2024 04 10 School Board Meeting

001All right, we're going to call the meeting to order and reconvene in open session. Welcome to the April um 10th Lana County regular school board meeting. And Miss Kryer, can I get a excuse me, we'll stand for the pledge of allegiance first if you can and then we'll follow Danielle uses one indivisible with liberty and justice for all. Please be seated. >> Now, right is certification of close session. >> Yes. >> All right. Are there any actions coming out of close sess session? >> There are. Uh, Mr. chair and I just clicked my folder actually. I'm sorry. Let me >> Hey, Diggy. So, I recommend that the board approved student discipline cases as discussed and presented in close session 4 A through 4E. >> So moved. And I have a motion to approve student cases

002as discussed 4 A through 4E. A second. Any discussion? All those in favor, please say I. >> I. >> Any opposed? The chair will abstain because I missed some of them. >> All right. Moving on to the adoption of the agenda. >> All right. I'm going to uh make a motion that we approve the agenda with some adjustments. Um, so in order to make things a little bit smoother and and move along today, I'm going to move that we adopt the agenda as presented up through item 6C, the consent agenda, at which place I'd like to move up recognition of the track athletes and recognition of the choir and band students. So that would be 6 C followed by 9A and 9B. Additionally, I'd then like to move the superintendent report item 10 um a

003sorry I can't read my own handwriting uh behind that for the purposes of um expedition and then uh I also would like to add an action item 13E excuse me I'm sorry after um 9A 9B and 10A we will then have our public comments and then I additionally would like to add another action item 10E, approval of the revised health insurance rates. Full stop. All right. We have the agenda to remain as presented up until uh section six. And we would move sub 9 A and 9B following 6 C followed by 10 A followed by seven public comment and then get back to the regular agenda with item number eight. >> Correct. >> Follow and >> and then item 13E. >> That is a correct characterization of my motion. >> Second. >> Have a motion

004and a second. Is there any discussion? I'm not going to repeat this one again. All those in favor, please say I. I. >> Any opposed? Chair votes I. We have a new agenda. >> All right. On to the consent agenda. Are there any items that board members would like to be pulled separately and voted on? I was absent in last meeting. So I would like to move that we approve items 6B and 6 C uh independently and I'll leave it to others to dispatch with 6A. >> Okay. 6 A. All right. Any other board members? All right. I'd entertain a motion to approve item 6A. >> Make a motion to approve 6A. >> Right. Second >> and a second. We have a motion and a second to approve the minutes of the prior school board

005meeting. All those in favor, please say I. >> I. >> Any opposed? >> Abstensions. >> I ab chair votes I. >> All right. On to items B and C. The review of monthly claims and the approval of personnel recommendations. >> I move that we approve 6B and 6 C. >> Second. I have a motion and a second to approve items 6B and 6 C. All those in favor, please say I. >> I. >> Any opposed? Chair votes I. We are on to item 9A, recognition of the track athletes. Thank you. Uh, school board members, I'm going to ask for coach Melanie Kell Kennedy to come forward and she may have some coaching staff that she wants to invite with her. We have the opportunity to recognize some exceptional athletes, 12 I believe, some of whom

006or maybe all of whom are with you. >> And I'm going to let Coach Kennedy tell you a little bit about what they've done. But at the end of that, we've got some cert we have a certificate and then we'd love to have an opportunity for those students and coach Kennedy and board members to get a picture up front. >> First of all, Coach Kennedy. >> Yes. Thank you so much. First of all, I need Utah athletes to come join me because this is not about me. This is about you guys. So, come on up. So, these 12 athletes standing in front of you earned the privilege of competing in the Adidas National Track and Field Championship meet several weeks ago in Virginia Beach. um through their hard work and persistence they earned their right

007there and we had some phenomenal results. We had um our girls 4 by eight so the these four girls right here they ran in the championship division which is the highest level of competition at this meet. Um, these girls earned all-American status by their competition, their time there. And then we had Sophie who competed in the open 800. And Sophie also earned individual all-American status for her performance in the 800. Next, we had the boys 4x8. So, if you guys can step up. Yep. All right. So these boys they um ran in the elite division which is right under the championship division. Uh they finished third overall at this level and they also received medals for their performance. >> We were the boys 4x4. So some of the same. Yep. We had the boys 4x4.

008They also competed in the um national or elite elite level. And um then you guys step back and then we had the boys 4 by two some so very well-rounded athletes here. Um and they were in the championship division. Um so nice job. >> We also had several that ran in individual events. We had Elias Morris compete in the open 800. Um Cam Green and Jackson Fields in the open 200. and Cam individually in the 60 meter. And then Ruby and Anna, Ruby Frasier and Anna Amato in the girls mile. So just a little side note, these kids, many of them run all year long. They run cross country, indoor track, and outdoor track. And another thing is a lot of these kids have been with me since they were in middle school. And a

009lot of them are graduating this year. So, this is this is a very special group of young athletes that you have standing in front of you um that have represented our county very well. >> Thank you so much, Coach Kennedy. Congratulations to all of you. Wonderful accomplishments. We do have a certificate for you. And then if any board members want to gather around, we'll try to find some way to get a picture of all these folks. Dang it, guys. >> Can you be in the front? >> Where do I go? >> The wall of tall kids. Why don't we try to do another row here or something and see how we >> Oh, that's a good idea. >> That's okay. >> Oh my goodness. >> All right. Thank you so much. Thanks for coming out.

010>> Thank you so much. >> Okay. Uh Mr. Chairman, we can we'll just leave the podium where it is because we have some more students that we'd like to recognize. So, we have some uh some other scholars with us who have distinguished themselves in chorus and band and uh Miss Harkrader is unable to be with us because of some family illness unfortunately, but Sam Campbell is with us. So, I'm going to invite band director Mr. Campbell to come up, tell us a little bit about the accomplishments of these wonderful students and we will uh do the same thing. We have some certificates and then we'll we'll get a picture. Mr. Campbell, >> thank you, Dr. >> So, we have three students. We have Brennan Pala, Summer McGra, and Jesse Wolston. Did I say it correctly?

011Close enough. >> All right. W correct me. Wston, >> K. Thank you. Okay, so all three of these kids uh have auditioned into the prestigious All Virginia band and choir events. Um to give you an idea of what that entails, um all three of these fine young scholars already auditioned into the district level. Uh we're part of the BOD which is our state organizations district 13 which encompies uh encompasses schools from Co Pepper all the way down to Amherst and Buckingham um and in a circle around the Charlottesville area. Uh and they all um succeeded in those auditions and received the opportunity to audition at the state level and again were all successful there and made it in. Um there's a very small number of students throughout the state that are uh accepted uh into

012this event. Uh I again start grader was planning to be here. I don't know exactly about the chair results of summer and Jesse. Do you guys know off the top of your heads? >> In the state. >> Yeah. So summer's the second two in the state. Jesse I got in off an alternate. >> Okay. So Jesse Jesse is the 13th best clarette in the state. 14th >> 14th. Um so all of these folks did very well at these auditions and we will go next week uh Thursday, Friday, Saturday in Richmond and they will perform a full concert where they're rehearsing and learning high level music in the span of three days. concert next Saturday for um an audience there at the Richmond Convention Center. So, great job to all three members come around and we'll

013get a picture >> and Jesse, right? >> Congratulations. Thank you. It's a little tighter than the last one. >> It's amazing. So, we're going to move on to uh 10A now. And I just want to remind everybody uh I see all the signs and the petitions and stuff. And this is the only thing we're going to ask. These are the expectations. Um the signs are fine. You have the right to uh speak your mind publicly. Um, but you're the expectation is that you're respectful, that they're not disruptive, and that you don't obstruct other people. So, if people want to film, that's fine. We're filming, too. Um, but please don't hold them in a way that blocks other people so that they may have the same opportunities you have. And again, please just don't be disruptive

014with them. Um, if that becomes an issue, then we'll readress it. Mr. Gretz, we are on to the reports from the superintendent. >> Okay. Thank you. And I believe uh we're going to begin with the slides for the charter school presentation. >> Also, Mr. Gretz, I just want to remind you that we must stop at 5:00 pm for a separate public hearing. >> Okay. It's not it's not a problem uh from my end. Uh okay. board members, for for the benefit of everybody, let me just recap. At the last meeting, the board asked me to do a report, anformational report regarding charter schools and specifically a proposal that was presented during uh public comment. So, from that time, and again, I just want to I want to put everybody on the same page with some

015commun communication that I've had with you over spring break. I was not able to get with your legal counsel, which was part of the research that I've done to try to gather this information until Monday, which gave me two days obviously to put some slides together. There was no way for me to put these slides in the board packet in time to have them given beforehand. And so we had discussion offline, not as a group, but individually about whether you wanted me to do this in May or do it today. And in order to just continue the conversation and provide the same amount of information to people, you've asked me to do it today. I'm just giving the disclaimer that the reason the slides weren't in the packet is because I wasn't able to put

016them together really until yesterday and today. And uh in no way am I an expert on chart charter schools. I certainly know a lot more about them now than I did two weeks ago or three weeks ago. But uh this definitely is an ongoing investigation on my part. I'm presenting some information for you today about uh the way they're defined in code, what kind of processes are outlined in code, if there are time lines associated with those, and then with regards to the specific proposal, some questions that I see surfacing that we would need to address. And from there, I'll just invite conversation from you and any other direction that we'll go from there. I'm going to try to operate this from here. What do I point it at? Okay. Well, so yeah, I I'll

017just let you know and you can you can go through. So everything I'm presenting is from article 1.2 and it's linked in this presentation. This presentation will be in the packet after today so all of you can can take a look at it. Okay. We'll we'll go through there. In the interest of time, I if anybody wants me to go ahead. So, I I've got three slides that just kind of peel apart the definition and we'll go through all three. The first one is charter schools are defined as public non-religious non-homebased alternative schools located within a public school division. Go ahead. Charter school may be created as a new public school or through the conversion of all or part of an existing public school. And then this next one is underlined. Go ahead. However, no

018public charter school shall be established through the conversion of a private school or a non-public home-based educational program. The reason I've underlined that is because one question that is surfaced that would need to be resolved is whether or not the current proposal is in fact a nonp is the conversion of a non-public homebased educational program. I can't resolve that for you tonight, but I just simply highlight that that is a question as to whether or not it is. I did talk with your legal counsel about it and towards the end of this I'll address some of what they said. Okay. Uh so we'll move through these pretty quickly, but established in code, what are the objectives and definitions associated with a a charter school in order to stimulate the development of innovative programs within public

