001Good evening. Thank you all for joining us this evening. Um we began our meeting a little bit earlier this evening at 4 o'clock for some close session items. Um, so we are now ready to begin the open portion of our meeting and we'd like to begin with a moment of silence if you'd join Thank you. The next item we have on our agenda is uh for a the pledge of allegiance. If you'd like to stand and join Special thank you um to East Rock High School for hosting us this evening. We do appreciate you making your building available to us and for feeding us a very delicious dinner. So, thank you very much to um the principal and staff here at East Rock High School. Um we have two people signed up for public comment.
002So, we'll begin that portion of the um agenda. Elizabeth Myers, you're up first if you'd like to make your way to the podium. Uh, not sure if everybody's familiar with our public comment guidelines. You have three minutes um for comments and when you're down to the last 30 seconds, a little alert or buzzer will sound letting you know you have 30 seconds to complete. You may begin when you're ready. Good evening, Dr. Shifflet, Chair Horse, and members of the board. I'm here speaking tonight about the proposed changes to the field trip policies. I am the mom of two very active boys in CTE activities. They've had amazing opportunities to travel the country with both FFA and FCCLA. We have worked hard to fund raise not only for them, but other classmates who may not have
003the means or opportunities. Requiring more chaperones incurs more expenses. Who will pay these expenses? Will we deny students the opportunity if we cannot fundra for the chaperones? Option A requires a chaperone from each sex to attend. Let me give you an example of how this could be problematic. Three years ago, my son attended the FCCLA state leadership conference in Virginia Beach. He was the only male to attend from Rockingham County. Let me say that again. The only male to attend in Rockingham County, not just from his school. At the time, we had no male FCS teachers in the county. Would he have been discriminated against based off of his sex and not allowed to go without a male chaperone? Or would the county be responsible for find to find him a male chaperone, say Mr.
004Swagert, Dr. Shifflet, Mr. Cross? I understand that we write policies to be vague as to give ourselves room for interpretation. Option B, as written now, contradicts itself. In the paragraph wording, it states that two chaperones are required for overnight trips, but the chart provided on page two states, overnight trips, you need one chaperone per eight students. Which one is it? How are teachers supposed to follow these policies if they are not clear? While I understand that you cannot account for every scenario that may happen, I ask that you take the time to make this policy the best it can be. Our students deserve our best. Most students traveling overnight have worked hard to earn this right. They have worked hours on a project or practice an instrument or a play. They deserve opportunities without the
005excess financial burdens that come with these policies. We have seen what happens when we hastily make decisions. Updating the field trip policy would be best discussed and voted on during the summer break when you're not pressed up against time and field trip requests. Remember, both policies require chaperone training. Has that been developed yet? Do we have a source for training? How can you approve policies without all the pieces in line? I ask that you take your time to make this policy the best for these students. These students are hardworking and they deserve to be able to travel and the rights that they've earned. Thank you for your time and consideration. >> Thank you for your comments. Nicholas Zimmerman, you're next. Good evening, Dr. Shifflet and members of the school board. My name is Nicholas Zimmerman
006and I'm currently a family and consumer sciences teacher at Elkton Middle School. I am a FCCLA adviser there and I also am an assistant chair coach here at East Rockingham High School. I come to you all this evening um to speak to you all regarding our communications um app that we have implemented uh as a division uh known as rooms. Um I strongly uh request that you all review that app. It is not effective and it does not work. A primary example of this the other night there was about a 45 minute span where um the coaching staff and I were trying to make a post on rooms and we're not able to do that. Um in addition to there were messages that students um and family members had sent to us and there was
