my second motion simply establishes the school board salaries where they are and maintains them for another year with no increase. So I move that the Sana County School Board establish the salary for its members beginning January 1, 2024 at $6,6804 annually and the salary for its chairperson beginning January 1, 2024 at $8,139.96 annually. Um, which maintains current salary amounts as authorized by applicable Virginia law. >> Correct. I have a motion. >> I have a second from Mr. Renhouse. Any discussion? >> The only reason
184I'm not going to support it is because I I just don't like the idea of of not having a month for the public to have justice, but I also understand the importance of getting it done after July. So, it's more of a principal thing. May not not the fact that I don't have to be public or that it doesn't it's not necessary. I appreciate that and uh thank you for voicing your concerns. Uh I'm going to support it because it's a 0% increase on what we received from previous years and uh so I appreciate that. Any other discussion? All those in favor please say I >> I all those opposed. >> No. >> Uh 41 the schoolboard salary for the next fiscal year has been set or rather excuse me these these come into effect
185in January. So I want to be clear that our fiscal years are actually a skew uh by about six months here. So apologies for the misspeak. Uh and then we have one last uh action item. Uh Miss Johnson, are you prepared? >> Absolutely. Uh it's a personnel item. I move the board approve a renewal of Dr. Gret's contract for an additional four-year term. >> Second. Uh may I make a friendly amendment that this is a new contract that supersedes the previous and so the length of the total contract from from this year on is four years. >> Certainly. >> So with friendly amendment do I have a second? Was that you? >> Yes sir. >> Uh Mr. Poland has a second. Uh any discussion? This is the this is the fun discussion. Um so I'll
186start. I am uh remarkably happy with the decision that this board made when we hired Dr. Gretz. I believe that you're doing a fabulous job here. I believe that uh we have just started to see um some of your impact. I am still wildly excited about project-based assessment and moving away from standardized testing for the sake of standardized testing. I believe we are a healthier division and our students are in great hands with your leadership. And I believe that you deserve um uh I believe you deserve to know that you are uh welcome and and valued here and deserve um a four-year contract so that you have some certainty about your own personal future. And so I am u genuinely thrilled uh to take this vote. >> Thank you. Very very kind. other members. >>
187Yeah. Either one. I'll let you boys sort it. >> I agree with everything I've done with the board. I think the last amount of time they jump. So, I've been really impressed with your leadership and your engagement. >> Yes. Uh I've heard nothing but good things about you, Mr. Gre. You know, um people that I talk to in the county and um still waiting on their cup of coffee. Thank you. >> Uh Miss Johnson or Mr. Polland, anything to add? >> I can't top any of that. >> I'm happy to support it. >> I I will note that this is a u among the handful of issues where uh five yeses generally or at least enthusiastic support is uh in alignment. So all those in favor of supporting the superintendent's contract for a four-year term,
188please say I. I. I. >> Any opposed? 50. Uh, congratulations. >> Thank you very much. And I do want to say that it's reciprocated. I'm thrilled to commit to another four years. Very happy to be here with my family. The kids are thriving in our school. Uh, three of them and my fourth will join our schools next year in kindergarten. And we're just very happy to be here. I'm very happy to work with and for you and the people in this community. Thank you. >> Thank you. All right. So, uh, that was a lot, but now we're on to our second round of public comments. Um, as I indicated before, this is a time for community members, whether you live in Flubana County, have students in Fluana County, are a staff member, have business before
189this board to come forth and be heard for up to three minutes. We just ask that you uh not direct any comments at any particular individuals here. uh that we treat one another with respect and that we do our best to um stick with the three minute limit. And so is there anyone who'd like to come forth and be heard? >> Uh and yes, please just uh if you will. >> Barber, I live in where the heck do I live? What Colombia? It's a Colombian district. Is it Colombia or is it Cunningham? >> I'm sorry. >> Just give us your street address if you would. Okay. 3857 Retro Road. Getting really tired. I haven't eaten so I'm getting a little >> out. I do want to ask a question though. The hold on Virginia School
190Board Association and depending upon them for policy. Why is this such a difficult and I'm asking and I know you cannot answer me. Okay. But I don't understand why that's a difficult issue. I believe probably every person here is capable of creating policy. And if you don't create a policy that's good, your public's going to Oh, excuse me. No, your people are going to let you know in your area. So, I'm kind of for getting away from the state a little more and more into where you are. That's just my perspective and I'm kind of hoping one of you guys will also see that because there's more out there in this place. There are a lot of talented people out here. So reach out. Maybe uh we can help. You know, I don't think policy
191is that hard. Maybe it is, but I'm thinking we could all do it. >> Thank you so much. >> Thank you. >> Is there anyone else who would like to uh come and be heard? I'm Gary Davis. I live at 147 Justin Drive over Sigmore Square, uh the Fort Union District. Um what I was reading earlier, I was glad to see that the board talked about the urine smell tonight. Like I really appreciate that. Um my intent tonight was not to disrespect anyone on the board or the administration about those conditions. Um, I just wanted to bring up more for awareness to inform parents and the board members um of those conditions because I took a tour and I saw it and if any other parent took a tour of it and then they went
