2023 01 26School Board Meeting

001Dr. Gretz, were there any um action items coming out of close session? >> There were. Mr. Chair, I recommend that the board adopt the personnel action as presented in close session. >> I move we accept the recommendation. >> I'll second it. Um all those in favor of adopting the personnel recommendation, please say I. >> I. >> Uh 401 absent. Thank you so much. All right, it's now time in our meeting for um the only round of public comments. So, this is an opportunity for anybody uh who's part of the community, meaning parents, staff, anyone with with business in front of this board to come forth and and be heard. We'll ask that you limit your um comments to three minutes, that you don't address any particular board members um and that we remember to be

002kind to one another. Uh, is there anyone who would like to come forward and be heard at this time? Hearing none, I will close this round of public comments. All right, we're on to reports 7A. Um, Miss Gillum, Dr. Gretz, the floor is yours. >> Thank you. So, board members, we have a lot of information to go over with you and, um, I'm open to feedback from you as to where you'd like to start. I think the lion share of it involves a deep analysis of salary structures that we talked about in the last board meeting where we narrowed down our focus of comparisons with all of our uh positions to a new data set or rather a subset of the first nine divisions and that was Louisa Charlottesville and Alber. So we have all

003of that data to share with you and and that's extensive. So, if you'd like to begin with that, we can jump right in there. I've got results from the budget survey that was sent out that I can share with you, just a summary, as well as some requests that have come through, teachers, staff, principles. And then we've got just general information about the fiscal 24 budget and some considerations around what the governor has proposed. So, a lot of information. Do you have a preference as a board as to where we begin? >> I do. Um, one, my gut says, why don't we start with the structural, which is what have we heard from the governor and the state? Two, I'd like to hear uh about the budget feedback study so that we have kind of

004priors as we think about what the community is is telling us and then let's get in the weeds. >> That sounds good. >> Does that work for everybody else? >> Sure. Sure. We really don't have any new information from the last time that we govern >> but it was in the air. It was unclear what it's going to be tied to and we talked about >> still. Sorry, I did. Yeah, we we don't have any changes of any of that. We're just waiting for the general out the House Senate version in terms of prepared. >> Let me suggest then that we go to the survey feedback. >> Yeah, it sounds like no news on the structural dynamics of it. >> So, Mr. Gford, yes. Could you access that and we'll go through the first part

005of this and we'll probably move over to the salary. So this the first couple of slides, this just tells you of the respondents what was the connection. So a healthy mix of parents and employees. Not a ton of feedback. This time it was open for a little more than a month, month and a half. Uh but of the of those responses, majority of them connected with our special education program and students with disabilities. But again, this is just a mix of how those individual responses were tied to the various aspects of our division. These are those associated with the schools down the high school, middle school, carriers, and central. So, we asked folks for individual comments, and I'm called through all of those, and the actual spreadsheet is linked in the February superintendent report. I

006can provide it sooner obviously but and and names are redacted and all that kind of stuff but you can see all the individual comments. So the the most mentioned in response to what do you want us to prioritize in this budget cycle compensation was the most specific comments about making sure we at least keep up with inflation and being competitive with our neighbors. additional support for special education, both staffing on the teacher side as well as the instructional assistance side. We have some positions that we used the federal money to access and there's a lot of support to try to absorb those into our operating budget rather than have them go away. and then tons of comments about mental health and this was resonated in our conversations at the schools. So both the processes that

007we have to get feedback from the schools as well as the time that scale and I are spending yesterday I was there all day at central earlier this week middle school just talking to staff members about their needs about our budget about prioritizing a lot of concern about increased this overall arching mental health category that has to do with behavioral concerns and connection to school and anxiety that's keeping people from coming to school are the difficulty we have as a division in coordinating that coordinating the efforts of social work ethics family services and behavioral we used to have therapeutic day treatment through region 10 we talked about that so trying to find a way to recoup those services in schools and provide direct counseling to students and then you can say I I I won't

008read it to you unless you want me to go line my line, but just other things that were mentioned. Additional support at the high school uh for administrators, reduced class sizes, adding teachers to the class size people teachers lower. You can see those. Any questions on those? If not, I'll just kind of go through the slides. If you want me to you want to work on any of those, let me know. What would you like us to expand next year? This was a question we asked the community and staff. We want us to add expand and I again I went through and I pulled out the ones that seem to resonate the most. I didn't list every single comment for you. You can see those in in the was attached in the superintendent report. I'll

009just let you kind of process those for a minute. And if there any more clarification on any >> is the mentorship program. Does that reference staff or students? >> It didn't really specify. >> Okay. Uh >> uh how many administrators do we have in the high school system just pulled out to stop? >> They they didn't just pull out. There was there was a funding mechanism that dried up all over the state and those programs were not able to fund those positions. Is there more information you might have? Okay. >> Do we know what it would cost to replace >> what the cost was? >> Do we know what it would cost us to reinstitute our own? >> I don't. I think as you're going to see in some information we present later our ability

010to respond to those needs. >> Behavioral support can come in the form of counselors. It can come in the form of behavioral specialists. It can come in the form of trying to find vendors to do therapeutic day treatment like that. I think it would depend on the kind of certification that's required for this folks. >> Okay. >> The last thing on there um Mr. Grab organize a free table at school. I'm not aware of that. I don't know what that is. Can can you explain a little bit? >> I I don't know that I can explain because this is a comment that came from a community member or a staff member. suggesting this to us. I think probably they're talking about because they referenced a program in Alamar that I'm not familiar with, but something

011in an Alamar school where, for example, if I get a lunch and I don't want my apple, maybe I can put my apple on the table and people throughout the day who are hungry can access the apple I didn't eat. The issue with and I think they're suggesting that maybe we could do that with deodorant, clothing, things like that. We already have some that in place. >> We do. Yeah, we have every I think the issue with with the uh the free table of food is that there that program is so highly regulated. You can't just put something out and then just have food sitting in it all day. Somebody has to monitor it. You have to make sure there's not, you know, things bad. But I that's my best way to speak to that

012on behalf of a person who I don't I don't know exactly what they're doing. >> Well, um, Miss Gillum, you said we already have some of that at at which schools? All of them. >> Yeah. So, our our social worker and our family liaison, they collect clothing and other items like that. They they work with families, children that are that are in need of those kinds of things. So they look at the high school they have a space set up where people can come in and get those kind of items if they need. >> Yeah, I know as well. I know at Alar school I know the student support special you kind of tie that into their role where they have those aules there that a kid needs food or needs hygiene products they come

013>> yeah I I know I know there's a space in Abrams that several times where all that is and our counselors typically have done that for as long as I've been in education individual plans I feel like this comment I'd have to go spreadsheet referenced a program in our department that had a title or an acronym. >> Yeah, they got like some closet program that get those items from >> Does that anything else on this slide that that you want? >> So, what are some things that you suggest to us to save money? the most mentioned were combining bus routes and adjusting the start times of schools to support combining bus routes. We we've done a lot of that and I obviously we consider that every year. >> Yeah. I mean, but what is our

014current longest bus route for a kid sitting on it from beginning to end? It was hours, wasn't it? >> The last time I had heard about it like one out in the text message. Um, I'm just like a little skeptical that we could move start times enough without sort of also burdening kids in in hot conditions. >> That's true. I mean, it it it lengthens lengthens the time and typically we have combined not to save money so much as to accommodate for the fact that we haven't had enough drivers. So we have to combine routes or in some cases actually have double routes where one driver drives a route and comes back and other kids and drives another. So but that that's that was mentioned in the community. Some there's there's some misperceptions that are

015that are out there. I mean you see the the third bullet up there. There are people who are still recommending that we go solar. We've been solar for three years. All of our facilities >> Yeah. >> are our planets and that's just a maybe a communication issue. to try the 4 day work week. It I can't say that that is resonates with a lot of people. I do hear that every time I have a conversation yesterday brought up by a person to consider. I I remember when a school division foster and that I'd have to do a deep dive into the analysis of what the what the cost savings actually are. >> Yeah. What's the um I mean there is Gloucester still on a 4-day schedule >> and further doesn't that just increase the burden

016like I'm not saying it's it's a good thing but like in the US and in other places school functionally serves as as child care for five days a week where you your kid goes to school you go to work and you come home and your kid comes home or some coordination of that. I would have to imagine that if one were to shift to a 4-day work week, it would increase um a significant burden on sort of the lowest SCES populations in in the county. Um I I can't imagine that that there's sufficient cost savings to like warrant the increased burden. >> The people typically impacted are your lower paid employees too because you're >> you're not serving lunches, you're not driving buses. Yeah, >> those lower pay >> and that's really where your cost