007about a 30 to 45 minute um lag um in the system was not um was not related to the internet provider for the cell phone. Um, one coach uh tried that on their own device and then I actually physically went back to school after cheer on the school network and was not able to to utilize that as well. Uh, that is incredibly problematic for me as a adviser and as a sponsor and as a coach. Um, as Miss Meyer said, there are overnight trips. There are travel opportunities that I take with my students. And I'm going to be completely honest with you all when I am responsible and I am liable and I am representing Rockingham County Public Schools in taking these students that I am their parent, I am their principal, I am their
008secretary, I'm their everything, their nurse. Um I need to make sure that I have an effective lines of communication with their parents and guardians at all times. And if rooms is not going to be able to effectively support us in what we need to do, then that is where I need to be texting and calling in communication with parents and that currently is a violation of our school division policies and procedures. So I would greatly appreciate you all to review that and I'm happy to answer any questions that you all may have. Thank you. >> Thank you for your comments. We'll look into that one. Appreciate it. Board members, the next thing on our uh agenda is the consent agenda, which has minutes from September 8th, but bills and mileage from August of 2025, field
009trips, um personnel listing, and um we just need a motion to approve all of those with one one consent agenda. Motion, please. >> I move we approve the consent agenda as presented. >> Thank you, Miss Lord. Do we have a second? Thank you, Miss Burggoyne. Board members, are there any questions or comments? Hearing none, all those in favor of approving the consent agenda, please say yes. Yes. >> All those opposed say no. >> Motion passes. 5-0. We're now moving into action items. The first action item we have is um brought to us by Mr. Steve Reid, who is going to go over a bid recommendation. Dr. Shifflet, Chair Horse, members of the board. So, as we did for Elton Elementary School when we were planning the renovation there, u we are needing to do a
010pre-order of the major electrical equipment at McGakeville Elementary in order to u meet the time frame for the renovation. uh the long lead items that we have if we wait until we award the contract to the general contractor uh won't be here in time for next summer which is when we need them for uh accomplishing the renovation. So we put together a bid of the major electrical components needed from GKville Elementary and advertised it and had u three firms that were uh sent bid package and three firms uh responded. Of those three firms, two of them we deemed nonresponsive. Uh they did not put the bid on our on our bid paperwork. They did not submitted in a form that we could be assured that everything that we were asking for was there. Both of
011those bids that they were put in were of a lower dollar value than the one that I'm recommending. However, they were not complete and they were not responsible. This is something that once we award it, we will guarantee to the contractor that they will get paid. However, we will assign this as a form of an allowance to the general contractor that will get the award and the it'll be paid through the general contract. So, with all that said, our recommendation is to award the bid to WA electric uh which will be assigned to a general yet to be determined general contractor uh in the amount of $156,367. Chair Hurst and board members, I recommend awarding the bid for the pre-ordering of electrical components for the renovation and addition of Magakisville Elementary Magakis Elementary School to
012the lowest responsive bidder as presented by Steve Reed, director of maintenance. >> Thank you, Dr. Shifflet. Board members, do we have a motion? >> So moved. Ty tie goes to Miss Cave for the motion. Mr. Cross has the second. Thank you all. Board members, do you have any questions or comments for Mr. Reid? Mr. Reid, could you explain what you mean again by the So, we're this motion is to award to this company, but you're saying this would be like a how did you word it? A >> so it it will be assigned to the general contractor. So, we'll put an allowance in the bid specifications that for $160,000 >> that the general contractor will work into their number that they'll give back to us. So, the general contractor will actually make the payment. >>
013Okay. >> We'll we'll be paying the general contractor, but then the general contractor will make >> Okay, I understand now. Thank you. Any other questions? >> Hearing none. All those in favor of awarding the bid. Is that right? >> I was just going to go for one more clarification in that so the general contractor will be obligated from our side to use this person for this. >> Yes, we will write it into the bid specifications that this is the equipment that they are getting. >> Yep. >> It's eat it's eaten electrical equipment what supplies. >> Yep. Any other questions? Okay. Um, the motion is to award the bid for pre-ordering the electrical components for the renovation and addition at McKakeisville Elementary School to the lowest responsive bidder. All those in favor, please say yes. Yes.