019education? Go ahead. provide opportunities for innovative instruction and assessment. The reason I'm highlighting these is because these are where some of the questions surface for us on the on the uh on our team for how some of these things might impact the regulations that we have associated to the SOQs and the standards of accreditation. Provide parents and students with more options within the school division. Provide teachers with a vehicle for establishing schools with alternative innovative instruction and school scheduling, management, and structure. I'm not going to read all these slides to everybody. Encourage the use of performance-based educational programs. Establish high standards for teachers and administrators. And again, that's another area where we see some questions surfacing around uh endorsement requirements and certification requirements with teachers involved. and then uh essentially to develop a model that

020can be replicated. So that's what's in the code. Let's look briefly at the the application approval process. Now there are two ways to do this. I'm going to cover the first. So applications adhere to a format that's the state is my word, but the state board has a process for processing these applications. uh the deci and I just want to highlight the decision by the state board once it reviews these applications. The state board doesn't decide the merit of an application. It doesn't decide whether it's a good or a bad program, one that's good for a community or or or whether or not a school board should even consider it. The state board process is meant to evaluate the extent to which the application meets the criteria that are outlined in code. I don't list

021those in here, but I do in a in a couple of slides, I do give you the reference where anybody can go and look at what all of those are. They're outlined in the code. They're also contained in the application itself. This is just from the application process. I just want to put this out there for people uh to see. The application itself indicates that you would allow about six months. that can be extended longer depending on how that goes. And again, I'm going to outline this in just a minute. And that you might consider allowing about 18 months from the point that the state board reviews this to the point that something might actually happen. And I just put that out there because I know there's been some conversation in the community about something

022happening tonight or some kind of a vote happening tonight or decisions being made quickly. And you can see the approval process depending on how it goes is not one that happens overnight by any means. Also want to point out because again there's just been communication that has come to me that's been requesting the proposal that was presented during uh public comment. Why don't we have access to that? Where is that linked? If this actually becomes an application that is submitted to the state, there's a requirement for that to be web accessible and then it would be it's not a proposal from us at this point and it's not to my knowledge officially sent to the state at this point. So I don't think it's web accessible although I do believe the author of it has

023shared it. So I just want to highlight that. Okay. So this is the process as outlined in code that the state board could follow. And again, this is one of two ways to do this. I'm not going to read all this to you, but basically, it is sent to the state board. They acknowledge receipt within 15 days. They notify the applicant that it's that it's complete or it's not complete. If it's complete, they move on. If it's if it's not, then they're given a certain amount of time uh 30 days to resubmit or to submit the outstanding information. There is a process for a second request in another 10 days, but ultimately it makes its way to a commun charter school committee. And I can't tell you who's on that committee. I do believe that

024there is a placement you can access the committee members on the Virginia Department of Ed website. I haven't gotten that far in my research, but that committee is assembled within 60 days and they begin the process of reviewing. And that process happens with a publicly noticed meeting uh where members of this well in this case but the local school board, local community staff, family members are invited to come and in fact requested to come and give input. If that committee finds that the application is complete and meets the criteria, then it goes to the state board in the form of a report and that report comes within 10 days and it's also sent to this board or the whatever the school board is in uh in question. If it's not complete, then there may be

025a second committee meeting and again the same process that I've just outlined. Eventually, it's either deemed complete and the report comes to the board and the applicant at that point is able to take a complete application and bring it to a local. Okay, any questions about any of this? So, that's that is the process of an application going to the state board for review. Is it possible for a local board to do all this without the state? Yes, it is. It is possible. I do have a butt there, but let's uh let's look at the next couple of slides. I just want to put everybody on the same page. The code does say that no charter school application that is initiated by one or more school boards is subject to the provisions of subject of

026subsection C. What is in subsection C? The next slide tells us this is the section that outlines the process that I just unfolded. So, a school board is able to initiate an application that does not go through that review process and the next slide will give you a couple of considerations about that. Yes, you can do that. However, all of the provisions that are outlined in the code and here is where you can find those. I've given that link there, that application that lists all of the requirements that have to be included. They they need to be addressed and they have to be uh they have to be addressed in such a way as it satisfies the requirements as outlined in code in the forthcoming agreement because what happens at the end of all of

027this is an agreement between a school board and a charter school organization. So in essence, if this were the route that a school board took, you would be completing the application process and submitting it to yourself. Do you need to use the application that the state gives? It's not bless you, not required. Um, but that application process already has included all of the required um compliance mechanisms. So, however, those are the two ways that that can happen. An applicants can submit it to the state. the state signs off on whether or not it's complete and then the applicant can bring that to a local board or a local board can initiate it itself but must go through the same application process although it's not reviewed by the state. Okay. Once it's approved I just wanted

028to highlight these are just a couple of things I'm pulling out for you. If this is approved within 90 days of that approval there has to be an agreement that's reached. So there is a contract that comes within 90 days of an approval. And then in the bottom uh I'm I'm simply saying down here that a local board would need to give at least 14 days notice of a public meeting where there were a public hearing where the public would be invited to give comment before an application were even to be considered if one were to be considered. So that's just timelines that I'm sharing with you out of gut. Um, as I mentioned, there's several questions that surface for us as a team and we've not been able to dive into them to be

029frank in the time that we've had the last couple of weeks. One of which was spring break. Uh, and this is just a random sampling of some of the questions. And I want to make it clear, I'm not putting these questions up here to suggest that this is an impossible thing to do. I'm not making a case for it or against it. I'm simply saying that there are questions that we would need to resolve before we could give before I could give you any kind of a assessment from my point of view as to whether this was something that I recommend you pursue or not. Uh the legal question that I began with in the beginning is this in fact is what's being proposed a non-public home-based educational program? I can't tell you the answer

030to that. Um there are those that build a case that say that it is and those that would build a case that would say that it isn't and the courts haven't opined on it. Your your board council uh believes that it is. And so I think that is a question that at the outset if there were if this were something that was of interest in pursuing, we'd need to resolve that from our end. Um there's several operational questions that I listed just to kind of show the direction of where they're going. A charter school once it is approved and established is not a private separate school. It becomes one of fluana one of the school board schools that you manage and operate and as such it's subject to all the standards of accreditation requirements and

031the uh standards of quality requirements. So there are implications for staffing, there are implications for course requirements, there are implications for uh services to be provided. There's student ratios involved. And again, I'm not building a case to say that the answers to those questions are problematic. They're just simply questions that we'd have to answer. Are we able with the proposed model to address all of the required areas of reading, math, social studies, health and PE, CTE requirements, counseling requirements? Those are things that I can't tell you at this point what that looks like in the proposed model, but we would have to this charter school or any charter school would be subject to those requirements. uh students enrolled in the school and this has been why I think everybody understands this any of those students

032then become public school students they're subject to state testing but the issue with state testing is depending on how students do on state tests as we all know because there have been schools in surrounding us that have gone into uh school improvement at the state level if benchmarks aren't hit and the state imposes those improvement protocol then there are other staffing implications there their protocol with regards to mandatory curriculum and uh what would that look like in the kind of school that's been proposed? I don't know. I think that's something that we would need to understand. We certainly understand it now. We're very clear on what that looks like for the schools that we serve. It doesn't mean they're going to go into improvement. it it means that we know exactly what that looks like

033and we know how to address that and I don't know that for this model at this time. Um and I should have said please feel free to chime in here because we've we there's been a team of us who working this is not uh Pete Gretz has been looking at this in isolation. Um right now the the accreditation model in the state is literally as we sit here I think being revised by the state board and the general assembly. And so there is a measure of achievement and a measure of growth and a measure related to attendance. How does the attendance base a required measure? So a certain percentage of the accreditation of all of Fluana schools is related to student attendance. How is student attendance measured for the S SOASS with the proposed model?

034I'm not suggesting there's not an answer to that. That that's just something that is an example of a question that I don't have an answer to. um lensure and endorsement requirements with the proposed model um and the the way it is proposed to be staffed and I know that that's a fluid thing perhaps but how would our lensure how would our requirements with regards to teacher certification and contracting work with the way that proposed model uses uh parents and teaching staff in consultation? I I think that's another question that we would need to address. Special education. I just put two up here and this is really its own animal because there are so many regulations and I Jen Valentine's in here and okay so I put you on the spot but feel free to we've

035obviously discussed this a little bit. Um the the big one on the front end is that we're required by the federal government to educate students with disabilities to the maximum extent possible in the least restrictive environment. Uh the least restrictive environment is not what I think it is or what the parent even thinks it is. It's an IEP team decision. And so when students that have disabilities become public school students, that becomes the requirement. Am I suggesting that the least restrictive environment for future students, I don't know who those students are, but is this the least restrictive environment for them? I don't know. That's an IEP team decision, but I think that's an interesting thing that we'd have to resolve. It may not be. Um the ability to anticipate and provide accommodations. Again, there are

036IEP meetings that I think would be forthcoming. If students that are enrolled and and this is all based on the current proposal, if students that are enrolled are students with disabilities, there would be forthcoming IEP team decisions. And I don't know what those decisions are going to be. I don't know what those accommodations are. I do believe that the funding of those accommodations, and I'm not suggesting they're expensive, I'm just simply saying that whatever they are, the the support for those financially would fall 100% to the school division. That's not something we would share, and it's not something that would be um ameliated through the state's provision through the through the charter school foundation. At least that's my understanding. That's another question to be resolved. The next slide is really related to some of the

037financial questions and I don't know that we need to go through every one of those or I might just invite you to highlight some of those if you want to. But again, these are just questions. They're questions because I think there are some assumptions that we've approached this with um or at least some assumptions that that have been mentioned regarding the financial impact or maybe the lack of a financial impact. And I'm I think I'm not comfortable to say that I'm uh that I agree or disagree with those without some further investigation. And this is just kind of my highlighting of some of the questions around this. Do you want to go through? >> Sure. Um I started out with use I used fiscal year 23 in that first bullet because that's the first the