017comes from. >> Yeah. And you know, in a world in which we've lost enough face andor classroom time over the last couple years, I don't think that uh shutting down the schools an extra day for the sake of tightening our belt a bit makes any sense here. other items on this slide that you'd like to take a look at, talk about, clarify >> impact of take-home tech? I mean, at at this point, other than maybe the um hotspot things, I mean, I know that we're one to one or think that we're one to one on Chromebook, what additional take-home tech do people think we're going to cost recover on? I believe this is probably stemming from the cost of if kids are taking devices home and they're getting damaged. >> Yeah, >> we're having to

018ask the family to repair those and if they don't, we have to consider repairing them or sending them out. Mr. Gford, anything you want to add to that? Again, I I don't know where the comment came from, but >> there's definitely more damage with secondary students having a device assigned to them in particular rather than having them in courts, but it's not um the amount of damage that you could recoup and be able to find a position or something like that. It's not a significant amount of damage happening over the course of a year versus I would say that most staff prefer to have students have an individual program that they're responsible for. So I suspect that's where the comments coming from and we certainly can analyze that. >> Well, reset they make less than

019they do. >> Yeah. And abandoning I mean that was a specific ask andor like mantra I heard for two years probably the first two years of my term about how we need more recess aids. I I want to be clear that the these survey results are and in some cases these are singular comments and I don't know who they're coming from. It's an anonymous survey. It could be parents. It could be staff members. It could be community members who don't have children in our schools. Later in this session today, I'm going the requests that I'm going to present to you represent a process that involved staff members having their feedback solicited, coming through the building level principal or the cost center manager, discussions there, coming up to the leadership discussions there, us going out and

020actually meeting with the staff members and discussions there. And I I'm not suggesting that you don't regard this. I I'm just saying these these haven't been vetted to the same degree. I can't say that the person who suggested maybe that's recess a maybe that's a place to save some money. I don't know the extent to which that's a person or you know consensus among people that that has not come up from our conversations that we had. I I just want to provide that clarity. You're getting feedback at this level. You're going to get in a little bit you're going to get feedback at a more granular level. So, and this communitywide survey, we we have 500 employees and can't remember how many from that email I sent every Friday families, but 60ome responses. >> Okay,

021>> strategic abandonment. So these are just some of the things that we have discussed as a team that we could look into uh when we talk about strategic abandonment. Maybe there are things that we've done in the past that we don't need to continue doing or things that we can amend. So certainly the elimination over the past not just this year couple years with hotspot devices and then the service fees is comes at a cost savings to us. um reducing purchase services and technology mean software subscriptions, things like that. We're going into all those and re-evaluating the ones that we need to continue and the ones we don't. And we have I hate to put I think at least $40,000 in savings we believe that we can realize this year in addition to the 40

022last year in those am I misspeaking there? I'm the sort we talked about that last week. Um there's some extended contracts that we have that we might need might be able to adjust back and uh and then the paper mailings. I mean that's something that we've talked about quite a bit. The handbooks that we print, the processes for getting handbooks to families and getting signatures. I think there may be a better way for us to do some of that work digitally and then provide those to families that need them in paper as opposed to everybody. Yeah, I mean that last one makes sense to the extent that we can be responsible with sort of paper product and and move some things to digital space, but you know, just as there are kids who don't have

023internet at home, there are plenty of parents who are not digitally literate. And so to the extent that we make it harder for them to receive information, that's problematic. we make sure that they had the same access. And then Mr. Gford, I think in light of what uh Dr. Kelly said before, maybe we would pause here and move to the salary. >> I just have one thing to add on that. Um >> the extended contracts I've always had a bit of an issue with. I know that we're reimbursed for some of those and you know I wouldn't turn that down but um in my opinion almost every teacher puts in extra work over the summer and it it's not fair that only some get paid for it. So I'm not I'm not exactly saying we

024shouldn't do extended contracts. I would give everyone an extended contract who did that that kind of work on their own time. >> Yeah. Yeah. Understood. Um, sorry. Before we move on, I mean, you have a you have some summary pieces here at the bottom of this. So, there's probably five or six pages of it things. Um, and then mandated needs, urgent needs, pressing needs. Did you want to come back to that? >> Well, I I understood that you said after the feedback you wanted to get in the weeds of the salary. >> Oh, I see. Um, let's just finish this document. >> Okay. Absolutely. So we'll move into some of the things that are reflected in our requests um that have bubbled up. This gives you a summary of our current structure of instructional technology

025resource teachers. You had three and Mr. Gford feel free to chime in here and join me. You had three and you can see their general responsibilities and then through a grant added what is typically referred to as the fourth table, the one that's stationed at the high school. Just a area of clarification. We do have a second person at the high school that's considered an ITRT, but her responsibilities test. >> Yes. I just want to make sure that because we do need code for SAQ. >> Okay. Yes. Yes. So, any questions about those job functions or responsibilities? That's just to show you where we currently are. >> To that point, we have somebody who currently is technically an ITRT who is doing full-time testing coordination. Testing coordination has been assigned to these ITRTs of the

026middle school and the elementary school. Are they some of these are on teacher salaries and some are on tier salaries? Is that correct? >> All of these are teacher salaries. I would consider putting them on a on a tier instead since they don't all need qualified teacher uh licensing or the job description. >> They do need to Yeah, these people do. >> They have to have a teaching license to fill that role. >> Interesting. >> Their primary purpose is to integrate technology with the classroom. So like if you're doing peer teaching, um they would actually go into the classroom and work with the teacher in the classroom to integrate a technology lesson for the student. So they're used to support the teachers and incorporate technology in whatever lesson that they're doing. They meet with teachers

027during their PLC's. So if you're teaching the water cycle, they may be saying, "Hey, we could do this great green screen project. This is how we would do it." And work with the teachers to incorporate that to make a more interactive and engaging lesson. >> Okay, next slide. >> So sorry. And so we have two at the high school, one who you said is a basically a full-time testing coordinator now. Is that is that what I >> What's that? >> They're a full-time testing coordinator for only the high school. >> Gotcha. And then we have a second one that's grant funded. So as opposed to it being a split of work like in the other schools, we have two and one is the full-time testing coordinator. The other is a grant funded ITRT. And so

028it looks like the request is to retain a fourth ITRT. >> In the past, we split the one between the middle school and the high school. Um, the grant allowed us to to have one at each site and that was a request that really came out of both the middle school and the high school and I imagine that it's too much work to have to separate the job functions of testing coordinators and ITR ities like is there just too much demand on the same days across schools to be able to separate those job functions? They seem remarkably disperate. >> When you say separate the functions, you mean to have them done by another person? >> Well, I just mean that like why do we have four people who are splitting their job between testing coordination

029and technology if we could have two and two or something like that? So what's the what's the reason that >> I think I think the reason frankly is cost savings. I mean our our neighbors >> Louisa and their full time testing coordinators. >> Um if you so each one of these positions at a school >> would provide you know Pam Loving and Amy >> Harwell are the two individuals at the elementary level. they've been here and they've presented what they've done with project lead the way. >> They're also doing gifted student coordination. >> So, they can't really split that between the two schools. >> Okay. >> I think I'm understanding your question. >> No, that was my question about like Yeah, it just it seems like mildly disperate job functions kind of compiled together. >>

030They are. Yeah, they are. And I think it's difficult for you. I think you heard that difficult to accomplish that. Um, so the next slide just represents the request which is to retain that 41 that was being grandfunded. >> Got it. And what's the what would be the cost to do that? Just >> bald 80,000. >> Okay. >> Go ahead. What do you want to say? >> That position was 104,000. fourth position could be included for one more year in our SR3 um plan that we revised. >> Okay, good. >> Mr. Kellum, uh you said 80,000 to retain that one specialist. Um that include benefits. >> I was just using a round number for salary and I didn't she probably included health insurance and I didn't. How much? >> It was 104,000 of benefits for

031that particular person. >> Thank you. >> More questions or discussion on this? >> Uh not on this one for now for me. Everyone else good. Okay. Uh technology request. So, another request coming through the technology department, we considered this last year, was to adjust their tiers from the current two-tier structure to add a third uh really a middle tier to allow for growth within the department to recognize the different certifications and specializations that they have. The current structure, did we go past that? No. So, this is the current structure just so you can see. And these are pay bands. So our recommendation would be to add a third band. And again, Mr. Gford, anything you want to add to that? To kind of simplify what has happened. We're taking tier two and turning it into

032tier three. The starting salary isn't really changing. It's more of the upper end, the ending salary that's being changed. And now we're creating that middle tier so that tier one entry level position can grow can sort of have a stepping stone towards tier three so that they take on more responsibility and have a certain amount of experience and dedication for the position we can move into that tier two. >> Do you have an estimated cost for that? >> It shouldn't cost anything. So you're saying right now if we went from two tiers to three tiers, you don't believe that there would be salary adjustments necessary in order to create this system. >> So that the issue with the pay bands is if you adjust the pay bands, there's no cost differential unless you change where

033people on those bands are. >> Do you have I mean clearly you have people who are on one and people who are on two, right? So you're going to move people from two to three which will create headroom for them in terms of growth and salary. It sounds like you're not proposing in the minute moving people from one to two but ultimately that's the point is promotion and growth. So there will be ultimately cost associated with that. >> But there's also overlap between the tiers as far as where you fall in the band. >> Yeah. You could potentially move from tier one to tier two if you have enough years of experience and you have more responsibility and you do receive the seller compensation that is already >> uh did you want to add anything?