014All those opposed say no. Motion passes 5-0. Thank you, Mr. Reid. Another bid recommended recommendation this evening for food service equipment for Elkton Elementary School. This is um Miss Jennifer Williams coming to us. Good evening. Right. Good evening, Dr. Shifflet, Chair Hurst, and members of the board. Uh I'm presenting on u a bid for purchase a bid for the purchase of food service equipment for the Elton Elementary School renovation was properly specified and advertised. Uh in addition, it was sent to five firms. Uh we had two firms who responded with a sealed bid. One of those firms did not bid on all items and therefore is considered unresponsive. So the one responsive bidder uh responded with a sealed bid as follows. That's Singer Equipment uh with a total cost of $298,247. Uh therefore, it's my
015recommendation to award the contract to Singer Equipment um in that amount. >> Thank you, Miss Williams. Dr. Shifflet, >> Chair Hen, board members, I recommend awarding the bid for food service equipment for Elton Elementary School to the lowest bidder as presented by Jennifer Williams, director of food and nutrition services. >> Thank you, Dr. Shifflet. Board members, do we have a motion? >> I move to follow the superintendent's recommendation to award the bid for food service equipment for Elton Elementary School to the lowest bidder as presented by Jennifer Williams. Thank you, Miss Lur. Do we have a second? >> Thank you, Miss Burggoyne. Board members, any questions or comments for Miss Williams? Mr. Cross, do you mind using your microphone? >> Unusual for only two firms back out. send that out. >> Um, so usually we
016would get and I can probably Steve you probably speak on this more. Any other questions? Hearing none. All those in favor of awarding the bid for food service equipment to Elkton Elementary School to the lowest bidder as presented, please signify by saying yes. Yes. >> All those opposed say no. Motion passes 40. We now have a few policy revisions or just one policy revision and that is with Dr. Amy Painter. Thank you. You got to use that microphone. I'm sorry. And hold it close. We're live. Good evening. Uh tonight on behalf of Miss Tanel, I'm bringing you the um revision to policy JHCD administering medicines to students for your approval. Chair Hurst and board members, I recommend approval of the proposed revisions to policy JHCD as presented. >> Thank you, Dr. Shifflet. Board members, do
017we have a motion to follow? So moved. Thank you, Miss Cave. A second. Thank you, Mr. Cross. Do we have any questions or comments? So, um, have we come up with a plan to make sure that these medications don't get left around the school and, uh, into the wrong hands? Do we have any kind of plan for that? >> We have not yet, you know, drafted a plan for that. We'll have to be in conversations with Mr. Bailey and um, and our nurse facilitator about what what it looks like for training, who can be trained. I think most importantly we wanted the student uh to have access to uh medicate um and you know they sense they're getting ready to have a seizure they could self-medicate. I think that was one of the conversations I've
018heard from board members giving kids the right students the right to be able to do that. >> Okay. Thank you. >> Any other questions? Hearing none. All those in favor of approving policy JHCD, please say yes. Yes. All those opposed say no. Motion passes 4. Thank you, Dr. Painter. >> And I'll make a note for Miss Tanell to bring this to Caleb Bailey's attention. >> Thank you. >> I think he's got the attention. >> He's aware. Okay. The next action item is our 2026 school board meeting schedule presented by Dr. Larry Shifflet. >> Yes. Uh Chair Hurst and board members, at the last meeting, I uh presented uh this um schedule calendar of meetings for the 20 uh 2026 school year as information. and I am coming back this evening and asking uh for approval
019of the 2026 schoolboard meeting schedule as presented. Thank you, Dr. Shifflet. Board members, do we have a motion to follow? Thank you, Mr. Cross. A second. Thank you, Miss Lure. Any questions or comments? Hearing none. All those in favor of approving the 2026 schoolboard meeting schedule as presented, please say yes. Yes. >> Yes. >> All those opposed say no. >> Motion passes 4. That concludes our action items for this evening. We have a number of information items coming up. We'll start off with the capital improve I'm sorry, capital improvement plan review with Dr. Larry Shifflet. >> All right. Thank you, Chair Hurst and members of the board. Asked uh Mr. Moyers to join me here close front and almost center. Uh he's been working with me pretty faithfully on some of this content as well
020as Caitlyn and uh Chris Sour is somewhere in the room. Um so talking about capital improvement. So, we work in partnership with the county government to discuss how we're going to uh take on the big capital projects like building an addition at Pleasant Valley Elementary School or doing the renovations uh that are currently underway at Elton Elementary School. And so, yes. So, if we would look at uh the five-year plan as it is today, uh beginning these are beginning years 2026, we would have um uh planning for renovation in addition to McGisville Elementary School. Uh you just approve the electrical equipment ahead of schedule on that. And then building a new technical center for MTC. then an addition to Elton Middle School renovation in addition to Spotswood High School followed by an addition to Monavidio