038last complete year that we have that we have the annual school report for. And at that time the federal funding was about 1391 per student and the f the state funding was about 7761 a student and the locality provided 5321 per pupil. It it's true that if we had additional students we would increase the state funding but the federal funding is driven by census data. It's not driven by enrollment. So that federal funding really stays about the same. the state funding as we all know because when we talk about budget we talk about local composite index although they're going to provide that $7,700 or somewhere in that neighborhood it does vary from year to year the locality is then required to contribute um and for that for fiscal year 23 it's basically about 40% that

039they contribute at the locality level. So that if using that model very simplistically, it would be a little bit over $3,000 per student that the locality would have to contribute. Now, it's true that our locality contributes more than the minimum requirement from the state. And we know that because we talk about SOQS and and that we fund at a higher level. We have more teachers than are required, those sorts of things. So that that part is in there as well. What gets really tricky and very complex is special education. There's a requirement for um maintenance of effort and it's calculated multiple ways, but one of the ways is per capita. And just to kind of give you an idea of that, it's over $13,000 that we pay locally for special education. And we can't go

040down from that number as long as our enrollment stays up. And so what that means is if we do bring in more special education students, there is a greater burden on the locality or we at least have to maintain that um maintenance of effort with our special education population. The other tricky part of that is we're required to provide whatever services those kids need. And anytime you're bringing in additional special education students, those needs can be very minor in terms of just needing extra support or significant assistance. It might be an interpreter or something like that. So, it's just very hard to um know what those needs might be and they can change in the course of a year or two. We see that quite frequently. The other um population to consider is if there

041were English language learners, there would be additional requirements for that. And then also students with mobility impairments, you would have some some offsets that you would have to do with that. One of the things that I don't think people necessarily understand with special education is like if you're having kids um just having kids come back and forth to school or to a site if you were doing it in a different site, you have to provide that transportation. Um the parent may choose to provide it themselves, but frequently we provide that transportation. So there's an added expense on there as well. >> So again, these are just these are just kind of a random sampling of some of the questions. Didn't put an exhaustive list up here of some of the questions that I think we

042would need to resolve together in order to really evaluate what moving forward looks like. The last slide is just a couple of considerations for you. I the state has an established process for evaluating again not the feasibility of a program, not the merit of a program, but rather the extent to which a proposal meets the criteria outlined in code. Uh I'll be very candid, I don't have the expertise to do that. I don't have the experience to do that. I don't think collectively as a team we have the same level of expertise with regards to evaluating homeschool pro proposals as this process would bring. That said, um if you ask us to do it, I'm going to do it. Um the final evaluation of the of this proposal is going to fall to the local

043board. So whether this would have a positive impact or a negative impact, if it's a good fit, if it's a benefit, all of that, none of that is decided by the state board. The state board doesn't impose any of that on the local board. The state board would provide a report to you that would be a response to the application that would show you what was or wasn't compliant in terms of meeting the criteria outlined in state code. Uh let me stop there and invite questions that you might have or any other direction that you might have. Again, this is just kind of a snapshot of where I am with several of our staff members in doing what you asked me to do, which was to evaluate and just bring some information to you regarding

044charter schools and life prep in general. >> All right, board members, we have about 12 minutes before the Father Clark required public hearing. >> Mr. Ratz, I'm gonna ask a question. Sure. >> Reading all this information about charter schools and is that uh what Abrams Academy is operating under a charter school? >> No, not at all. >> Just I was just curious. >> No. A Abrams Academy really is a part of Levanda County High School. It's not even its own independent school, >> but it's in a separate bill. >> Separate building >> like some of this says I was just curious. >> Yeah. No, it it's it's not at all similar, but it is in a separate building. Any other questions or any other direction for me moving forward? I just think we need answers.

045Heard the word question very very repetitively. I know I have a lot of questions. So I think before we can make even any kind of opinions or anything like that, I think we need a lot of answers to be given to us. one months questions. >> All right. Anything else, Mr. Grass? >> Not on this necessarily. And I'll ask, do you do you want to pause and start public comment and do the public hearing or do you want me to keep going with my report which is unrelated to this? Let's keep going with your report. Um because we have 10 minutes until the public hearing. >> Okay. >> So, actually, sorry, I do want to double click. So, is there anything right now like I missed last meeting, so I was near, but there was

046talk of a proposal. Is there anything in Virginia code that compels the school board to act in any way, shape, or form right now? >> Like compels you to act? >> Yeah. Is there anything that we must do by according to Virginia code based on this? >> Not at this point. >> And so the only time at which this board might be compelled to take up a charter school issue is if it went through the state application and two years from now we get notification that it meets the requirements. >> I would say yes. I believe that's true. And my understanding is that at that point you could consider it. If you did not consider it once it had been through that process, I believe the state board asks you for some rationale. I'd have

047to follow up on that though. >> But I think the answer to your question is that there's nothing right now legally compelling you to do anything. >> So unless unless this application goes to the state and comes back, there's no mandatory action on our part whatsoever. whether research or otherwise. >> No, I don't think so. >> So, I I know that I know you're going to hear from folks about this tonight and there's more consideration. My request of the board would be at some point for there to be some some pretty clear direction for me on how our team would approach moving forward with research, reporting, collaborating with uh with Miss Besi and her team and gathering information and what maybe the next step would be for us. Any other questions? >> So, the uh

048Okay, moving on to my report. I won't read this to you. There's several things in here. I'd encourage you if you haven't to take a look at the one thing I'll I'll address kind of towards the middle under curriculum instruction are the changes that are happening at the state level. I just mentioned them a little bit. I just think we should all be paying very close attention to that and in particular the percentage weights that are being given to the different criteria attendance readiness which is being defined at the elementary level as attendance and um growth versus achievement. We've had changes to Head Start which you heard a little bit about in in close session and if we can reiterate those things but they're outlined in here. I just want everybody to be aware of

049what's happening with that. There are some changes that are being imposed and some ways that we are working very hard to continue to serve students that otherwise would not be served. And that's outlined in there uh to address some of the things that we've of course we've had vape detectors. We just haven't been able to have the uh the electricians on hand to install them. They are being installed. We have great accomplishments to celebrate. some of which tonight we've had our forensics team win their sixth consecutive uh state title. In addition, we had some seventh graders go to JMU and uh really accomplish some wonderful results with the kid win challenge which incorporates STEM activities, engineering design, renewable energy. Um and then the VRS change that we've talked about with dual employees that's highlighted in

050here that did happen. So we've been communicating with staff about that. The minutes of my last staff advisory committee are included in there. You can take a look at those. There weren't as many questions this time, but my answers are there. And minutes from the most recent March 28th, I think, learning resources committee meeting are included there. Just want to give kudos to Gemma Suarez again for her work there. She's leading that in an exceptional way and they're doing some very positive work and I know they have another meeting coming up. I believe it's April 18th. any questions you have for me from any of that? I I went through that pretty and then I think divers has some things that he's going to share if you ready to do that now. >> Yes. Um

051so I know last time I came here I came with a lot of problems that they have had some problems and we also have a lot of solutions that we put into play in the school system for these things. Um as Dr. Reds talked about the vaping issue it's big but we do have the vapor detectors. we are getting them installed from what I've heard. Um there's also a lot of concerns about bullying in the schools like complained about that and it's not being addressed. Um we need to address to the students that if they're not reported nothing can be addressed. A lot of concerns about the healthiness of our school lunches. I know that has some part to do with the budget because I've been talking to the lunch ladies at the school. They

052say they're trying their best to get us the healthiest food they can with the budget they've been allowed with. And um a lot of a lot of a lot of complaints about and concerns about lack of communication between the staff and admin at the school and students. A lot of students complained they weren't included on the emails about changes in school policy and changes in school rules. We're going to address that, send out more emails to students that would like to be included and have more class meetings to share this information with them. That is all. Thank you. Divers, is there anything that we can do as a board to support you or are there things that that Yeah. like how can we help enable you and >> not sure at the moment I can

053get back to you on that? >> Totally. >> Just know that like you have our emails please. >> Yes. Can you email us that again? >> Yes. Actually, have this copy if you want. >> All right. We have three minutes left, Mr. Gretz, before the five o'clock public open public hearing. >> Do you want me to I can pull out some more things from my report or >> I got your guitar handy. >> What I'll do? >> I don't um see we'll uh let's just take a three minute break because I don't want to let someone start in public comment and then have it stop them for public hearing. So, let's everyone take a threem minute break. It's 457 now. All right. >> We're going to call the meeting to order. Please everyone have a

054seat. It is five o'clock and we are um required to have a public hearing for the SR3 spending plan and safe return six-month review. Does does anybody have any comments specific to that issue? >> Right. Hearing none, we will close that public hearing and we will move on to public comments. Um, any Fana County citizen or employee of the FA County Public School System is welcome to speak and the expectations are that you address the board, that you don't address individual members, you provide your name in your voting district, that you do not exceed three minutes, and that time will be up here on the televisions, um, and that you're respectful. The board will not interact with you during public comment, but you are welcome to ask us questions after the meeting. And uh there

055should be an opportunity for a second round of public comment later in the meeting. Um also again a reminder about the signage. You can you can have signs. Um please no clapping, no hooping and hollering. Just keep it respectful and uh don't obstruct people or be disrespectful with the signs. I have one, two, three, four, five. I have seven people signed up. But just because you didn't sign up doesn't mean you can't speak. So, I will start with uh >> twohour maximum up for the agenda. >> Yes, we have that's right. We have a two-hour maximum. >> Um so, number one, Ashley Crocker. Board members agree. It's uh 503. Hello, my name is Ashley Crocker and I live in the Fort Kenya district. After reading the application and meeting with the applicants, my concern about

056the Life Prep Charter School are numerous. I will also note that I have heard from many, many community members who share my concerns for unable to come in person at this supposedly early meeting time. The first and perhaps most obvious concern is that it isn't clear that a classroomless charter school is even legal in Virginia given that the code explicitly states that a charter school must not be homebased. If a school is classroomless, it seems to me that majority of the instruction would happen at home. Another concern has to do with the proposed student expense accounts. In the application, it says these accounts can be used to buy books, curriculum, tutoring, extracurricular activities, or services provided by community partners. That's something that no public school family has access to and opens a lot of questions

057for me. Who decides what counts as a learning expense? Where is the oversight? It seems obvious that this is an attempt to get paid with taxpayer money for making the choice to homeschool. While everyone should have the option to homeschool their children if that is what works best for their family, they should not be able to take money from the schools to do it or receive taxpayer money. While there's been a lot of discussion about the budget for this school and how it will provide new money for FCPS that is misleading at best. Yes, if we start this charter school, it may lead to some current homeschool families enrolling, therefore increasing the funds we have access to. However, those funds will go directly to the expenses that come with the charter school and into those

058unregulated student expense accounts. Based on the application I have seen and the meeting I've had with the applicant, it is clear that the charter school would need the full amount of per people funding to run the school and therefore would not result in any new money for our current schools. In fact, by their own admission, if even one student who is currently enrolled in FCPS chooses to enroll in the charter school, that is a loss of funding for our schools. I have many other concerns, but I'm mindful of my time limit. So, I'll just say this. As the mother of a child with a 504 plan currently enrolled in FCPS, I have enormous empathy for families just trying to advocate for their children and ensure their needs are met. I want every child, regardless of

059their needs or abilities, to have the resources they need to reach their full potential and truly thrive in our community. But the answer to that is not to give up on those kids succeeding in our schools and choosing to isolate them away from their peers and the truly fantastic special education experts we have here in the county. The answer is to provide funding for the one-on-one aids they need. school psychologists and guidance counselors in programs that will help them learn, grow, and thrive. I welcome the opportunity to work with the applicants on something like that, but I simply cannot support this charter school. While we are all aware that a vote will not be happening today, I hope that when the time comes for a vote, you will not support the Life Prep Charter School.