034No. Okay. Uh any questions about the tiering proposal? All righty. Uh on demandated. >> So I listed some considerations under mandates. Um and some of these are are specific to changes that might happen with the standards of quality. The first one is related to the literacy act which has resulted in a vetted list of literacy curricula that divisions are mandated to adopt grades four through 8. I can estimate I think it depends on the process we would go through to to adopt we've adopted those kinds of regular tax but I would estimate $250 to $300,000 for that. It remains to be seen whether or not the state is going to have some funding follow that mandate. >> Are we mandated to use them? >> We are and it would be K3 um as well. Um

035we were initially anticipating that our IMS curriculum that we've adopted and teachers are really enjoying or we're seeing good results um would meet the requirements for science of reading instruction K3. Uh we're now anticipating though that it's not going to be on the approved list. However, um there is a option for us to request special reviews to allow that to be approved. Uh so we would definitely uh want to try that route first. But in the since that um is not approved by the EOE, we would be looking at a K8 adoption if the uh if the new proposal goes through that includes 4 through eight as well. Um and so to do a a full adoption for hay probably uh would be conservatively about $200,000 talking up to $300,000 depending on what programs they

036have not completely released what the uh full proof list is. That was just a estimate with a few of the ones are current. >> So we're losing control of making our own choices. I I think you could look at it that way. I mean that there it's not that uncommon in my experience for the BDOB to have an approved list of materials that you have to choose from. Would you say this is a big departure from that in the past? I mean it's definitely as a result of the literacy act. This is legislation that was passed 2021. I'm trying to remember the timeline >> and we would have till um 2024 to implement it. So it wouldn't necessarily have to be implemented next year but it would take us next year right to to go

037through the full adoption process and lots of teacher input and that's too much. >> And so we would also be looking at one and a half positions potentially a half or one at the middle one at the high. Is that right? uh for reading specialists. So, right, so if legislation that's on the table goes through right now, we would need to add a minimum of a half at the high school to cover eighth grade. Um and a half school. So that discussion they just had is really related to my third bullet which is as we wait to see what ultimately happens with the standards of quality as there's those are adjusted we may have with our enrollment increasing and with specific enrollment I picked out English language learners because that population has increased by over

03830% just the last two years and we are probably right at the cusp of where we would need by So excuse to be compliant to have another teacher. Um and we don't know how those are going to be adjusted. They were adjusted a little bit last year and as you know that impacted our funding related to guidance counselor position and there's considerable state level about the same things we're talking about mental health support. Uh when the state talks about mental health support, we typically talk about maybe psychologists and counselors. That that's a little bit of an undefined area. Can we see exactly what that looks like? So I I wanted that to be on your radar that there are some costs that we we may not have a choice with. >> Questions about Mr. reads

039um >> just forformational purpose um what's the criteria for 10 additional English English language teacher um the standards of quality in the state code will give you specific regulation about how many of a certain so based on how many students you have you have to have a certain number of different teachers so there is a specific requirement with English language learners as to how many teachers you have to have it. I probably have to look it up to tell you one is a very complicated ratio that they use. So, it's not one I would tell you. >> Well, right now it's I think it's one teacher per 50 to five, but the legislation that Francis passing is not going to just be overall numbers. They're going to require you to look at what level of

040a a language that the student has. So, for example, if they're a level one newcomer, they have no English. Um the new legislation would be you'd have to have one uh position for 25 of those students. For example, right now we have 27 students that >> 27 students that come into school and can't speak English >> at that level. So there are different levels that they that they assign to students. I think overall how many English language learners have you have now? >> Right now we have 100 that are eligible for services and then 29 that are considered monitoring. So after they exit services you monitor those employs about that or any of these things. Okay. So, we prioritize these as urgent and some other needs as pressing. The assistant principal position at Central Elementary

041was one we discussed quite a bit last year and that was on our horizon to handle in last year's budget development process. But you'll recall when we went through the process of deciding what to do about the legislation that required a principal in each elementary school. We had two elementary schools. We've decided to forego the funding that came for a second principal and consolidate those, leave the structure in place with right now one principal and one assistant principal and handle the additional administrator to support that in this budget cycle. I wanted to bring that back to you. I still stand behind that recommendation and did even before we went through the consolidation. But I I want to hear from you as to how you still feel about that to move forward. I I believe it

042is still >> Yeah. And I tend to agree and would like to see it as something that we can move in and out of the budget when we're um trying to figure out what's above and below the line. Okay, the second on this list has to do with the compensation. We have all of that uh data for you. So maybe I would just kind of breeze past that since we're going to go deep in that. >> Yeah. >> Uh the additional language learner position I put under urgent because I don't know if that's going to be mandated or not. It may be an urgent need because of our population and how it's increased. it may be a mandated need because of how the SOQ's adjust and require those positions. The behavioral support positions, uh, as

043I've noted, we we need help in the schools with dealing with these issues at the primary level up through high school level. And I think the extent to which we can assign support at the school level, direct support, whether that's through a coordinator that would be housed maybe at Abram's cabinet that would help help coordinate the services that are out there that we have. We we brought some people in uh in the last couple years with some specific qualifications in this area. Those efforts can be coordinated. right now they're being coordinated by a variety of leaders that frankly don't have training in this none of us do this this is not our background training and this is a rapidly emerging new need that we have so I I consider that urgent and the extent to

044which I think a lot of these pieces for me depend on on how our conversation around compensation and the overall number that we're looking to include shake out frankly as to how I would recommend we move forward with that. So, it's really hard for me to pinpoint that until we've had our whole discussion especially about um compensation. And I would say the same about everything I just said with regards to special education. the increase in that population and the needs that are that are associated with those increased services. That is a resounding cry from our teaching staff. >> It's difficult for me to look for funding for coordinator type positions over direct services positions. That's a good point and I I think I said coordinator because I don't mean the title so much as just

045the effort of coordinating those services. However we move in that direction, I would recommend that we have somebody that does provide direct support to students and teachers. >> Absolutely. >> Okay. pressing needs that we're considering. I've already mentioned retaining some of the positions that have been funded through ESER to reduce class size. Our our class sizes are adjusting with our enrollment increasing. And so I I think again from our teaching staff, there's a resounding desire to retain what we have, but in addition to that, it's increasing with our enrollment. So I think there's specifically there's uh support that we put at the fifth grade and an additional English teacher at the eighth grade that we need to really look at. It's been mentioned several times by the board as well as just organically through our

046leadership the need to potentially have a management system that we use for our HR processes. There is a registar at the middle school that currently is 11 month and every year they're having to get coverage for the 12th month where there are lots of registrations that are coming in. So I'm recommending extending that program. Um we don't have coordination at the division level for teachers and in any of these subjects, science, social studies, gifted coordination. That's something that we've frequently heard from our teachers through this process uh and parents. Why why don't we have a more robust program related to victim services? So, somebody to coordinate like we do now with our specialists in math and literacy, these other uh subjects for our teachers, custodial contracts. We So, in the two years that I've been

047here, I've heard a resounding request for more custodial services at specific schools, namely Central and uh the high school. My recommendation after working with the principles and Dr. struggling would be to begin maybe by increasing their contracts by a month to give them more opportunities in the summer to handle the summer cleaning and to get ready for school rather than five. >> What's that? >> That's only five. >> Yes. Yes. >> I just Sorry. Most of them are 12 months. Last year, the board increased the driver rate to a minimum of $20 per hour, but we did not do that for drivers to drive field trips and athletic trips. And we don't see any reason for that. I don't think it was strategic from anyone's part. Our part did not do that. So, we believe

048that that rate should should be the same. The bus aid is a request that's coming from both the school level and transportation that there could be a floating bus aid if you will that could be assigned to give extra support on buses where there are significant needs. Currently, our CTE coordination is being done by somebody on a 11-month teacher contract. As we seek to increase our partnerships and to increase the opportunities that we have in CTE, I would recommend that at a minimum as a first step that coordinator would be given another month to be a 12-month position. If you look at our the neighbors that we're comparing salaries to, that's a director level position that does nothing with CTE uh leadership. In one case in Louisa, there are two CTE directors. So, I think

049we really want to be serious about expanding those programs and making sure they're the best they can be. We've got to enhance our ability to supervise and lead that create those partnerships. This is paid on the teacher scale. >> It is currently paid on the teacher scale. So I'm I'm this is a first step for me. I think we could expand that certainly, but at the very minimum we could give that person an opportunity to have another one to do that work. The student dean position is a is in a response to so there from parents and teachers and administration at the high school and with the increased needs that we've seen among students at the high school and frankly just the inordinate amount of discipline and intervention before there's discipline. I'm culling through with