021Middle School. So that's sort of where we are looking at uh sharing with our counterparts at the county board of supervisors in terms of funding and and capital expenditures. So, I want to talk a little bit about why we're making this recommendation. Looking at current enrollment and capacity numbers. Uh, so in our high schools, um, and I'm not going to get into reading every one of these columns, you have all this information, right? So, you can look at it in the coming days and weeks, but we look about I'm just going to talk about capacity. So, Broadway has a capacity of over 300 students. East Rockingham where we are this evening 490 Spotswood 158 and Turner Ashby 263. So Spotswood is the school that I just mentioned earlier that's on the CIP right for a
022renovation and an addition. So uh middle schools JF Frank has an room for 229 students. Elton Middle School 51. So you notice that in that CIP we addressed that. Um Monavido Middle School 111, Wilbur Pence 246. And then to run through the elementary schools, Cub Run capacity 39. And I'm going to talk more about this later on in my presentation. Elton Elementary School once the renovation's finished 406 student capacity. Fulks Run 104, um, John C. Meyers 202, John Whan 141, Lacy Springs 53, Lebo Edum 62, McGakeville 237. And I have an asterisk there for the 500 because when we're doing the renovations, we're also looking to build an addition to add to the capacity. And then Mountain View 206, Otabine 54, Peak View 119, Plains 197, Pleasant Valley 183, Riverbend 302, South River 121. So
023here are some numbers. Um, and this is where Manthalene and Justin, but we worked we work in partnership with um, county administration and trying to determine as they approve new developments and different subdivisions and different types of housing, how many students we would estimate would uh, attend our schools. It's a projection, but we feel, you know, pretty confident we continue to revisit these numbers. So, if we um didn't make any changes and all of the projected like we look at the projected students based on current approved developments, things that are have already been approved. So, we can't go back and undo those. They already been approved. um and even some that are under review by the community development. If we look at those remaining capacities, East Rocks 387, Spotswood will have room for one student.
024Elton Middle will be negative. They'll be over. Monavidio will be uh negative. They'll be over. Elton Elementary School will still have capacity for 377. McGisville 112. Cub Run will be over 78 students. Pew will be over. Riverbend we have 302. Pleasant Valley 63. Now Pleasant Valley also has that little asterisk with 500 because Pleasant Valley is in a in a in an area where there's a lot of growth. There's Windgate. Is it wind correct? Windgate and then also Boulder Ridge. So a lot of housing in that community. And that's the reason we came uh to you last year to say can we build an addition and add it to our CIP. It wasn't in the plan, but we added that to make some accommodations. So, based on the projected urban development area, the growth over
025the next se several years, there will have to be at some point a new elementary school. The question is when will that be? Um, looking at the again the developments in in those areas, there's a projection of 238 additional elementary students within Cub Run and Peak View districts, right? Those those two schools. So, something we need to consider, right? And and again, we're not making any decisions tonight. We're just providing information and we'll kind of simmer on this for a little bit and ponder these things. But based on our current enrollment at Peak View in Cub Run and the anticipated growth within the Urban Development area, we may need need to build a new elementary school sooner than 2032. Right now, we have that new elementary school just outside of the five-year plan. Okay. But
026now, here's what we need to consider. This will impact our capital improvement plan. if if we feel there's an urgent need to build an elementary school sooner rather than later, right? It will also impact our operational budget. So, an estimated increase of about $300 million per year in local revenue, right? That's there there'll be state revenue that will be will make up the difference, but just to open and maintain that new elementary school. So, >> Dr. Dr. Shifflet, can you repeat that number? >> $3.8 million. >> Yes. So, obviously it would cost more than that to operate the school, but some of that would be state funding. So, this is um Dustin spent some time six months ago maybe taking one of our similar size schools and trying to calculate what the operating cost of
027that would be to give us a guesstimate. And again, that's an estimate, but feel pretty comfortable with that. So, here's some some options we of options. I like to have options and things to discuss and consider. Uh one, we can move the new elementary school ahead of other projects. I mean, that is an option, right? But remember, when we do that on that CIP, something else gets moved down, right? But it's an option. Plus, if we do that, we have to find $3.8 million local funds, right? we can uh utilize some mobile units at peak view and increase the enrollment at Cub Run. I mean, that's also another option uh to let that happen. I will tell you that if we do that, it's going to impact the programming at Cub Run and Peak View.