060Thank you. Next on the list is Geanna Joselyn. Good afternoon. My name is Georgina Joslin from the Cunningham District. First of all, I want to express my appreciation to Dr. Betts and Mr. Reid for being the only members of this panel to reply to the numerous emails sent by community members to the school board about the charter school issue in these past few weeks. In past experience as well, other emails to board members have also gone without acknowledgement or replies regarding various other subject matters. As our elected representatives, it is literally your job to represent your constituents and we need we need to feel that we have been heard, including with ongoing issues such as the book banning that's going on in the high school. This latest issue involves the discussion of charter schools in

061Fluana. I am absolutely 100% in favor of advocating for your child and finding the best solution fits the needs of your family. That is your right and it is the right of every parent or guardian who is willing and able to do so for their child. But not every parent or guardian can attend these meetings. Not every parent or guardian knows what is happening in the school district and how the budget works. And sadly, some parents or guardians don't seem to care. It is up to the schools and the school board to act in the best interests of the 3,300 kids in the school system to spend this the budget allocated to them by the board of supervisors in a way that benefits all the children and not just a select few. Public charter schools

062in Flavana will do just that. Take the money from the thousands to benefit a select few. If even one child leaves the public school system to enter the charter, that is thousands of dollars lost from the school budget. As a public charter, their enrollment is open to everyone. It is short-sighted and naive to think that their target audience of current homeschoolers will be the only ones who enroll. In this budget cycle alone, y'all had to outright fire three aids, restructure other positions, and lose a few more teachers and assistants through attrition, which increased class sizes. Not to mention, you had to cut the funding for SAT and PSAT testing to the students. You can't pay for all the projects that you already want and need to do for the 2024 and 2025 year alone, such

063as renovating the bathrooms at Central, the turf replacement, and fixing the track at the high school, resurfacing the track at the middle school, providing a generator for food storage safety, replacing the broken playground equipment at Car's Brook and Central, fixing the school doors, and adding metal detectors that were all mentioned in the capital improvement plan. Not to mention paying the employees something comparable to what they can make in the next county over. These are valid concerns, not some politically motivated drama or an emotional outburst. The people speaking here tonight, the ones who sent in emails and others yet to be heard from all deserve to be heard and respected by the people that they elected. Thank you. >> Right, John Richardson. I am John Richardson of the uh Ryana district. I live in Virginia during

064allergy season severely moved. Uh my son is currently attending a private school in Charlesville, top of his class. We're transitioning him to public school next year and the parents of all his classmates visibly cringe when I mention Fluana County high schools. With good reason. The district's teachers are all underpaid and overworked. positions are being purposely left unfilled. There's unchecked bullying, food quality problems in the cafeteria. A whole litany of issues are afflicting the school district. None of which we have the resources to address. So, I don't understand how it would possibly make sense to divert attention and funding to investigating this charter school proposal rather than including these children in the existing school framework and solving the problems that already exist in the school system. To that end, I very much ask you to follow

065Dr. for Kelly's advice and just not act on this until compelled to because charter schools can function very well in well-funded urban areas with density of revenue and populations. What they tend to do in more rural areas or lower performing areas such as ours is they siphon money out of the public system into private pockets. Because while yes, it is technically a publicly owned school, it is privately run. And as the previous speaker spoke to, it's a matter of where that funding is going, like the administration cost of $120,000 a year or what constitutes a learning fee. Those sort of things tend to be a vehicle for corruption. And I feel like that model can be summarized best by a quote from um Mr. Danny Reid, who I believe said that right here. With help

066from others, we will start the most successful and largest education cohort in this county, stripping budget from Fluan County Public Schools and stripping your teachers away, which is exactly what charter schools tend to do. So, I ask you to please not entertain this proposal any more than you're required to. Thank you. >> Again, do not mention schoolboard members by name, please. >> Won't do it again. All right. Um, I'm not sure if I can pronounce this, but Bill Mes. >> Okay. >> Um, I came into this uh not really sure what we were doing. Um, seems like I know several members uh will not mention my name because that's the rule, but um we came in requested not to have theoretical or philosophical conversations. We want facts and figures. Um but we're purely dealing with

067a philosophical question at the moment. So that makes it a little difficult to address. However, um because no application has been formally submitted, it's my understanding. So everything is theoretical and philosophical philosophical at this moment. But I just want to take a different approach and just say that right now um without having what seems to be a clearly defined need that should be addressed with this purpose all occurred is you know vagaries. So I would say right now if you look at the most recent numbers that we've got available from the state department of education our schools despite the challenges are doing an exceptional job currently to educate our students in this county. Right now in the most recent available report on condition and needs that's on the website uh Leana County schools meet or

068exceed every standard or every SOQ. That's pretty admirable right now. I don't there's not a need that I can see right there for that. Uh when it comes to special needs right now according to the website 73% of special needs students with an IEP graduate with a regular diploma, not a special diploma. That's incredibly admirable and that's a lot of hard work from our educational system and our teachers right now to make that happen. Including 83% who go on to be enrolled in higher ed or gainfully employed within one year of graduating from the school system and 89% who are in higher ed, a trade school or gainfully employed after within one year of graduation. When you start approaching 90% success in those situations, we're doing something right in our existing structure and our existing

069school system with our existing educators who are highly dedicated to these students. Um, as we move forward, if if applicants become available, I know that one of the comments that was made was we really need to focus in on comparable situations in Virginia. And the challenge for that is there are no comparable situations. We currently have, from what I could find, seven public charters in the state. One is in Charlottesville, which may be the closest comparable thing, but based on population, it's not. Two are in Northern Virginia, which would be DC suburbs. Two are in Virginia Beach, which has a population of 4 million people we don't come close to. And two are enrichment. Two of those seven are also designed as uh what would traditionally have been considered dropout prevention programs and not specifically

070working to address special needs. So just think those are things that we need to consider especially the incredible success that our teachers and our school system is already putting forth based on the numbers we're seeing from the state. So thanks >> right Joseph is it Joseph Casey. Good afternoon board. Uh my name is Joey. I'm with the Elmont district and uh I want to uh just say that uh with Dr. regrets his information this afternoon. Uh we feel that uh we have a lot to uh be informed about and he's going to uh get that information back to us before we make any determination in a meaningful determination as to what we need to do in our organization. And by the way, I'm president of the NAACP chapter here locally. That's all we have right

071now. Thank you. >> Thank you. >> Paul Lacy. >> My name is Paul Deacy. I'm in the Fork Union Voting District. um professor emeritus of linguistics at Ruters and honorary associate professor at the University of Aland. We've now had 32 years of charter schools in this country. So we can ask our charter schools any good? Looking at the academic research, it's shown that charter schools are not an improvement over public schools on academic performance. So Betts and Tang 2011 found that in some cases they do better and some they do do worse and in some they do the same. uh Gulysino and Liber 2020 comment that quote suburban charter schools do not improve academic achievement and are largely ineffective end quote but why don't we put academics aside Monteray at L2020 report that quote charter

072schools increase school racial segregation for black Hispanic white and Asian students by around 6% for finances Knight and 2020 found that in Texas quote Each student who transfers to a charter school increases the cost to the state by $1,500 unquote. Bulko and Reebach 2011 found that New York quote charter schools have had negative fis fiscal impacts unquote for teachers. Rohan 2020 in Pennsylvania found that charter schools quote pay significantly less by around $10,000 unquote. that would put charter school teachers near the bottom of the OECD pay rank for teachers. In a related note, Jabar at L2020 found that quote, "Charter administrators reacted with severity to nent unionization drives, harnessing school as family metaphors and at will contracts to prevent union formation," unquote. When I was undergraduate director at Rutgers University, I would have many students

073come to me and ask about teaching as a career and I would warn them, "No one respects teachers in the United States." And I would put points at Echobod Crane in the novel Sleepy Hollow. There's even a story of a ship in the early days of this colony that put out a sign saying for sale slaves and teachers. How is this lack of respect shown? Well, in a capitalist country, it's showing by paying people badly. And anti-UN activity and charter schools do both of these things. So, when I see charter schools being proposed, I think, of course, this is a way to lower teachers wages and uh wages and eliminate their benefits. So, basing my view on the academic research, uh I'm against charter schools in our county and in our country. Thank you. >>

074Right. Andrea Overwe. That's the last one. But just because you didn't sign up doesn't mean you can't speak. >> Good afternoon board and superintendent. My name is Andrea Overwick. I reside at Tupawatan Road. I have lived in Hubana, Virginia for 20ome years. My husband and I have one daughter who attends public school here in Fubana. I want you to know that I consider myself a steadfast and unapologetic supporter of public education. I believe that public schools are the ladder of opportunity from which all children may climb. Public schools take in kids who are profoundly with disabilities, speech, emotional, everything. And yet privates and charters cherrypick their students. And that's why their outcomes are better. I cannot stand by and believe that we are entertaining taking away from this school district by enrolling children in a