050our team all of those responses. Everything from we need another assistant principal to we need safety coordinators and suggesting that maybe there could be a dean position that is maybe a mid-level kind of a a position that could help support some of that work. And then currently we have a pair of professional at uh Abrams that we would recommend moving to 11 month and again that's to to coordinate the services that we're providing to students that are assigned there both through discipline as well as those that are assigned there through all day and there's a lot of those services that are happening in the summer and uh acclimating to and from the two school years. So that was a lot on a lot of different any items you want to go a little deeper with

051and again I'll say just kind of as a summary my ability to pinpoint some of these things and give very specific recommendations I think really hinge in my mind on a lot of our discussion about salaries and where we want to go with that and what ultimately we see as our say maybe final number, which is where we're headed west and how some of these things can fit into that. >> All righty. Um, I guess let's dispatch with the elephant in the room and get into the weeds here. >> So, Mr. Giver, there is a the um budget preparation. >> So there's information that you've seen and and we won't go through that additionally unless you would like to. It just makes sure that every time we talk about the budget, those that are joining

052us have this information about people expenditures about um how our enrollment is adjusting our case increasing. Is there anything specific here you want to go through before we get to the salaries? You see it? Okay. Um you know what we did last year? This is what it would cost to do the 5%. We would need a half million dollars from the county to do that 5%. The governor's budget includes those three items that are not I guess the first one is pretty well defined. It means that if somebody comes to this year and comes back to next year, they would get a 1% bonus in September. The hiring bonus and the performance bonus are not really well defined. So I I don't think we have a discussion there. there is money included in his proposal

053to support those. Before we get into the wheats of the compensation analysis, I said this last time, but I'll say again, the work that Miss Gillum has done and members of her team have done have been unfathomable. I I'm I mean uh late into the evening just lots of u data gathering and going back. We we have some salary information that we didn't have when we presented before. So all that's been corrected and I want to commend her and and thank her. It's been a tremendous amount of work. So with that, you want to take the leads on this? Sure. >> Okay. >> Um so the information here is is relatively the same. We did get all updated salary scales from Louisa and so all of those have been changed and some of those were

054pretty significant changes that impacted different parts of the data. Um we also when we met before didn't have bus driver data from Charlottesville but we added that to this. Um, and basically we any we went back and look since we were just looking at the four, we went back and look just specifically at those four to make sure that everything we have is the most current we could possibly get. I will tell you that in some cases we were flat out told we don't provide that information. Um, particularly when it came to upper level admin, we struggled to get that particular information from school divisions. Um, >> sorry. So, these are public employees and the division. >> No, no, it's okay. But the division is saying like, "Hey, we're not going to share this info

055with you." >> Yes. >> I mean, >> just one. >> It was It was >> It was more than one, but one of this new set. >> Yes. >> No, it was two set. Oh, >> yeah. >> Two in the new set was like, "We're not going to tell you how much we pay our administrators." Yes, >> it's very difficult to see without going to public data and we did that or going in line. >> I'm happy to say very publicly that I am thankful for their collegiality and professionalism. >> Anyway, so to just >> we try we what we have is what we were able to get. >> No, totally. Particularly that set of data from Alol is based on the public source data and like I said before we had to you know

056take it and apply the percent because it was a it was two year old data by the time what we have is the 2021 school year. Um so anyway we'll start with um the administrative assistance this um I want to kind of talk to you about the layout of this. So, you know, some of our employees are on steps, some are on bands. Administrative assistant is one that's on steps. >> Can you make that a little bit bigger, Josh? I know it's hard to squeeze in, but just so the numbers are more. Thank you. Um, and what I have here is basically what Fubana pays now, what the 5% increase would look like, what their rank is, and then if you go to the other PDF, it will show you all the actual data that's

057there. And then what I did was I took the other four school divisions and I averaged them together to get those numbers that are in that average of four column. And then if we revised our scale to be the average of those, that's what the new scale would be. And so basically I revised I I took a beginning, middle, and end and revised that scale to make it work to where um to where it would those numbers would match up and then just make adjustments in the scale accordingly. And this was in just to refresh everybody's memory, this was in response to the board asking us to take that data set and see what it would cost to put us at least at the three mark or higher of the five mid, >> right? Yeah.

058So to do whatever the county did functionally, were you able to you're able to get the like directive from the county in terms of how they implemented? >> It was it >> is it different from this? It's different than this because it involves so what they did is migrate people onto new scales in a certain way >> and then in addition to that give a certain raise. It was a little more complicated than this. >> So if the charge is for us to get our scales to a certain point and and migrate them that way >> that's different than this. >> And why is year 15 different revised than average? That's just a mistake on my >> Okay, thank you. >> I have to go back to fix it. I apologize. >> Um, sorry. Let's

059let's go back to the sort of like goals. So, like our our charge was in sort of like theory to to to the extent possible to sort of do something very similar to what the county did. >> Well, what this is based on is what you initially told me is you want it to be three out of five. >> I see. Yeah. >> And and that's why I took the average and I did the three out of five >> to do what and we just got what the county did yesterday. I could go back and do it that way. >> Yeah. Could you describe again what what they did and how it differs from this just for the moment? I'm not trying to be stubborn. I'm just trying to Okay. >> I'm trying to figure

060out kind of how we can to the extent possible be as um close to what the county did for the sake of being able to defend any changes as being in alignment. So what what they did was to put employees that were below the minimum of the new pay grade. >> And what is the new pay grade for them based on? How how do the new scales function >> based on the work that they did through their compensation study with Baker Tilly? >> Right. And so Baker Tilly looked at the surrounding counties and then said, "Hey, here's a revised scale." >> Right. So the they had several options that that they considered. The one that was ultimately approved. Employees that were below the minimum of the new pay pay grade were moved up to that

061minimum. >> Uhhuh. >> In addition to that, they got a half a percent increase for years of service in that position. >> Yeah. >> Employees that were above the new pay rate >> got the half% increase for years of service in that position. And this option capped increases to 6%. >> Oh, to six. Got it. >> And contain the 3%. >> Except for the people who got moved to the bottom of the scale. They got the full they got the full bottom of the scale or they got 6%. I mean the motion just says they they cap the option caps increases to 6% and contain the 3% minimum with no caveats. >> Yeah. So like when I'm looking at this administrative assistant piece if if we had somebody who's at 30 right now and they

062go to 36 that's a I don't know was a 20% raise or something. So like if this were functionally what the county did, would that individual have gotten the 20% or the 6%. Doing that? >> You don't have that? >> Yeah, I I don't know that. And honestly, I don't know the extent to which their scales I mean in this case the the minimum of our administrative assistant scale when compared to Charlottesville was 34% off. I don't know that that was true of the county skills. Maybe it may have been. I don't know. I mean, I will say and and you know, you sent me a text yesterday. I didn't have time to dive into the day to say that there were some sizable changes here and certainly enough to dive in and and and

063make anyone in the room uncomfortable except, you know, when I read that text and maybe it was a late night, maybe I was being flipped, but I thought like, okay, if the scales are so far off that we're going to be uncomfortable when we look at them, we probably should be uncomfortable when we look at them in a way. And so for this particular one, are we are the like administrative assistant functions, what people are doing for a living with that title, are they meaningfully different than the other counties in our opinion or is it that just we're just wildly out underpaying that position? >> Imagine responsibilities. >> Okay. The only thing I will say is probably more because we typically have fewer of these people than other localities, too. >> Okay. Well, I'm not

064sure what to do with it. Obviously, we'll have to go through all I I'm just trying to articulate like not sure what to do about it, but this is fairly eye opening to me that like, hey, there's a delta here that's problematic. >> Okay. Um, >> got the next one in here's bus drivers. So when I got the other data from the bus drivers, it, you know, originally we thought, oh, we're in good shape, but when I got the other data, it it's not at the same level that the administrative assistants are, but it's still one that is not quite in line with the others. Now, with this one, I do know that some of those positions are not getting health insurance and benefits in other localities. Um, I would have to um I couldn't

065tell you specifically. I I know that album only does it if you drive a certain length of route. Um, >> yeah. And this is one where we went to a $20 an hour minimum or what have you. >> Average 15% increase last year. >> And we're still not there. And granted, the like benefit piece is a part of that puzzle. And so that makes Are there other roles like that or is this the one that's kind of unique? >> This is the one that's a little more unique in that way. >> Okay. >> I would be fine sort of as we figure out what the heck to do about a lot of this. I would be fine having separate conversations around bus drivers. Not to single them out or to be um punitive in any

066way. It's more about sort of the totality and how we consider um competitiveness. >> Sure. And and and with this one, when you look now, I mean, we're not at the bottom, but we're um but certainly, you know, when we did the races for bus drivers, guess what? Everybody else did, too. >> Yeah. >> And that's kind of what we see happening as a pattern. What we were talking about this morning is so, you know, we decide, well, you know, the state's given a five, but we're going to give a six. And then, you know, we get a little closer, and then the next year it goes like this. And so it just it just continues this kind of pattern of back and forth. >> Yeah. And you're not going to get an argument from