028So, prior to our redistricting that occurred last year when we moved students from Cub Run to Lacy, Cub Run was over 700 students. And because of the the specials rotation, they have uh typically PE twice a week, library once, art once, and music once. because they had so many students in the building, they had six teachers at every grade level, that rotation does not work. So, they had to be on a six-day rotation. So, that meant they only had art every sixth day or music. And that was a bit of a complaint at that time from those families saying, "Our students aren't getting what every other student in the county is receiving." But there's options here. Maybe that's a better choice than other things, right? Uh we can increase the class sizes within these two
029schools. So currently we try to tap at 24 is the max for fourth and fifth grade, but we could go higher, right? We could go higher in the lower grades. Again, not I'm not here advocating for any of these. I'm just saying there's options. And then the last one is we can move students, right? Redistrict students to elementary schools where there is student capacity, right? So what would redistricting look like? So we would shift students east where there is available capacity. Uh and we would make McGakeville Elementary School a blended elementary school. And what I mean by a blended elementary school is that some of the students in McGakeville would continue their current journey. They would be at McGakeville, then go to Elton Middle, and then come to East Rockingham High School. And then some
030students would then go from Makisville to Monavidio Middle School to Spotswood High School. Okay. So that would be and so I'm going to kind of work through this at a high level. I'm not going to get in the weeds of what that could look like, right? So I want you to understand kind of, you know, well, what would that look like, who would be impacted, those types of things, and then kind of share with you if we would do uh a plan like this, what it would how it would open up the capacity uh for future growth. Right? So phase one, we would take uh 72 students. I'm gonna start at the bottom, work up. We would take 130 student 137 students from Riverbend to Elton Elementary. We would take uh 157 students from Makisville
031to Riverbend and then 72 students from Cuban to Makisville. So you see this movement of kids moving east, right? Because that's where we have lots of space. Then in year two, so the following school year, we would move an additional 175 students from Cub Run to McGakeville. We would move 25 from Peak to McGakeville and 100 kids from Peak View to Cub Run. All right. And I'm going to kind of walk through uh a little more specifics, but not I'm not going to give you road names and addresses tonight. I think we'll figure that out later if that's the direction the board decides to go. So um again by 26 the start of that school year the renovation at Elton Elementary School will be complete and I think if you recall the capacity at that
032school was about 650 students. So we have sufficient room. So students typically right now going to Riverbend, we're talking 33 towards the mountain towards Green County, you know, Beldor, Sandy Bottom, and then uh going south on 340. Some of those areas would go from Riverbend to Elton Elementary School. Now, 12 years ago, 14 years ago, I don't know the date, that's where they attended school. So they would maybe going home again, maybe perhaps. I don't know how they'll view it. Um and then uh M Massanutton would then go from Makisville to Riverbend 68 students of the 157 would come from that part of the county and then and then coming um south on um 340 East Side Highway uh through parts of Island Ford and through Barry Town. Those students would go from uh Makisville
033to Riverband. Does this is this thing? Yes. Would you please I just I don't know if it's advanced. I'm talking about something on the wrong slide. And then this would be students around Island Ford Road uh who would go from Makisville to Riverbend. Um, and and again, not going to read all those roads, but that gives you sort of an idea of what the shift would look like. Okay. And then advance, please, Mr. Gillette. And then this chunk would still be sponsored in high school. They'd still be Blazers. That's important for people. But they would go from Cub Run to McGeeville. And this is the Pineville Road area. Yeah, I mean this is right in the backyard of of of um you know Bonavio Cub Run, Power Dam Road, that area. They would move shift