075charter school which is going to degrade our resources and degrade the quality of the education that we are currently offering. A vote for roughly a hundred students for this charter school is a vote against the 3,300 students who are here and depending on these schools. I am a humanitarian. I care about kids and I care about kids that have IEPs and I have a daughter with a 504. So I am very invested in seeing every child reach their fullest potential. My belief is invest in our schools. Our schools are in intricately connected to the strength of my property value, all of our property value. So there are many ways in which we can make education in Fuana schools even better, but we do not need to squander our time and resources with a folly like

076a charter school. And I will say I did look at the application. I availed myself to do it and it was farcical. 1.6 6 million. Half of the money going into salaries and then the rest for what? Play money for people. It was absurd. Hillsboro Charter in Lowden County, that is one of the richest counties in Virginia. I called my friend and you know what? She knows Hillsboro Charter. It started with good intentions. They had an old building that was in need of a school. They felt they hated to see it was historic, but it has went the way it's become a mess. and she said, "Fight this and fight it with all you got. What are you doing in your county, which she knows our county trying to put in a charter school? We

077have a hundred times the money in our county than you do." And I said, "Amen to that. I will be there to speak." And by the way, had I known about this charter school last October, November, whatever the board found out, I would have been here to speak before. The time to fight the charter school is now. It is not. It is not 14 days before you take a vote or whatever. It is now. Thank you for letting me speak. All right. Anyone else wishing to speak? >> I'm Jer Jackson. Colonia district. What really bothers me about this is the children. You all, oh, this charter school wants to take the most neediest children out, separate them away from other children. Hey, we used to do that and that was called institution. We would put

078them in an institute. So, is that where we're headed? Because the children are different. You want to separate them. Okay. you start for a charter school then I'll be going to the institute. Okay. And even with and you know I' I've been going to these quote learning resources committee is book banning and the books last month most of them were about the LBGQ community. So they're different so you want to get rid of resources for them. Studies show that children who have disabilities who are in an inclusive classroom, that means not separated into a school all by themselves, but in the classroom with all students, that they benefit. It says that they have positive short-term and long-term effects for all students. We don't need to separate kids. We need to put them together and teach

079that even though we might be different, we're all children. They're all valuable and to um separate them is I think is sinful and I think it shows absolutely no love, no consideration for the children. Also, um kids with special needs um who are in inclusive classes are absent less often. That's research. They develop stronger skills in reading and math. They also more likely to have jobs and pursue education after high school. So if you take them out from inclusive classrooms then you take away all the positive benefits. I was reading the paper and some of the reasons that was said for the charter school was just laughable. One was um said that um it would benefit the schools because we would have fewer students so that classrooms are small. So you want to take away

080the most neediest people so that we can have smaller classes and also it utilize um parents as resources. We already utilize parents as resources. They come in and they they read the students. So that's nothing new. It says it would promote innovation. So are you seeing that the teachers now that they're not innovative? You just heard all the statistics about success. But the worst thing about this all is that you want to that not you, but hopefully not you, but the people who want this charter school, they want to take the neediest kids and separate them from everyone else. You want to tell them that they're different and that they're inferior. That was way back then and we should never do that. >> All right, sir. I'm Eric Anderson from the Cunningham District. Uh, in

081contrast to some of the other speakers here, I actually have strong experience with and a very favorable impression of homeschooling. I have worked with charter school programs that do amazing things. But I have to caution what this means in the context of Savannah County and the reality we're dealing with. The places I've worked that had really cool, innovative, great uh charter schools have been school districts or school divisions with 5, 10, 20 times the enrollment that we have. We're really kind of small. A 50,000 student school district can afford to build a separate school and do something cool and work on teamwork or computer skills or something special. Um, I think there's not really room for it here. we have trouble enough dealing well with the stuff that we got to deal in terms of

082homeschooling. I think homeschooling is a fundamental right that parents should have the right do have the obligation to direct the education of their children but doing it with government support is intrinsically going to lead to government interference. Finally, I'd say that the specific proposal and as far as I know we don't have a formal full proposal available for the public. There's all kinds of informal drafts and stuff circulating around. Doesn't look like anything we could support it. As a homebased program, it's explicitly in violation of the homeschool policy that's in the packet for this meeting that says we cannot support homebased education. It's marginally in violation of the religious exclusion for for uh charter school things. It doesn't seem like anything we could legally support and fund in this county. Um, proposing to set up

083a framework that would allow charter schools is fine, but the proposal that's on the table now looks like millions of dollars, most of which goes to administrators who rarely even interact with children and don't teach them directly and the rest a hand out free money for the government to people for doing stuff they're already doing. So the proposal as I understand it and I'm looking forward to finding a real an you know real answers that people have asked for before proposal as I understand it is not worth doing. But the idea that we should completely ban work against this thing uh that's not that's not where I stand. So you need to look at the proposal think about it really carefully. How does it fit in with our budget? Is it fair? Does it meet

084our needs? Is it legal under the Commonwealth's code before you move forward? Thank you. >> Hi to the board. I am Tristan Hoberg. I live in the Cunningham district. I also want to voice that I don't support the charter schools. Uh I didn't plan to say much, but I do want to comment on a couple of the things that people went over regarding the funding. It does seem to me that uh being ignored but by people who are supporting this is the economies of skill that we get when we use money in in the same pot. So if we're splitting up that money to a different pot, then that's less money that can go towards a lot of things that we can get for one group but not if they're in another location. That's important

085and that's something that you know I've been in Fana schools since I was a child and I have always known that Fana needs a little bit more funding so I don't want to see any of it go away. Thank you. And I'm not being rude. Uh my kid has soccer so I'm leaving that. >> Right. Anyone else? Hello and Joy Veresi villain in the room. Um, I just want to tell you guys thank you. I have been so impressed with the staff, Miss Gillum, Dr. Gretz, Miss Valentine, all of the board members. I when I brought the proposal to you guys and I specifically asked last month for you guys to initiate it, that is what I hoped. I am tired and I just didn't want to go through the process of of submitting it

086to the state. But when I spoke um with Dr. Gretzkillum, they mentioned that there were several financial questions that u we needed to answer, legal questions that we needed to answer and I'm happy to go through that process. We can go through the state process and um I I think it's great. So, that's how I would amend my request is that you would wait for me to submit it to the state. Um, but in the meantime, I just am so appreciative that you took the time to consider what I asked. Um, I think that it's important that we get these conversations out uh for discussion. I know it's difficult to have conversation in a room like this, but the people who have reached out to me have been willing to speak open openly um about

087ideas and suggestions. And so I appreciate that as well from the community members. So I I'm thankful to live here in Fana County. I obviously don't want to move to another county to get excuse me um the support that we need for our children. And I'm confident that working together with Miss Valentine, Dr. Miss Gillum and the board will find a way to support our kids um in a way that would be best for them and lead to the outcomes that we need for our county. And I'm sorry that I got emotional, but um but I just will end with uh telling you I will continue to work with you. I will continue to look for solutions as um Ashley and Georganna and others have requested me to do. And um I appreciate that you

088guys are willing to stand up and um help us look for solutions in the future. So thank you and I look forward to working with you. Right. Anyone else? Anyone else wishing to speak? All right. We will close the first round of public comments and we will move to BSBA fluana policy updates first review item 10 subsection B. Thank you Mr. Poland. Uh members of the board you'll find in your packet there's several policies for you to consider. The majority of these I'm happy to answer questions that you have. The majority of these you will have seen are the changes are either semantics or in some cases it's capitalizing a word that was uh beforehand not capitalized. Ironically and not to make light but I do think it's ironic that uh the VSBA has this

089month included in its round of policies for you to consider a revised learning resources policy which you just went through the process of revising. um as well as a uh an update on the policy for charter schools. The policy for charter schools, the change literally is changing the word from regulation to procedure. That's it. Uh and yet it finds itself on on the agenda tonight. If if you have any questions for me, I'm happy to answer them. My suggestion to you and again I'm happy to have a conversation but you've been through a process of revising the the policies that you already have related to uh evaluating learning resources and handling complaints from community and family about learning resources and you have your own policy. Now, the BSBA, as you know, releases its own policies.

090The the revisions to these policies are not related. They're not substantive, first of all. And I guess what I'm saying is because you've just been through this policy uh process and you have a committee that's currently working on submitted complaints, I don't recommend that you change this this month. And I would recommend that you just pull those. Uh, and again, you're not sorry, you're you're not uh these are just first readings, so you're not you're not passing them tonight anyway. But I just wanted to mention those are on there simply because they're on a list that the VSBA sends each month that they're they're not on the list because of anything that's going on in this community related to learning resources. And my suggestion would be to wait until uh later in the summer to

091address those. But any questions you have, please please ask. Board members. >> How about the VSBA 24 policy services agreement? It says first review, but it is also on the it's also set as an action item. >> Yes, sir. So each year the board has an opportunity to approve entering into this agreement with the VSBA. One of the services that the association provides the division divisions in Virginia is the revision and the update of of uh policies as laws change as legal references change. It's an extensive amount of work. It's certainly work that we couldn't do in house. And so I I recommend as I always do that you continue to partner with the VSBA to get that done. There are some school divisions uh huge ones that do employ their own attorneys and staff

092of attorneys. We're certainly not considering anything like that. So I any questions you have about this I'm happy to answer. It's something you do every year and I recommend that you do it again. Um, every year I've been on the board, we discussed this in depth and um, I'd like to table it if there's two other members willing to uh, do so until we can have more discussion. >> He needs to know something by April 30th. Are we we done this before? >> Uh well, I do I mean I I can certainly ask for an extension. >> You know, we have this discussion every year and it's always the same outcome. So yes, there are people seated around this table who have articulated that they don't enjoy the like professional or advocacy organization, the VSBA,

093but to their credit, whether or not you agree with that statement, they provide updates that keep our policies in alignment with Virginia Code. They do the legal work such that we don't have to. And are like continual comparison against replacement is that honestly this is a steal. I don't know why they're not charging more for it. And um while I'm always open to new ideas, you know, we've served together the last five years and I just haven't heard one. So I don't know why this is any different and I don't know why we drag our feet for it for some like hypothetical, you know, aha moment. If we find if we find a better alternative in the interim between now and next year, then like let's bring it early on in the in the year