067me that that's bad to be frank. Uh in a world in which um wages are out of whack with reality, where the same amount of money isn't going as far and where people are having to make cuts to their budgets because um cola isn't keeping up with inflation, etc. a sort of race to the top for salaries um so that um and a more competitive market is a good thing for employees and it's uncomfortable for employers and to be honest I'm I'm fine with that in a lot of ways because that's the only way that change happens. Our next one is um custodial and this is one I would identify as we talked about last week the red um because we're at the bottom every other >> Yeah. Yeah. This is a it's a problem

068to me. It's really substantially different. I'm looking at the full scale and you know as a reminder on on step zero we're at 25 which number I'm going to use the lefth hand column just because it's easier right now 255 Alber's 373 Charlottesville 337 28,000 and Louisa 33,000 like those are substantially different numbers and the difference between 25 and you know 35,000 is in all likelihood probably straddling the poverty level in the in the state of Virginia right now. It's crazy. >> This particular calculation I only use the 12 month because what we do with the what we do with the 10 month scales is we just take the 12 month and then incorporate what it would be if it were 10 month. >> Yeah. This one is definitely in my mind. Um, the next

069one is instructional assistance and this one has that pattern we've talked about before where the starting pay is low but then the ending pay tends to be higher. And so this one in my part of the work of this one in my mind is to smooth it out. And where you see that green we're already there. I I didn't you know we don't want to lower anyone's pay but so that part of it it's already there. It's looking at those other steps as you build up to that year 30. >> Well then what's the 5% that's the delta between the >> that would 5%'s what's in the budget >> the increase. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I'm with you. Thanks. I am on board. >> And the next one is mechanics and they're on a pay band.

070So this is a little bit harder to look at. >> Um so what I did with this is looked at the percent between those bands at middle min minimum middle and max. But one of the things we had a conversation about is um on our van and it's not just this one. It's several of the bands. It'll say maximum is $62,000, but in reality, I don't I don't think anybody in the mechanics, but definitely maintenance. We have people that are at 30 years, but they're not at the max. And so the max is there, but it's >> it's kind of irrelevant given where people >> it appears as though those salaries are higher when they're not because no one's actually there. >> Even though they would meet that criteria. >> Yeah. And I I think

071that's the challenge with a van is the use of the van to bring somebody in. So it's used as a as a really both any of our scales with bands are used to assign somebody when they come in based on their experience qualification. But then the scales automatically move them as they move through their career. Whereas the band doesn't necessarily do that. If there's an increase given, the people on the band would get the increase if that's necessarily represent at the top of the 30 years. I'm going to be at the max. >> So what I did with this one is I went through so any of the bands I went through and said, "Okay, these is they're off by this much at the at the minimum, the mid, and the max." And then I

072just did the average of those three and then applied that percent to the people on the van to try to figure out what the cost would be. Um, we kind of went back and forth with all the different ways you could do this, but that seemed to be the the simplest way at least to assign a cost to what this will be >> because you've got a decision about where you want the band to be. And that has nothing necessarily to do with where somebody is going to be next year with their salary. >> A decision about what we want to do with the band, but what do we want to do with the people next year? >> Yeah. >> And I want to make sure everybody's on board with the methodology that this kill

073just explained. Any questions about it? Yeah, I mean on the bands it's just migrating sort of the ranges which is helpful if somebody's below a minimum but it doesn't necessarily it's not prescriptive for um how to sort of migrate people across the >> it it modeled is it puts them in the same place within the band. >> Yeah. >> Okay. >> Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So, it's it's effectively if I'm 2% across the band scale on the old one, I'm going to move this individual to the 2% mark on the on the new range. >> Yes. Yes. >> Yeah. I I mean, I think that makes sense for now. It's probably not >> No, I think it makes sense. Um Okay. It looks like we just had less work to do in some places. >> Yeah.

074So th So this one it would be um to make that group um they're they're right there at the three to five, but just looking at the band, >> it's still um if you were really going to put them in the middle, that's what you would do. >> Um so that really is just like 1.8% more than what the 5%. >> Yeah, for sure. >> Um maintenance tier one. Um this again has that pattern of um it starts out really low and then it it then it's more where it should be. Um so this it you know we we've talked about this pattern over and over again. And then when you look at maintenance tier two um those are really where they should be. Um so when we do the 5% they're going to be

075right there where they should be. Um, I left schoolboard in there even though we know we're not um looking at doing anything with that. Speech pathologist is a little bit tricky because some people have them on separate bands, some people have them on teacher scales. Um, so just trying to to kind of put all of that together. Um, but again, there's it doesn't look to me like there's a lot. Even though they're on the lower end on the rankings, when you look at the actual percentages, it's not that different. >> Um, so this one in terms of cost, um, probably wouldn't be a real significant cost to make a change here. >> Yeah, it looks like it's less than a percentage increase above and beyond a theoretical placeholder. Then school psychologist. Um most people now

076are doing a separate scale for school psychologist. This is based on 10 months. Um frequently these people are 11 or 12 because of summer um testing requirements. Um I you know for this one we don't currently have anybody in this position. So I just put placeholder numbers in to try to calculate what it's going to end up costing. But you can kind of see the differences there. I mean, I'm not shocked that we don't have anyone in the position when we're paying the least amount. So, maybe this will help us get a couple applications. um school social worker. We're we're in pretty again it's kind of like that other one where uh you see that um the um where there's not a lot of difference in the in the different steps there at the different

077localities even though we are at the bottom but you do continue to see that pattern of low starting pay. Um, school nurses. This is one we did 7% to last year. Um, this one is a little tricky for me um because I do see where some divisions are, um, requiring an RN, a two-year RN for this. Not all of ours are two or twoear RNs. And so that is a slight difference there. Um, but this kind of gives you an idea of where they are. >> So, which ones do the two RN? Is it just Louisa? Louisa does. Um, and I'm not clear on Alba models. Alam models is a little hard to figure out exactly what they're doing. >> I can imagine it's difficult. Um, >> a head nurse does require an RN. Um,

078and we have to have a head nurse because the RN supervises the medications and um the other elements of the of the program. Um, so that is a requirement. And this is another one that we added um 7% to last year. One thing I'll point out with our nurse and head nurses is that they got they did get a bonus this year because we got a grant and so they got a $2,500 bonus in addition to the bonus that the rest of staff got. >> Yeah. Yep. And you know, we we're not responsible for legislation that provides out specific item line bonuses to to individuals. I was empathetic that it was um not a bonus at all. Staff got So, let's let's go back to school nurse nurse for a sec. So, Louisa's requires a

079two-year RN. Uh how many nurses do we have currently? >> We have five or six >> two at the high school and one in each the others. We're two. >> And how many do we think Kevin are in? >> I can't tell you that. >> Well, I'm trying to decide whether or not the next time we see this, we should be removing Louisa or keeping it in the competitive set. Yeah. So, if for instance, the majority of our nurses already had the two-year RN, then I would argue keep Louisa in the competitive set and then add the requirement of a two-year RN um for for new hires or what have you potentially. And if the majority of our nurses don't have an RN, then remove from the competitive set and and realign accordingly so that

080we're amongst uh equals in that. >> I'll find that out. >> Yeah. I mean, it just gives us a place, right? So like Louisa is the outlier, but they have the additional job requirement. And I'm not I don't want to put any requirements that would displace any of our staff right now. >> Yeah. >> So like to be clear, like having not having an RN isn't like nothing I nothing I would be in favor for would um influence existing staff and their and their job security. But whether or not Louise is considered part of the competitive set or not to me kind of like it depends on how many and and what have you on the on the TR end because I think that's important. >> Okay, I can >> uh so sorry I'm going

081back to head nurse. I got stuck on nurse for a little while looking at it. uh head nurse and so and and this one's a little tough for me too because the like number of direct reports probably is substantially different between these divisions right like so a head nurse for the division influena is managing in all likelihood a handful of of nurses >> has multiple head nurses >> do they okay so the reporting structure is a little more horizontal >> 40 56 6, 53, 40, and 49. 4year RN. Um, do ours require four-year RN? Is that right? >> I believe ours is Well, ours requires a an RN. >> And then Gland's a masters, but it doesn't look like there's a substantial pay differential there. >> We only have one RN >> total. Yeah. So,

082I would remove um I would take Louisa. I I don't know if anybody else is up for this. If we're continuing down a theoretical exercise and want to see these numbers again, given the the price differential on nurses and the associated job requirement, I would probably just like take Louisa out of the school nurse spot. And you guys can't see what I'm seeing. Um Josh, can you pull um the other doc the wide document up the um Excel file? go to page eight and kind of expand in on the third box down. >> If it's helpful, Dr. Kelly, I'm happy to just move on and try to hit the high spots. >> I don't know what you mean. >> Um I mean decisions today. >> I mean, this is part of the big decision, isn't