192to that that bathroom, that would be the first thing that they they smelled. So, I appreciate the comments tonight about possibly looking into it in the future um at future meetings. Um, additionally, I just urge board members to take at least three maybe maybe two to four tours a year um at the schools to assess their needs and to evaluate the conditions. Um, that way you just get eyes on um our schools and where our children are going. Um, and I have two minutes left. So, I would just like to remind everyone that the blood drive is tomorrow at the county high school. Flukco EMS education students have worked very hard and they're 51 more pints away um before June 30th to maximize their scholarships that they're earning. Um tomorrow morning at 9:00 a.m. to
1933 p.m. tomorrow at the high school and on June 24th is at the Lake Montello Volunteer Fire Department. Same time you can set appointments if if that works for you, but they do have ability for for walk-ins. And again, it's it's a blood. It's their first annual blood drive blood drive for the memorial of the Fitzgerald 7 and um a 2015 Flugo graduate, the Navy sailor. They're all Navy sailors um to go to Rigsby. So, it's for a great cause and helping students get the scholarships that they've earned. And um my wife's a phabotamist and I think we looked it up. So, I'll donate blood tomorrow. She's gonna donate blood tomorrow. I would love to be able to donate again on the 24th, but there's there's a gap I think of 50 or 60 days
194where you can get blood. So, I can only do it and like so that'll be two pints that they get. So, 49 more and just ask the community to help out. Thank you for your time. >> Thank you. Is there anyone else who would like to um speak this evening? Chelsea hit. Um my address is 1551 Bib Church Road. Um so in the district um my daughter is Adelene Hit. She is born in second grade this year. Um but I just wanted to comment just share a couple thoughts. Um the first one is about the student attendance that you talked about. Um, I just think it's a little ironic, um, how a lot of the decisions made here on the school board, you know, throughout the last few years shut down schools, um, our school
195in particular. And, you know, you rewarded kids for staying home. You rewarded kids for being isolated. Um, you didn't give kids a chance to come to school. And now you wonder why they don't want to come to school. what's a natural consequence of shutting down schools for a while for you know months and even years. Um so you know you created atmosphere where kids were rewarded for staying home and now you wonder why these kids don't want to show up to school. So I think part of that is that I also think it is a mental health thing. I know a lot of kids um have dealt um the mental health of of students have um it's been it's been an issue recently I think and part of that is due to COVID and isolation
196and everything like that. Um and our experience personally um the last couple years with Adeline is um in 20 22 um just in regards to school attendance still um she was forced to stay home from school. She'd been in school and she was so happy to be back and then we got a call that she was possibly around somebody that was tested positive for COVID and we were told that she could not attend school for 10 days. Um I was really frustrated because um she was fine. She wasn't sick at all. Um obviously I was monitoring her. I was very aware of how my daughter is feeling. Um, and so, you know, we pushed back and we said, "No, like we don't agree with that. She has services in school. She gets, you know, therapy.
197She gets speech therapy and occupational therapy and, you know, she needs to be in school. She needs that." Um, and, um, she wasn't allowed to. Um, and then this year I get a letter sent home from the school saying, "Why isn't your daughter in school? she's been missing too many school days and that's in fact because she has had been sick a few times with different colds and viruses and obviously as a responsible parent I'm not going to send her to school if she's sick. So um I just find it very ironic um over the last couple years how that has switched from going oh you're not allowed to bring your healthy daughter to school to why are you sending your sick daughter to school um and she's missing too much work or too much
198school. So >> thank you so much. >> Yes. Thank you so much. Is there any Is there anyone else who'd like to come forth and be here? All right, then I'm going to close our second round of public comments. Uh we are now on to school board member comments. Are there any school board members who um wish to speak? I I got I want to say >> please. >> Um we only What's today the 14th? Six days. So we haven't we have six days until uh the filing deadline for candidates for the school board. And >> [clears throat] >> uh I promise I haven't talked to Andre about this at all, but I wholeheartedly support Andre and um I hope that the rap band district will as well. And um I hope that if there's
199anybody considering filing in the last six days that they will reconsider um and allow you to run unopposed and and serve an entire term. >> Actually half a term. It's a special election. So he'll be back. >> Sorry about the rest of the term. >> So for the uh for everyone else since it was brought by another member uh we appointed our our friend uh Mr. key here. Um in uh I believe the November meeting uh he's required to sit for a special election uh this year and then that seat will be back on the ballot in 25. >> My apologies. Either way, I hope if anybody's considering obviously it's their right, but um I hope that they would allow you to serve out the best. >> Thank you. Um all righty then. Uh, I
200I would just like to thank everybody for the indulgence. I know that there was a lot of meat here tonight and it's um I think it's important stuff and so I know it's a long evening, but thank you. Uh, all right. So, information items. So, there is a VSBA newsletter and upcoming events in your packet. Clearly, we talked about some of those and also there's uh little interest, but they're there. Uh, there are some uh press releases and upcoming events from the stools. And if there's nothing further, I will entertain a motion for adjournment. >> I move we adjourn for the evening. >> Uh is there a second? >> Second. >> And I can tell you this will be a 50 like every other like every other journment. Nothing more we agree on than Dr.
201Gretz and going home. So all those in favor please say I. I. >> I. 5. We are adjourned for the evening.