094before the renewal. But I don't see a reason to let our policies lag just because we're not thrilled with the organization as an organization. The the core function or product that we're getting is honestly invaluable. >> I would argue that there are alternatives, but I don't um I have enough members to support my opinion in that right now. I would entertain for under unfinished business any month between now and the next time that we vote for this. If you have alternatives you want to like shop like I'm open to it if it's I don't care who it is that's doing the work. I don't care who the author is as long as it's legal, it's good guidance, it's in alignment with Virginia code and it's timely like what we're getting. Like if you can find

095the same thing for 2500 bucks off the street and we're confident that it's the same product, let's go nuts. But in until then, I just don't know why why we wouldn't continue. >> I myself I don't particularly care for BSBA. Um but they do uh reasonable service in this situation for the money that it would cost the school system more if we did ourselves. Any more questions about the VSBA policy services agreement? We are moving on to the fiscal year 24 budget update with Miss Gillum >> slides. >> Do I? No, it's it's this. Um, so you have in your packet the most current um, budget update with expenditures and revenue and um, I did I kept promising you that you were going to see more federal revenue and we did um, the state the

096federal state through the feds ended up um, catching up with that. So we are seeing um, that revenue increase through dramatically over the last couple of months. Um, I'll try not to use bad words, but um, the state res released the caboose bill a few weeks ago, um, right before spring break. Um, and in the caboose bill, remember that they can change the allocations for the current year, not the next year, the current year, the one we're in now. and um they have reduced our revenue for state funding by $883,000 for this current year that we're in. Um and you're going to ask >> I'm sorry, Stacy, can you scroll down so the revenue comes up? >> Thank you. >> Now you're going to ask me, well, what are you going to do about that?

097And I have we have been going through the budget. Um, one of the big things that we've done is um stop spending on um technology. There are some technology purchases that we felt like we needed to make this year, but if there were any purchases that we thought we could hold off on, then those are are tabled until the following fiscal year. I do think that this could have an impact on um like if we had an open position or something like that, then I' I'd basically just absorb those funds into part of that offset. We already knew that it was going to be reduced when they did the all-in money. Basically, they took some money from us when they did the all-in money. It was about 400,000, but then they took more money when

098they did the caboose bill. What they're basically saying is they've reduced basic aid and they've reduced the sales tax number because they're pro they're still projecting that sales tax is going to fall below what they have projected. But the problem that I have for with that is they're running billions of dollars of surplus and they keep projecting that the bottom's going to fall out and then all the the pundits come in and say but that's not what's happening. And so it the reality is they think they're going to run low on sales tax at some point. So they've cut us in an effort to offset that when it happens. The governor, he could change the caboose bill or make modifications to it to the and ask the general assembly to look at it again. But

099at this point, I don't have any indication that that's going to happen. Um we did talk to some of our neighbors. Um, I think a lot of them were concentrating on the fiscal year 25 budget and didn't even look at the 24 till I called and I said, "Hey, did you look at this?" And they're like, "Oh my gosh." Um, so it's it's a pretty big hit for us. Um, but I think, you know, this is one of the reasons where I try to be really conservative as we go throughout the year. And, you know, people know that I'm more inclined to say no at the beginning of the year because I don't know what's going to happen at the end. And so I think that we're in good shape. We're not we're definitely not

100going to exceed our expenditure authority. Um it may impact whether we're able to make a payment into the health insurance claim fund though because I think we may have to use some of the funds that I had budgeted for that to offset this change. And I'll know more, you know, as we continue to go through this year. I'll happy to try to answer any questions you might have. Think the only thing I'd add to that, thank you Brenda. The the it comes up every year there are questions about um with a $50 million budget turning back a million dollars or $1.5 million to the state. The the reality is if we don't keep around 1% contingency towards the end, I mean, here we've just found out it in the middle of April that we're going

101to get almost $900,000 less in state money than you budgeted at this time last year. You better believe we're going to try to have about a million dollars at the end of the year. >> So, sorry, uh to clarify that was returning to the county. >> Yeah. When we had That's all right. And you also, Miss Gillan, I didn't hear a unkind word in there. I'll use the word hogwash. It's probably about as nonsensical as I'll get today, but like >> Dr. Gretz has hurt my body. >> Sure. Everyone in this room has heard me swear before. It won't be It won't be tonight though. Um >> I've had time to process, >> but I mean is maybe my years running together, but is this the year where we're going to have a budget until

102October also? >> Yes. So, we didn't have a budget until October. And then, surprise, here's some semianfunded mandates for allin. And by semianfunded, I mean, we're going to steal from this pot to fund it or fund some of it. Now, they're like, "Hey, JK, we're just going to take 800, 900k off the top." And yet, somehow we're luckily able to manage and try to return some amount of money back to the county at the end of the year. It's just uh it's a fairly grotesque moving target and I'm shocked that you're able to manage it. So, thank you for what you do. >> The state has just been a hot mess this year on educational policy and fun of education funding. Honestly, >> this is just really really frustrating. I you know about half of

103our funding comes from the state and to do something like this at the 11th hour is and and it would be different if I saw that these things where you know we're in this you know horrible situation in the state but every meeting we go to they talk about the surplus at the state level and so why they think that it's okay to cut us by this amount of money so late is just ridiculous to me. But that's my grand standin. >> Yes. That discontinuity aside. Um, so I heard something interesting in conversations with you over the last couple weeks. So I wanted to clarify and it's not to like all the county or anything, but like when we make a budget proposal and and the county says good to go. Here's your funding. That

104is um effectively backstopping or granting us expenditure authority up to that number. >> Yes. which is unrelated and separate from how much money we actually get from the state and federal government. >> Yes. >> So, it is a felony if the school division overspends their expenditure authority. You know, it's a felony for Pete. It's a felony for Andrew. It would have been me last year because the board chair is also on the hook. But um is the county not theoretically responsible for that gap if we spend over what we receive but not over what we were allotted through the budgetary process? >> Yes. So once the county appropriates the fund, so they've appropriated 57,912,1350, >> we can we're allowed to spend that amount, not a penny over, but that amount regardless of whether that revenue

105comes in. But what we do because we're being good stewards of the taxpayers's money and understand that we all live in a community together. when we see that there's going to be a shortfall in state or federal revenue, then we make sure that our expenditures aren't going to exceed that revenue. And so that's when that's when we start making tough decisions like, well, we're not going to buy this right now. We'll just wait. We'll put off we'll put off doing that thing. Um, and that's how we've operated since I've been in this position, so that we don't have to go back to the county and go, "By the way, I need another $800,000 because we're short." Um, I say all that be right now. We are this budget is really tight and it I don't

106sleep well all the time but I feel like we're in in good shape when I was able to look through everything and I definitely appreciate the help of my colleagues and helping to review all of that. >> We have a phrase in industry for this. It's called building the plane while you're flying. Um so you know we're we're lost to the tune of 800k in this fiscal year. I'm reading, you know, articles out of Charlottesville and Abomaro about their 2025 budgets and them being short nine and 12 million. How much is a county like Charlottesville or Alberal shorted this year that they have to make up in addition to their 2025s? >> It's hard for me to say. One of the other counties I talked to, they it was a much smaller county. They were

107telling me theirs was more like um 100 mil 100 thousand. >> Okay. So, it's it it really varies a lot and then um just depending on the county and how much sales tax they're getting. But I would I would Yes. But with a larger budget, you have more leeway with a smaller >> question. All right. This year 25 budget update. So, we've um we've got we've gotten a template. We have um and the governor has reacted to that um and sent some information back to the general assembly. He too is now recommending a 3% increase. So, um it it I feel confident that that 3% increase is going to happen and it's for um for all state and um school employees. So, I do have um I do have additional information. I I I did

108the um the did a handout that had all the salary scales in there. So, those would be our salary scales. I had hoped to have information um to you and close with a a contract list, but just the timeline was too short. I couldn't get it together that quickly. We will ask that um if the board of supervisors continues with what they sound like they're willing to do with fully funding our request. I would ask that we um when we come together in March we or May go when we come together in May that we would um approve that contract list so that we could issue contracts that second week in May. I had hoped to be able to do it earlier but it looks like that's not really something that gather this quickly. >>

109Is there a compelling reason why we would need to meet earlier in order to afford the additional time? Typically we've done them in miday. So I I think we'll be fine and and you know unless there are some concerns probably what I would do is prepare the contracts to go out and then after the meeting basically press send. Um I don't know if there was anything you wanted to add on there. Um we are continuing to analyze positions and and have been able to to make up where we had to make cuts through attrition at this point. We still have a couple things that we're looking at with that. Um the one thing that is in your packet today that um that we um want to reflect on is the health insurance rates. I would

110like for you to approve those tonight because um that would allow me to share the rates with our um thirdparty administrator so that we could start doing the open enrollment sessions at the beginning of May because we do that at the beginning of May and then we when we run our um June payroll that's when we when they start to pay the new rate but it allows us to get all the open enrollment done before people leave. And we do have a practice here where we don't we ask people to sign up every year not just to make changes because I find when if you just allow them to make changes and people forget and then they call back to you later and go well wait a minute I didn't get this done. So just

111trying to make sure that we get on top of that. So I would like for you to and this rate sheet is based on what we discussed in terms of no increase on the employee side and um the employer side would pay the difference with what we're seeing there. >> And so this rate sheet then if we pulled one that were dated in April of 2023, every number should be identical. >> The employee number would >> the employee number of course >> not the employer number. >> Yes. Um and the and then related to that, we've been working with our provider on um some of the charges and just trying to see if we can have a smooth transition as we move to Cantara Health and working we're working on that contract with them as

112well. And to clarify, our, you know, our our colleagues formerly down the hill, now in Fork Union currently are having a budget um workshop session right now. If we approve this tonight and then the number that they're working with is reduced. If they cut from us, we then can't go back and pass on. We would have to find other places to cut if they don't fully fund us. Is that correct? I wouldn't recommend going back to this, but it's not that you couldn't. >> It would definitely be really hard to do and hard on the employees. >> I just wanted to make sure I understood the terms of the vote. >> Sure. >> I will say that eight I'm, you know, I'm looking at the top line here on a $500 deductible plan. I am