083it? >> Okay, that's fine. I want to be I understand you're not interested in getting too in the weeds here, but also decisions that we make the aggregate influence the individual roles. Just for a second so I can show folks. So, uh, yeah, this is hard. Can you just expand a little bit? So, the Louisa starting pay requires a two-year degree and is 43,000. The rest of the divisions don't have that requirement and they're 39 and 40 and 33 and we're 35. So my thought is Louisa is a substantial outlier because they have a different job requirement. And so if we're going to do something systematic that involves these calculations, my thought is that we should adjust the midpoint down since we don't require the RN, which will make us more like the competitive set

084will be more equal with what we're hiring and how we um advertise that role. Any thoughts? Anyone? >> I think that's fine, but I'm ready to move on. >> Mhm. Okay. Uh, I guess back to the PowerPoint into the next role. >> My apologies with doing all of these. I missed updating the rankings on this one, but this is another one that's on the pay bands. Um, and so I did that same methodology I did with the mechanics where you took the average of the the mid the minimum mid max to come up with a percent there. >> So pretty substantially out of whack with reality on EAS. >> Okay. Uh, all right. Next one, >> finance specialists >> saying they're also on >> B. Um, budget analyst. There's not a lot of um this

085one is is more similar to um our counterparts. So, this one's not too out of whack. Yeah. Well, the top is actually that revised scale would be the same as what we are right now. >> Yeah. >> And this is um I need to fix that ranking here. I apologize that this is out of three because we didn't have data on the others. >> Um See where this one ends >> substantial 28% off by comparison and at least 15% off from Gula and Louisa. >> Okay. >> Directors >> were more competitive there at the start. Um even though we're still at the bottom, but then up that one it's substantially different. I will say with some of the um I color coded it, but then I forgot to go put in what my thinking was.

086On some of the Charlottesville ones, they actually stop at step 15. So, I basically took what the difference was between their zero and 15 to figure out what 30 might look like. Um, and that's why that's colored pink on that spreadsheet because I was trying to just extrapolate so that I could have a comparison all the way across. um supervisor coordinator. I think that this one looks like it's evolved substantially, but I think we would want to deep dive into this one more about what those roles look like at different places because um in some places I think what there it's probably more of a director position than it is a supervisor position and I'm just not clear on those just our responsibilities compared to um our neighbors on this one. >> Cool. Yeah, I

087would probably take that as an AI to figure out if we're looking at apples to apples um principal high school. And are the building sizes and staff sizes any different at a like building level or are we pretty much in alignment with um how large a high school is and how many staff? >> They're there's going to be variation between the size of the buildings for sure. >> We're larger than us. >> Yeah, we're larger than smaller than Louisa probably similar to depending on which Alamar school. >> Yeah. Okay. Uh AP is also middle school principal. >> Mhm. >> All of these, but there's not one. I don't know that there's any of these that are Again, occasionally you see that beginning pay is a little bit higher, but then when you go through the

088scale, it's not. >> Yeah. And these are job functions that really have caught the percentages, average percentages over time, but have not been targeted in any way over over the last couple years in my in my memory at least. So, all the administrative positions are pretty out of whack. Uh, okay. And then um this is your activities athletic athletic director but it's we call it an activities director because his responsibilities include the other activities not just >> and so this these ranges like >> I even went back and questioned that because I thought those ranges looked odd Mr. and then Dr. Gret saw it and he questioned it too. >> Yeah, >> I I can't explain it. >> Yeah, that don't make any sense to me. Um, also anecdotally shared is that they're paid on

089a different scale. There's a scale assigned to those folks and that's where this data came from. >> Told that they're not paid on that scale. They're paid on the assistant principal. >> Oh, well that's >> I can't explain. >> Nobody's listening, but >> and it's higher. >> It doesn't make any sense. And so like yeah, I'm sure it's higher. And so >> I mean with our scale now, I would have to imagine that at some years of experience teachers make more than the AD. And I I actually don't know how I feel about that in terms of like what have you, but it doesn't seem like a robust pay scale at the moment. >> Okay. >> We have technology tier one. Let me see. There's some kind of technology here too. >> And then the

090figure of all these >> the teacher one. So I saved it for labs. >> So where it's green that would indicate that we're already um at those averages there. Um, this is the one that we we certainly have the most complete data on because it's it's all out there and available. Um, and then I I tried to um go through and generate a scale. It's in it's in there as a separate handout um to generate the scenarios that you guys asked me to last week and you can see on the graph where that kind of lines things up. So there's a separate handout that just has the four scale options in there where we are for 22 23 with the 5% increase with the minimum 500 and with the minimum of 800. Um and certainly

091that suggestion of that minimum of 800 definitely evens it out more. Um but the cost is pretty substantial and then that minimum of 500 begins to even it out. Um but um certainly it's not quite I'm sure where exactly where you want it, but when you look at that orange you can see that big swoop we talk about. >> Yeah. Um, >> yeah. And do we know what the So, we just went through all the other staff positions. I need to have a broader discussion about how we use that information. Uh, do we I imagine somewhere in this document. I just haven't discovered yet and maybe it's right in front of me. I'm not sure what the differential is for the T for these various um functions. the what's the cost for 5% versus minimum

092500 minimum >> should be >> um it was on the um there's a separate hand >> yeah agenda item Josh there's a separate file >> I couldn't figure out how to get it into power the separate file >> it's the first one >> yeah so these are the the three options you little gap for scales. If you go to the bottom of that, >> right? So, okay. So, we're at 22,102291 on teacher pay on 2223. So, a 5% increase regardless is going to jack it what 2.5 million. And then to move to a 500 minimum is another million. And then to go from 500 to 800 is another 500,000. >> So like an additional 1.5 million for rough estimates. >> All righty. I think when I did the said I think when I did the

093um projection that's on the back I use the 500 when I use the Josh we go back to power. Wouldn't it be nice if we had a system? >> Oh that you could just be playing with your iPad. Yeah, that'd be great. probably might make you a little dizzy looking around. Um, so the so um the that um tan column is >> so this is page 41 of the um PowerPoint added that in this morning because I you know it's one of those things I you know I was in the shower and I was like oh shoot I forgot to put that slide in there. >> Um so this middle column is if you do the 5% Um, >> This is step plus five. It is. >> Okay. >> Um, and that's that's going to

094cost about 2 million, but you're going to get about 1.5 million from the state to do that. And so it ends up costing about $514,000 to just do step plus 5%. And then if you did the salary adjustments as they're in the packet, and believe me, I know that that it's probably not something that's doable. Um, you see what those average increases would be for each of those steps. And then that total cost of that would be about 3.7 million. >> And which salary adjustment for teachers is that? >> That's with the 500. >> Okay. >> Yeah, that's the moderating one. It would be another 500,000 to to do the 800 one. >> Yeah. Um and I just kind of had to pick one. And so that's what I did. But you've got the data

095there in terms of what it would be. >> So what I don't see here in this table is salary adjustments for any of the administrative roles. >> They're in the pay bands. >> I see. And that's why your pay bands cost so much >> because it includes all the principles and everything else. Yeah. >> Yeah. >> How much of that compensation supplement from the state do we get for non-teers? >> It's it's your SOQ positions and so it's virtually all of your positions are SOQ positions. People people sometimes think that SOQ just means teachers but custodians cafeteria workers technology everyone is in the SOQ. The problem is it's like8 of Josh's. >> Yeah. >> Sure. >> If we did nothing there for teachers and only the others would we still approach the 1.4 in state

096extra? No. >> Okay. >> So, >> you have to do the 5% for SOQ positions or you don't get the five >> all they may do averages but um it depends on the language. I've seen the language different ways different times. >> Sometimes they'll say you can do you do up to 5% but it has to be for all SOQ. Okay. Sometimes they said you give five or you did nothing. >> Yeah. Or they'll they'll even ask us later. They'll be like, "What did you give?" And then if you say, "I gave four." Then they're like, "Okay, well, we're only going to give you enough for four." >> Um, and we have to, you know, each year we have to we had to certify that we gave the bonus. >> Yeah. >> And that, you

097know, that we gave it to all staff. We have to certify that we did a raise. So, they do separate things just for that. >> Yes. Thank you. >> All right. So, I have a followup. So, we have some kind of matching mechanism, if you will, with the SOQ pos or funding with the SAQ positions. So, does this suggest that the like compensation support that like if we increase what we pay a principal that all of that's on us? >> Yes. >> There's no there's no additional state funding at all based on what we're paying them. In the template, they determine what an average salary is for a position and then they apply the LCI to that position and then they apply the percent to that position that they're going to pay based on enrollment.