034towards McKakeisville. Okay, so that would be phase one of what a redistricting plan could look like. Do you have any questions about any of that before I move on? >> Hey, I'm super confused. I'm sorry. Um, and I think it's coming in. I think something might be mislabeled. We've got phase one scenario two, McGisville Elementary to Riverbend. Um, 157 students with 68 in parenthesis. Also, phase one scenario 2, also McGisville Elementary to Riverbend, 61 students. So that that that scenario is the kids going from Makisville to Riverbend. Okay. It's it's scenario two. These are all kids going from Makisville to to Riverbend to >> total 157 students. >> So these are different spots on the map. >> Yes. >> Okay. There's where you were losing me. Okay. Okay. I'm with you now. >> So those
035are the So the first spot location the 68 is the mass another >> 68 plus 61 plus 28 Yes. equal 157. >> Mhm. >> Okay. Now I'm with you. >> Yes. Okay. All right. >> Thank you. >> So then we would think about a year two and at this point McGeeville Elementary addition and renovation would be completed. Okay. So then we would move students from um 175 students from uh Cub Run to Makisville. And that part is what you're seeing there is uh the Teasletown area. Uh is that north of 33 uh as you're going into Harrisonenbergs on your right. Uh and then the other part of that would come from Madison Village area. Bull Run, is that right? Not Bull Run. What is the Madison Village and Battlefield? Yes, Bull Run is the name
036of one of the I think one of the roads perhaps. So, um and then 25 kids from Peak View in this area would go to McGisville. Okay. Then we would make um make another shift to take part of Peak View into Cub Run. All right. So this is like the Lakewood community area 100 students. All right. So that gives us room at Peak View. So now the last slide, well next the last slide. Um here if we again if the board decides to go in this direction uh eastrock we have plenty of room here. Uh Spotswood with all the um uh building right that's on the books when it comes to fruition. We remember that one student we'll have room for but they're on the CIP for for an addition. So we would be able
037to to to handle that. Uh Elton Middle School, same scenario. Um you know there is some growth that's coming into the Massanutton area. There would be an addition to Elton Middle School. So we're addressing the the need. Same is true with Monovido. Um obviously Elton Elementary School would have a capacity of 240 students uh after this plan was implemented. McGakeville 122, River 157, Cub Run would be at about 69 and Peak View at 123, and Pleasant Valley after all of the um projects there come to fruition, they would have about 63 uh student capacity. Uh and obviously they're currently being uh under, you know, developed at this point. They're working on the addition. So that's kind of what it could look like. So if using the capacity in our Elton, Riverbend, Makisville to alleviate some
038of the pressure on Peak View and Cub Run could be obtained uh by by you know going in this direction. Um so so again I go back to our options and I'm I have no intention of coming back to the next meeting and ask you what your decision is. I think these are things that we have to to contemplate. Um, we have an ad hoc meeting uh with the board of supervisors this week. I believe Thursday or Wednesday or someday. I'll have to I'll I'll figure it out, but I'll try to be there. And but having com conversations about, you know, our operating budget, what does it look like? and I'm trying to work with them to create sort of a five-year plan for our operating budget so we're always looking to the future and
039we we don't get, you know, caught in an area where we're, you know, we're asking or we're needing when we open this new elementary school whenever it is. As of today, the operating expenses is going to be about $3.8 million of local revenue, right? So that's, you know, that's that's over a 3% raise for every employee in this division. Um, so and again we can, you know, move that elementary school up in the list if that's what you choose to do or we can maybe see what happens and you utilize some mobile units. Uh, I share with folks I started my teaching career in Rockingham County Public Schools in a mobile unit and uh, you know, I know that's not always the uh, ideal situation, but we've used them in the past to get us
040through a tight spot where you know, we're we're getting overcrowded. We we we use some mobile units. Um you know, we can look about bumping class sizes if that helps. Uh and you know, and again, these are all projections based on what's been currently approved and we don't know how quickly they'll be built, right? And how many families will move in and how many of them will have children, but we have some some close guesses. So, I just wanted to again talk about the capital improvement plan as it stands. That's kind of what I would want to present to the county board of supervisors in a month or to the planning commission unless the board tells me differently. Uh because I I speak for the board. So I want to make sure I'm, you know,