113um I'm remarkably conservative myself on as it relates to insurance and offsetting risk and when I see 877 for an employee family plan and that put that in just position to our uh starting teacher salary I'm I'm just kind of left um with whiplash >> any questions about health insurance >> we do have a we have a template from the general assembly for the 25 budget and that looks favorable at this point, but I'm going to reserve any comments on that until I see the finalized template. >> You mean until we get a actual budget in October and then they take a million dollars from? >> Well, it sounds like this process is going to move a little quicker. Um there wasn't a a veto and just more sounds like they'll come back into session,

114but it does sound like this one will move. Is that what you're seeing as well, Dr. >> Oh, yes, absolutely. And I think it'll ultimately I think it'll be a positive. I'll choose optimism. >> Any more questions about the 25 budget? >> Valentine, we're ready for the special special education annual report. You go to the PowerPoint first. So, kind of same thing I do with you all every year and it's the same as it was previously. We put in for 10 and it doesn't pay for half of what we do. Of course, this is um our local money case. So, we put in for 10 positions um out of Thank you, Randy. Thanks. Go ahead. It's Stacy. Stacy. >> Stacy. Sorry. Sorry. I'm directing branding. Personnel services, salaries and wages paid to employees. And then,

115of course, employee benefits. So, they're just really the two lines. Next slide, Stacy. And this is what we have. I don't know why I left it in yellow, so I apologize for that. Um, but we put 75% in personnel services. We've changed that over the years. You know, sometimes it's been 78. Brendon and I could have decided we're going to do 75 and 25 and stay with that consistently, but this is the amount and that of course is for 611 and then 619 is our preschool funding and our preschool funding barely pays for a half of an AD's position. Um so that's the annual plan that it is. The other thing in here is PSA which is the proportionate set aside um for private placement and homeschool children and we fund speech and consultative services

116and then we've also done PT and OT if that's been for a child. So that is the basics of the plan. It is all of these pages and really it's only about six pages that are actually something you need to look at. I'm happy to walk through it with you. Um we can look at the whole thing, but that is basically the plan in a nutshell. I didn't make any other changes. You'll see um you know the numbers change on one page each time, but this is all primarily directions for us. Um we continue to provide everything and of course we say we did what we said we were going to do last year and we do that. Um, but we just continue to work to make improvements to see what our kids need. And

117this is just one part of that. But that doesn't fund all the things that we actually do that Brenda works to make happen for us. >> This is the most frustrating thing. Get about $850,000 and we spend about $8 million on special education. >> This is the definition of an unfunded mandate right here. And we've been doing a lot of things and we're filling in for areas that um you know the county with limited resources has. For example, uh parks and recck does a great job. They have certain events throughout the year. They invite us to the fair um where they invite students with disabilities and individuals with disabilities to the community fair um and do some special things for us. But with you know our SEAK which is our special education advisory which meets

118the third Tuesday of most months if you want to join us. it's virtual and online. >> Um, and so that's where we talk with our parents about what do we want to plan for for our students. And so we put the adaptive activities coordinator in a few years ago. We put the transition specialist position in a few years ago. We're right now just trying to maintain what we need basic staff. Um, when Mr. Writtenhouse was at our CK meeting last week, he got to go down and see the clothing closet, which is actually the mental health team's project. what our students with disabilities in in classes are actually running that and opening that up to the public. And then we have the homeless food program um that we do for students that again our special

119education students are doing because we're trying to make real life work experiences. We do those out in the community all of the time. I think someone thought someone was getting their hair done with a county car, but really it was that we had a student placed at beauty the beauty shop. Um so I promise no one's doing that. Um it really is legit and we're looking at all of our local businesses in terms of how can we really give these kids real life experiences. Today we went to Walmart um had the kids on a field trip there where they make menus, they create what they're going to do um and how they're going to have those life skill practice things. And so that's part of all of that budgeting things like that. Any questions? >>

120Questions? >> I appreciate you. let me set in on your meeting uh previously and um I was amazed and um thrilled, you know, really all the services that are provided that are available to people that need it. It >> it's really what we find is we're trying to connect parents with services that, you know, they might not know about. They might not know about vouchers and the process. It's so not the school system, but the process for these things that they need for lifelong situations with their kids. So, trying to at least put people in front of them. Um, our next thing should be social security, but um, they don't work past five o'clock, so I can't get them to come to a 7 o'clock meeting, but we're going to try and figure out how

121to get that for parents. >> Your field trip sounds fabulous. I feel like every student in the high school should be responsible for making a and I know that they do in their finance classes like make a budget but like you know with with the cost of food these days um imagining what a you know I don't know $3 per capita dinner might look like and then going to the grocery store and seeing the prices again you know whiplash and or sticker shot. I mean, I I think it says it all. When I was on Reddit this morning with my morning coffee and it was like, you know, the the Jenzer's new splurge groceries just like, >> well, and having conversations even with staff in terms of, okay, you're going to see some potato chips

122that we bought because they're packing lunches to go to jobs and so they bought little package of potato chips. So having to have those conversations that you know we buy the big package of potato chips and then we use our gloves and we separate them in little baggies so then we pack our lunches that way because it's nice to think that everybody can afford all of those little tiny individual pack granola bars but that's not practicality for life. So we need to be able to teach what is and maybe they'll be able to afford those individual packets but um trying to work on things like that too. >> Life goals try. >> All right. Anyone else? Thank you, Miss Valentine. >> Thank you. >> All right, moving on to unfinished business. Is there any unfinished

123board? >> There any new business? >> I have a question, Mr. Gretz. >> Sure. Um, can we can we find some time um to speak to the school board attorney about the legalities of removing comments or hiding social media comments or anything like that on the social media page? I bring that up because it's question >> and I just recently saw I none of us if we have an official page are allowed to to do that. Um, I don't know what the legality >> I think I know the answer, but I' I'd prefer to like hear a little more about the context and and I'm happy to either do it on your behalf or connect you with Mr. King. >> It was the >> sure I've done that though. >> Can I clarify for a

124second? So, um, is is it about specifically the Fana County School Board or public schools thing and comments that are made on it? Yeah, people are, you know, I've gotten comments about people upset that something was hidden or comments were stopped or whatever. I don't understand all the terminology and how that works because I I don't do that. I know that you can you can delete them or hide them or pause them, not not allow it at all. I just know that um a lot of people have had issue with that and I recently saw a Supreme Court decision that said that certain groups that were publicly funded couldn't do that. So that was >> yeah I I'm not familiar with the specific complaints. We can talk about them. My understanding is that with with

125a page like so for example the school page or any visual school page you can you don't have to allow comments. If you allow comments, you can't censor comments. >> Yeah. >> So, you can't you can't allow comments for one post and turn them off for the next post or turn them off if they start saying something you don't like. >> E all >> unless I mean there there is some sort of provision around something that's I I I don't even want to >> There's certain comments that I think you can shield if they're particularly offensive maybe or disruptive. I can't remember how that's worded. I'm happy to research that. >> I think when it originally came up, one of the issues we were having is not having staff that could police that 247. >>

126That's impossible. Yeah. >> Yeah. And >> you don't have to allow it. >> Well, that that's why we >> do allow it. >> That's why we comments because we were like, we can't be on there all the time to check to see if someone's saying something they're not supposed to be saying. >> On social media for almost 12 years, and it's a full-time job. currently don't have a press relations person here. >> It's one of the many hats. >> All right. Any other new business? Moving on to action items. Uh letter A is the approval of grades four to five literacy curriculum textbook adoption. Any questions anybody has for me? It's We talked about this last month. It's uh nothing's changed. You approved the committee. The committee has done its work. They were available for

127public review. I'm happy to answer questions, but nothing's changed with this. >> All right. I'll entertain. >> I will just thank the committee for their hard work. >> I look forward to supporting them. >> Yeah. I move we approve the grades four through five literacy curriculum textbook adoption. >> I'll second. >> All right. A motion and a second to approve the grades four through five literacy curriculum textbook adoption. Is there any discussion? >> All right. All those in favor please say I. I. >> Any opposed? Chair votes eye. On to the approval of the local plan for career technical education. Miss White is here. Uh, she did present this to you last month, so I I don't know that you'd want her to present again, but I'm sure she's happy to entertain questions or if

128you have things to share, Miss White. >> No, that changed. >> We appreciate you being here. >> Still have questions? I'll entertain a motion. I make a motion we approve the local plan for career and career and teched. >> I'll second that. >> All right. >> You can have it. Thoughts up, Mr. Mr. >> Thank you. >> Have a motion and a second to approve the local plan for career and technical education. Is there any discussion? >> Those in favor, please say I. I. Any opposed? Chair votes I. Thank you so much, Miss White. >> Approval of the VSBA 2024 policy services agreement. >> Uh, I will go ahead and move that we approve the VSBA 2024 policy services agreement. >> Second. >> All right. Have a motion and a second to approve the VSBA

1292024 policy services agreement. >> Any discussion? I'll reiterate that I'm genuinely interested in seeing alternatives and I am happy to work with you in this board room or remotely in order to make that happen. There's I know like I have no horse in this race. I just we need policies that are in line with code and if we can find alternatives then let's explore. >> Further discussion. >> I really don't care for the SBA but uh this is a good return for the money. Um, that's the only reason I would support it. >> I agree. >> Right. All those in favor, please say I. >> I. Opposed. Chair votes. No. >> All right. Approval of the VSBA business honoral resolution. So Ford members, as you're aware, each member uh excuse me, each year you have

130the opportunity to recognize a local business through this program through the VSBA. And this year we have a uh if you want to >> Yes. >> And I don't know that you need to read it necessarily, but there is a church, Passion Community Church, that donated a significant amount of money to uh resolve lunch debt, and they've partnered in other ways. And so we suggested to you that they would be the recipient of this. They're they're awarded a plaque that they're able to display and they are a tremendous partner in our community. You've you've awarded this to other several other businesses in the past. It's a way for us to just recognize a positive collaboration between a community group, local schools. Hope you all approve it because I already signed it. Um, all right. Entertain

131a motion to approve the uh business honoral resolution. And this is for uh Passion Community Church. >> I'll make a motion of the BSBA business resolution. >> Second. >> Right. I have a motion in a second. Any discussion? Um, I'll note that I'm a fairly um robust defender of that separation of church and state. Um, I I've been I'm going to vote in the affirmative for this for the good acts that that organization did. And so I appreciate them. There's nothing worse than a hungry student and such thing as lunch debt just should not exist, period. And so um I thank them for helping us financially and the students financially to remove that burden. Uh and I look forward to a world in which um they don't need a stroke checks in order for that