098>> Got you. So, it's all fixed. >> Always fixed. >> Yes. And remember that there are about three and a half instructional assistants in the template and we have 71 now. I think it might be more than that. >> 78. >> It might. Yeah, it honestly that one change. >> Yeah, I've got 87 in the template right now. >> All righty. >> So, there's I mean obviously I'd love to hear from the board on methodology if there are thoughts about methodology that would be used. If there are if there's a target number that somebody has in mind overall for us to work with in terms of building up to that number or if there you've seen a ton of information. I think my general assessment is if I take a step back and I acknowledge

099that like we are u more competitive uh in the teacher space than we are in the remainder. Like my my gut reaction first is I'm surprised we're not a little more off on teachers. And to be frank just absolutely dumbfounded um by some of the pay scales and the way that they've gotten left behind or out of control over time. And some of this is the fact that we've done um we have used uh or and and methodologies on teacher scales over time to remain competitive because they're the most visible. And then pay bands and other positions have received percentages which continue to sort of um it perpetuates indifference and inequities across uh positions. Uh, and so I am left my gut reaction is like I thought we would have some differences when I wanted

100to see this data and wow, these are just these are just bad. Like we're not in a great spot competitively in terms of paying either fair market wages or living wages in some of these positions. So, my sticker shock and discomfort is um irrelevant to the reality of the fact that um in my opinion, we're not doing enough for a great many of these um staff positions. And um obviously, you know, uh this step plus 5% and asking the county for for half a million dollars is sort of like uh the minimum cost of doing business. That's like what um I suppose just or is the minimum cost of doing business, but step is step plus is the way that we honor um step increases and and scales and all of that. Uh and the

1012.2 certainly represents a a robust um acknowledgement that our um pay structure is out of whack with with reality and with competition. Um, and so I'm I'm left pondering a little bit of kind of where to from here >> I uh was in a meeting that uh Miss Booker attended recently with the equity committee and she made the point that the school board used to come to the board of supervisors and ask for what they needed. And in my opinion, we need to re-evaluate and correct the pay for our staff. We're in a terrible position of competition with everyone and this is something we need to do and it's I I doubt in the near future there's going to be a better time. I don't see our tax base increasing substantially quickly. This is what

102we need in my opinion and this is what we should ask for. This is the budget we should set. Andre, any reactions to either the how did we come up with the numbers or and I'm I'm sorry, Mr. Key. I was probably unkind or too familiar, but um how either we sort of started this um how we scoped it, what the numbers indicate, or um the like end result or punchline here of sort of what we would need in order to implement something like this. Yeah, I mean there are some positions where I agree that they're out of whack that we have to make sure there's a living wage where people can support themselves and also some of the positions I think we really need a real study to compare to make sure we're comparing

103jobs to make sure the ranges are real. So um c uh if I may that and and to be gentle um are there particular job functions in mind where you think that um the data we have is unsufficient to support um making changes to the scale. >> Um I can't recall but I know that we talked about the teachers we got all the data that we know that the teachers everything is the same accurate. >> Sure. I just want to make sure that all the positions are we're comparing them >> job functions correctly. >> Okay. Uh and I think that's a fine that it's an it's a good point. And so maybe what I'll do is I'll push it back to the um administration here for a second to talk about what are the scales

104of all of the data we saw today beyond the supervisor/coordinator position which we clearly need to double click into. What are the other job functions or scales where you think that we have the potential to not be um treating job functions equally? Like where do you think we might need more information to to make fair comparisons? >> I I'll speak to that and then certainly invite Miss Kell. I think when you talk about um what we're doing with a supervisor position and compare that to a supervisor and so let me let me back up. If you look at um human resources, we'll just take that job function. >> Mhm. We have an executive director who's in charge of operations essentially and human resources falls under operations and that function is supported by an executive administrative

105secretarial position that does essentially lure and then there are pieces of the HR onboarding process with regards to benefits administration and things like that that are done by members of the finance department. you agree with it. Okay. Is that accurate? So in that function, there's no coordinator, there's no director, there's an executive director, there's a secretary. If you're comparing then the executive director of operations to an executive director or in in Guin and Luis's case, at least there is no executive director. It's an assistant superintendent position. Following that human resources function, there's an assistant director of human resources. So Louis visa, there's a director of human resources. So there's assistant superintendent, a director, and then the and so the paint the picture I'm painting is it's really hard to isolate job functions when you don't

106consider the whole context of how that work is being done. I think in in I don't want to make a blanket statement but in my experience inland and I'm isolating because that's one of our data sets and what I know about the other localities much more about Louisa than Charlottesville and um in many cases we have those positions doing job functions that are done by both more people and higher paid higher typ people in other localities. A great example is I mentioned that I think for career and technical education, we have a teacher who's on an 11-month contract coordinating career technical for the entire division. Whereas in Louisa, if we're comparing job functions, that is done by two directors. There's two directors of career technical education. And are we going to compare the teacher to

107the two directors or are we going to compare director to director in which case we're paying the sores as a director and we compare the the salary of a director using that salary structure to the salary of a director in Louisa but the job functions are totally different. Am I articulating that well? >> I think you are. So you're making arguments about sort of what function do people play or andor like what roles and responsibilities do they have? Um which is endogenous to sort of all of this. Um, >> a good example I think is if if you look on the surface you could say, well, you know, Alamar is a bigger school division and they have more schools and they have more staff and they do. They also have more people. We have one

108person that does all grants and they have at least five with people under them that help them do those grants. But we still have the same responsibilities with grants, with reimbursements, with managing them. All none of that changes just because of our setup. It's >> Yeah, >> it's, you know, I think on the surface it's easy to say, well, they're bigger and so therefore, you know, that's why they make more money. But in reality, the people here are doing the jobs of three and four people there. >> Yeah. I wonder to some end if this isn't the best like info or comparisons we can have in the moment and that that the first discussion and and the one that we should probably dispatch with in this calendar year or this budget cycle is to fix

109the scales based on titles and then to take a comprehensive review of uh in the next budget season which particular individuals or roles are are misleled. Right? So get the levels and the pay bands right and then next year if there are individuals that are on a ban that's not appropriate to their roles and responsibilities then take that as action items. I know it's a it's delicate because it would be a closed thing but also budget related but functionally uh then take a step back and say like okay um and I'll I'll use your example. So, Miss Suarez is a director, if she does things that are above a director level, is there a better titling situation or something? Or whomever the next individual is? Um, and so I wonder if I I know these

110things are part and parcel in some ways, but in the same context, like I wonder if we don't get our pay right based on title and then make sure that we get the right titles to the right people in subsequent budget cycles. And I I think that's what I was trying to say is that I think there's two different conversations to be had. one about structure of positions and how how those different functions are happening and the other and what we've tried to give you is is just factual data minus any any of my opining about it or Miss Gillum's opening about it but just simply not even get into the discussion of whether somebody's doing more or has more support but just what does a director make here and what does a director make

111Got it. Um Charles, what are Mr. Renos, what are your reactions to what you've seen today so far? >> Um that's a lot to take in. Um >> the all ofate the money. Um uh we we don't have the tax base that some of the surrounding counties do. Um it's so it's hard for us to be competitive with them other than putting it on the backs of taxpayers, the household owners. Um that's that's my thoughts. Um I've lived here in the county longer than I know any of y'all that are in here. Um things have changed a lot and certainly schools have changed a lot. Um, but we do need to keep quality educational people and administrators and we have other positions that that we certainly didn't have when I was in school, but that's

112that's where it >> we have computers. I'm not sure you had those when you were in school. >> Yeah. Or cell phones >> to be polite and both and humorous. I'm I'm really it's not a dig. just an argument about like yeah man a lot has changed >> air conditional school bus >> air condition >> yeah a lot has changed and um we continue to um battle against both you know technological and other advancements as well as um things outside of our control like inflation >> I want to do what we can to be competitive to keep employees in being realistic. >> Uh, Miss Johnson, any additions? I see you scribbling furiously. >> Just doing some calculation. >> Uh, so where too is is is a big question. I know it's 11:15ish and I I

113think we're and attempting to end around noon. um or as you know as necessary but um what do you all need from us? What does the board want to see from the administration in terms of next steps? And um yeah, broadly where too um because our goal here is that um it's my understanding that we'll be meeting again on it February 2nd or 3rd. >> What? >> No, no, no. You're going to present a budget next week, aren't you? Are you not? >> Yes. >> Are you available? Do we need to readvertise? >> All right. So, uh, next week, which is like it'll be on the Wednesday or the Thursday? >> It's Thursday. >> It's a Thursday because I think our we were set before. So, next Thursday, we're going to come into this room

114and have a have a hearing and be presented um some options for uh a budget. And the question is um what guidance do we want to provide to the superintendent about crafting said budget? I have not moved from my support of evening out the teacher salary scale and improving the pay bands and other areas that were deficient in. I am uh still largely a proponent of the the gray one. I would love to go the 800. I would uh compensate with the 500 and do the salary adjustment with the difference of 2.2 million. I think that is the minimum of what we need to maintain the quality education here in any other considerations. >> Yeah, I would like to see the teacher salies be as competitive as possible. Also, I like to see those support

115positions be added as well. Are you talking about the additional positions or the support payans? >> I like to see the support position for the mental health support. >> Sorry, Miss Johnson, you said gray column. Oh, I see in the other document. Sorry, I'm looking at page 41 and thinking, no, those are white. Um yeah. Um Yeah, I I'd like to see the 2.2 move forward into a proposal um as well uh for at least uh public airing and conversation. Um were there um so Mr. just articulated interest in a additional role as it relates to um the uh behavior I think it was do you say behavior coordinator was that the >> yeah the coordinator or if you can't get a coordinator just some behavioral aid or mental health support position. >> Yeah. So

116uh and I'm on board with that as well. I think that that at this point given kind of the dynamics that we have related to um all the time that we've lost and all the things that are going on at homes and I mean we know that we we see the influence of macroeconomic functions on on um children's literacy and math and preparedness and behavior and all of those things. I mean we talked about a cohort of students who grew up um or were born in that sort of 2000ish period and maybe 2005 and the impact of sort of the um economic downturn and the impact that had on that particular cohort of kids. We're we're just dealing with they're dealing with a lot. the students are are getting it from a lot of different

117directions whether it's COVID related or what's happening at home or the impact of the economy on on you know basic things like you know meals and what have you and so and all of this has impact on on the students themselves so I would like to see in the next uh in the proposal some um added support for for that um whether it be a coordinator and some some like uh some staff that interact directly with the students. Um the additional AP at Carisbrook for me is a no-brainer. I'd like to see that built in. Um I said Carisbrook, I think I meant central, I'm sorry. Uh I'd like to see that in as well. Um, >> if we specify the list of mandated and urgent needs listed in Dr. Gretz's uh presentation, I think

118that covers everything we're talking about. >> Yeah, I I think that's right. Could we um >> CPR? >> Um, can we what is it urgent and pressing? Can we >> not mandated and urgent and pressing? I would stop after urgent myself, but >> okay. Could we get it? Can we for the proposal andor the next and I know you know exactly what I'm going to say, but >> effectively let's let's get the staff pieces in there on the individualized like so that we can move things >> from the left to the right and then let's tear the other ones into mandated, urgent, what have you. Obviously mandated's going to go into the like the budget itself and then we can manipulate the the urgent items uh and then to the extent that there's interest um

119also manipulate the pressing if we can just get a what's it going to cost for these things and then we can have a we can have some item level discussions. Um, and then in terms of the, you know, so that's that's kind of like the discussion of how much are each of these things going to cost as we collectively workshop and try to find what what what we're going to pass. What do you need in terms of from us for making your like recommended proposal beyond the the salary pieces that we just spoke about? >> I think the feedback that you've given is sufficient for us to build that. >> Yeah. And you know, I don't know who's listening today, and I don't know who um you know, who will go back and listen to

120this or who's at home scratching their head with the with the size of what we're talking about right now. Um uh but I will say for for myself that um having comparative data I'll make it real clear having comparative data on how we're paying people and whether or not we're paying competitively fairly and to to an extent to be honest living wages is critically important and it is the fact that we haven't had a salary study um I've argued for it every year that I've been on this to me is just um it's problematic. Uh and it leaves us in the position where we're falling behind substantially and to some extent we may not even know it beyond the symptoms of losing staff and not gaining applications and having people move divisions and corrective action

121um is is needed period full stop. But uh it only becomes more costly as as these positions and these salary scales uh continue to to lag behind. And so um I'm remarkably thankful to the administration for putting the information together and acknowledge that uh you know it was going to identify problems that are going to cost money to fix and um fortunately that's just the reality of of running a a school division. And so, um, I am, uh, remarkably happy to, uh, advocate for a robust solution to this, meaning that it's just going to cost more money to run this division to do so smartly and competitively, but acknowledge that like it is a lot of money, period. Um but it doesn't mean that our responsibility isn't to advocate for what we need and then

122to allow the county to decide um how to react accordingly. Um anything else on the budget you all want to dissect or talk about? It seems like you all have what you need. We've gone through each and every line item and the methodology. I I would argue that I have zero interest in um uh tenure-based adjustments, which was the second like phase of the county level um things. I I just don't have any appetite for it. Our scales are sufficiently a skew that we're going to be making adjustments if if we pass a budget in line with that that are above and beyond um a 3% or what have you. So, uh I just don't have any appetite for a second process, per se. Um, but is there anything else people want to see in

123the in the next iteration? Uh, okay. So, I feel like maybe we've gone through everything. Is there any further business uh that needs to be done today in preparation? >> Yes, sir. >> Um, all right. I'm trying to find my agenda. It's here somewhere. Uh I imagine that we are in all likelihood on to board member comments. Um so uh let's just work this way. Uh Mr. Renhouse, any comments this evening or afternoon, whatever it is 412. Um my my comment uh the 2.2 adjustment is to me is not sustainable in blue county. Um, I do want to ensure that we are teaching the children that they're getting a education. So, that needs to be addressed. That's >> Yes, Jonathan. Um, I'd just like to reinforce the idea that I think the board of supervisors

124has recognized their need to be competitive salary-wise this past year and they've made adjustments to it and funded it and I would like to follow their good example and do the same and expect the same excellent results. >> Uh, Mr. Key. >> Yes, I like to keep make this competitive. you know, there's an urgent need for mental health and behavioral support in schools. I would like to address that and you know, I'm aware that, you know, make sure keep the taxpayer compound. >> Great. Thank you so much. Yeah. And I'm in the same mind. It's the, you know, it's the wrestle between doing um what we think is right and asking for what we think is right versus um meeting ourselves in a way um and not articulating fullthroatedly the the needs of the division

125um anticipating a response. And I think that um you know the board of supervisors have a difficult job in setting tax rates and and budgets and what have you. Um and you know from my position uh this this year and hopefully um every year uh should be to advocate for what we think we need and what is right and to allow the the county to um react accordingly even if um even if they don't fund it all that to to identify the needs and and air them publicly um has virtue and value in and of itself. So, I'm looking forward to really difficult discussions with the board of supervisors um regardless of um what comes out of this budget cycle, you know. Um so, I appreciate the the work that they do and the work

126that our administration has done to prepare this material and looking forward to the you know, next seven probably meetings related to budget uh this quarter. All righty. Uh that was uh board member comments uh upcoming meetings on budget. So we just talked about and had a refresher that Thursday the third I think I got to go to a calendar. Is that >> it's the second >> second >> is our next meeting where the superintendent will um will uh uh recommend a budget and we'll have a hearing. We then have regular business on what I think is the 8th, which would be the Wednesday. Uh, and I imagine there will be continual discussion of the budget there. When is it that we must adopt by? >> You present to the board of supervisors on the 15th.

127>> And so if we do not uh will the budget be on the agenda to adopt on the 8th or Yes. And if we do not come to a an agreement, if the budget if we're unable to adopt a budget that that night, we will need to have additional meetings to um adopt a budget before the uh 15th. >> Yes. >> And this may be a good time if I could, Dr. Kelly, you might remember that Mr. Doll had spoken to us, I think casually out here in the parking lot one day, but that there at one time was a meeting that happened every month between the superintendent, the county administrator, and the two board chairs. >> I'll just a point of clarification. I was that not the conversation with with Chris? Um, was it

128not the with the supervisor? Not >> mention it as well. >> Okay. D also So he's reached out to me now that they've had their >> reorganization. >> Yes. With interest of doing that and if there's an interest for me to propose some dates if you do want to do that. >> Okay. >> Any of that. >> Right. And so the um so the meeting is two members from the supervisors, two members from the school board to and the administrators accordingly to to sit down and have discussions. And so your question is given the given the size and nature of of the potential proposal here, does it make sense to have some time in advance? >> Just want to make make you aware that he's reached out to reinvigorate that monthly meeting. If you wanted

129to do it before the meeting we have with the supervisors on the 15th >> it'll be open to it. Um what are the proposal for the it would be a chair plus one other member and so who >> he's indicating just he and his board >> it used to be just the two chairs and the two administrators. >> Okay. Yeah I'm happy to do that and uh uh I'm happy to do so. Uh, I work mostly PT, so um, not that I enjoy morning meetings, but I'm happy to accommodate. >> Okay. So, I'll reach out to you after this. Maybe give a couple of days. >> Sure. >> Thank you. >> Uh, okay. So, we went through upcoming meetings and we're really kind of on a aggressive timeline here. I mean, unfortunately, the um Miss

130Gilman team, you know, had all of a week and a day to prepare materials for um for this meeting and we're going right into one week from now for um a proposal and uh one week from then for adoption, you know, give or take a day based on Wednesday or Thursdays. But, um so we have uh we have a lot ahead to do in a short amount of time. So, I'm looking forward to to working with you all and to wrestling with really hard stuff because none of this is easy. Uh, we're on to 10, which is just uh to adjourn today's meeting. Do I have a motion? >> I move to adjourn. >> Second. >> And then all in favor? >> I adjourned. >> Thank you. minutes.