132to happen. So thank you so much. >> Any more discussions? All those in favor please say I. >> I opposed. Chair votes I. and and board members, just to to remind you what we typically do. The BSBA will will provide a a really nice plaque. We usually invite the recipient to come to a board meeting and oftentimes they they don't even want the recognition, but we usually invite them just to award it. But we will do that again. >> Right. We still have letter E, and that is the approval of the revised health insurance rates. I move that we approve the revised health insurance rates as presented. >> A second. All right. We have a motion and a second to approve the revised health insurance rates as presented. Is there any discussion? >> Uh I'll

133I'll note that I just wanted to make sure that we knew that we would have to kind of dig deep if we end up um not receiving all the money that we expect from the county. To that end, I will uh stick around for a brief while after this meeting, but then go down to Car's Brook to meet with the board of supervisors to um help advocate and ensure that we don't have a a gap to close. >> But getting text messages, I would suggest that everybody does do that if they can. >> It's a good idea to hurry up with this and get down. >> A good sign. Uh thank you for that. Um my wife is watching it and texting me what's happening. That's excellent. Thank you. >> Um, any more discussion? >>

134All those in favor of approving the revised health insurance rate insurance rates as presented, please say I. >> I. >> The opposed. Chair votes I. >> All right. We are on to our second round of public comments. The expectations are the same as before. You have three minutes and uh we ask that you be respectful. If anyone's wishing to speak, please step forward. >> I'm uh Shannon Garrett Redmond. I'm in the Pelmyra district. I have three children in county public schools. Two with IEPs and one with 504. And I wasn't going to speak about the Turner school because it's obvious we can't do anything about it right now anyway. But after hearing the budget report and Miss Valentine's report, I just want to say to you all, we've elected you all to be in the

135head of our house and we've charged you with the care of our children. And when my house is struggling financially, I don't go buy another house. Sit down and I figure out where money goes. And with three special needs children, that's often a struggle. And I expect you all to not give any more of the county's resources, our time to the charter school until you figured out the financial responsibility of our current house. Thank you. >> Or anyone else? Great. We will close the second round of public comment and we will move on to school board member comments. I will start with Dr. Kelly. >> Thanks. Um I just want to thank everyone who turned out um today. I love it anytime we get a chance to um to honor our students and their accomplishments.

136I like it even more when it happens to be also a day where um the community is galvanized in some way, shape or form. Um I want to thank Miss Besi. Um we've known each other a good long while. We've had many conversations about this. I encouraged you some odd years ago to talk to the administration about your proposal. Um I'll note that Joy is a lovely woman. I really enjoy her family. um close with um her brother-in-law. I've played games with her kids. She even though she used the word villain, she she's not a villain. And there are uh there are always good opportunities for conversation about how we can improve and you know, if a um separate system doesn't work, how can we find ways to to help special education in Fana County?

137And so I think through public discourse, we ultimately come out stronger. Um, and I know that there's been some like, as there is with every issue in this county and probably every community in America, there's always backlash and um, illtempered folks on the internet and gross communication. And like, nobody deserves that. like we should be addressing these things on the merits and talking about what we can and can't do or can't or can't afford or about equity about or whom a given system or proposal like who will it benefit who won't it benefit like these are really important questions and deserve the light of day it's why I don't talk about them uh it's why I haven't spoken at all uh on social media about this particular issue because it deserves further inquiry and investigation

138it deserves a full understanding of the process and the merits. And so I think that we are all a bit too quick to sort of like not jump in in terms of like public comments here because that's like the approp appropriate vehicle, but like we are we're so quick to villainize and like um I hope that we can all take a breath and and talk about root causes and and real needs. And so you know I I thank Miss Besi for being here. I think Miss Reissi for for talking and and for um for her proposal. Um I've been as as direct and as I can about sort of like where my head's at with regards to charter schools. I'll I'll I'll say them uh again here just in case anybody's unclear. And I'm happy

139to be the villain is that I fundamentally believe that our school system is small and that we struggle to make ends meet in the first place. I believe that if there are deficits um in our special education or um in other departments that we are stronger by working through them together. I believe that charter schools make sense in a world of specialized instruction whether that be a magnet school for the arts or a teched program. I think that there is a place for those in this world. I don't believe that there is a place for them in a community with 3,300 students. I just don't think it's feasible. But I am open to finding ways to get more funding to improve our special education services here. And I want my goal for this division and

140the reason that I'm serving on this board is so that um we have a school system and division that every parent is proud to place their students in, trusts that they're going to get the education and services that they deserve, and that we meet every single IEP and 504 and all needs. um not only by our like legal requirement but in the full spirit of meeting students where they are. And so I am proud to serve on this board and in this community and we'll continue to work with all of you to make sure that we improve and continue getting better every year. Um and I just want to thank the administration for their hard work during the budget season. We're obviously going to um some of us are going to go down and keep

141advocating for our schools. It's a tight one. It may be getting even tighter from what I'm hearing. Just I have the same information you all do. Um, but I have enjoyed the partnership with the county advocating for the things that we need to run our annual budget as well as to improve our our capital improvement projects. And so I remain optimistic and thankful for that partnership. And so and thankful for you all. Thank you. house. >> Yeah, I won't be as long as James. Uh, >> I thank everybody for >> Thank you everybody for coming here tonight. Um, I have uh mixed feelings about the charter school, my own children. Um, I have three just went to public school one year and they were homeschooled or private school after that because I didn't like what

142was going on in the public schools, which that's why I'm on the board now. Um, I'd like to make a change in schools and change for the good. But, um, thank you everybody. That's >> Mr. P. >> Yeah, I'd like to thank everybody about spoke. Thank Dr. D for putting together the information. Thanks, Mrs. Breezy for being to have the courage to sit there by hearing all the public comments. And I just like to thank everybody who came out tonight. I just wanted to say a couple things. Usually speak during public com school board member comments, but Mr. Gretz, I just want to confirm that we didn't fire any aids. Didn't think so. Um, and we haven't purposely not filled any positions. >> No, didn't I didn't think so. Um, and we didn't just learn

143about this charter school recently and plan this meeting to try to circumvent the public comment. >> No, I didn't think so. We've had more than a year um of knowledge about this charter school. Just so everybody knows, I asked Miss Bissi myself to to not complicate the budget process with this. And I asked Mr. Gretz the same thing. We should hold off on this discussion. We've known about this. It was mentioned in schoolboard meetings a year ago. So, moving this meeting um a couple hours back was a decision made in January. Not a decision made by me. Um and correct me if I'm wrong, but the learning resources committee didn't ban any books, did they? >> I didn't think so either. So, if you're wondering why I don't respond to your emails is because when

144you send me emails that are dishonest, I literally ignore them. I'm not going to respond to dishonest emails. I'm not going to respond to emails that call me a segregationist, a racist, just not going to do it. Not going to entertain that nonsense. So, if you want to send me an email that's polite and want to have a discussion, even if we don't agree, happy to do it. I'll give you my phone number. We can talk about it. But I'm not going to respond to people's emails that are nasty. I don't have to. And if you don't like it, then don't vote for me. I literally can't be any clearer. Yeah. >> Um, Miss Paresi, thank you. I know what it's like to be the villain in the room myself. Um, takes a lot of

145courage. I sit there. So, thank you for coming. Thank you for all the other speakers for coming. Um, I'm going to double down on what Mr. Poland just said, uh, based on one, the reason why I'm sitting in this chair right now, and two, the fact that I'm going to disagree with you, but I'm also going to agree with you partially. I'm not coming at you. say I disagree because I use social media as a tool to communicate effectively with the community, both my constituents that elected me to this chair and the community of Lana County. Part of the reason why I've been a villain in this room at times is because I feel at times the school board does not effectively communicate. And I don't mind being videotaped as I'm being videotaped right now.

146This is live stream so people can see it on the live stream if they want. They're going to repeat what I say on video. So, I'm going to double down on a couple of things. No, I am not here on the school board as an informant. No, I am not here to intentionally damage Fana County Public Schools. Uh, no, I have zero intentions of coming in here and uh essentially being a wrecking ball for my wife's employer and the school system both of my children are enrolled in. Guys, I'm gonna be real clear. Election season's over. It is well over. All right. And if we don't like it now, I politely say, let's buckle up because I still got two years and what, eight months left roughly. But I'm going to handle myself in a

147professional way. And I'm going to end by saying this. I didn't like what was going on four years ago. And that's why I spoke the way that I did. And I've already said this plenty of times. I will not back down from what I said. I'm going to go to bat for my kids and I'm going to go to bat for my family. And guess what? I carry this card right here as a reminder that has my top two reasons why I wanted to run for the school board. Reason number one, wanted to be a voice for the parent teacher perspective. I'm married to a teacher. I can have that perspective. I can add that perspective to the school board. All right. I know others are parents on the schoolboard as well. I like that.

148I think we need more of that. And on the flip side of the card, number two, more transparent communication within our community. We're not always going to agree on things. I think we can all come to that agreement. I think we can agree we're not always going to agree, but the fact that we will continue to deal with things like Mr. Polland just mentioned and the fact that uh my integrity and my intentions on why I want to be part of this school board continue to be questioned. Guess what? I got really broad shoulders, y'all. And I can shoulder that. But it's unfounded and all it's going to do is continue to divide the five folks on here on this board plus our student representative because guess what? It impacts him too and the rest

149of the community including those of y'all who sit here tonight. So when we can find a way to work together as adults and professionals and we can find a way to communicate transparently without the agitation that is there with all of election season that is well past us now. That's when we get to start seeing some good stuff happen with this community and the school board. So, I hate to end this meeting on a negative note, but it definitely needs to be addressed, and I think we can do a much better job moving forward. Thank you. >> All right. Um, the only thing I have left is to remind you all to work on that that uh project that we all have and uh due by the end of the month and I will entertain

150a motion to adjourn the meeting. >> Make a motion to adjourn the meeting. >> Second. There's a motion and a second to adjurnn. Any discussion? All those in favor, please say I. >> Any opposed? Chair votes I. We are adjourned.