041conveying, hey, this is what we want to do. But I think it's things for you to kind of look through the numbers, call me with questions and and we can talk, you know, talk through this. I'll be happy to sit down with you in two, you know, Justin and I in two by twos and talk about where we are. But um we know that you know the urban development area has a lot of growth and it's going to impact Peak View and Coin Elementary School uh in the coming in the coming years and so we just have to be mindful of that and when do we move and when is it appropriate? Any other questions? I know it's I just dumped a lot on you. Didn't mean to make it so heavy but >> Oh,
042I think there are questions. Um, so board members, maybe the easiest way to start with questions is just to start at one end of the table and work our way across. Mr. Cross, do you want to start start us off with questions? >> We've we've had these conversations redist redistricting and what it may look like if we have to do that and building the new elementary school, all that. So that all that's not new. One one thing that is a little bit new is is continue to see Spotswood High School continue to be pushed down on the renovations. Now we're at 2029 and before we were around 2027 the renovations at some point when I was on the board. So, is it because are we are we bumping stuff down because of the idea of
043building a new MTC facility or it feels like some of these stuff are getting pushed further and further out. And I know that I'm not happy about that. And I know that there are a lot of parents within my district in district three and district five that won't be happy to see that Spotwood High School again is being pushed further behind for renovations. And it's an old school. It needs to be renovated. There are a lot of things that need to be updated at Spotswood High School. We're the oldest uh high school within the division and it needs some TLC. And so I know there's a lot of people tonight going to be listening to this and not going to be happy with that. And I I feel your frustration as well. And I guess
044my idea, my question is, is building a new MTC going to putting us behind on um our capital improvement plan for everything else? because we had talked about that before with the board of supervisors that that wouldn't be that that wouldn't be the case that building a new MTC wouldn't put us behind on our >> Yeah, I'm not sure that that MTC because it was on our CIP as a um for 2026 as a renovation, right? So, it's still there. And again, these are the beginning years. I would imagine MTC would probably at this point not look for an opening till probably 2028. Uh, and and I think if I'm if I recall the order of these things and maybe the years may be off, Mr. Cross, but I think the the addition of Elton
045Middle School was was next on our CIP, followed by the Spotswood High School renovation in addition. Uh, and and it's also I think part of this is, you know, balancing um the other capital projects that the county government also has, not just what, you know, what the schools are wanting to do, but what what other needs that they have. Um so um so so I think in terms of years I I think maybe that's has moved uh but in terms of an I say I don't want to say of importance it's still I think just right behind Elton Middle School in terms of coming on board. No, I I just think people were just frustrated because they thought, hey, this renovation will be done before my kid leaves out of Spotswood and now again it's
046getting pushed back years and kids could be graduated out of there and not going to be able to benefit from a new facility and it's starting to be very noticeable. Go up there and see the difference between Spotwood High School and Broadway High School sitting here tonight. Awesome. Right. SP was just old 1980 built. So yeah, I just I feel their frustration. >> Sure. And and again, that's that's part of why I wanted to again begin having conversations to say, can we do something else besides build a new elementary school in three years, right? I I think there's other options, you know, and if we have space, why not utilize it? U we're not changing uh attendance area as far as this in terms of changing from you know Spotswood to East Rock or Spots
047with the TA, right? We're just talking about elementary schools and I know families love their elementary schools. I totally totally get that and appreciate that. Um, but this this would just be a change. And but think of Justin, if I'm correct, the turn off to go to Cub Run there at the stoplight to the turn off to go into Makisville's two miles. So, it's not a significant difference. It is a difference. Not not a significant difference, but it is a difference. >> No. And the the redistricting is worth talking about because that helps out taxpayers, right? So half our taxpayers in Rock County don't have kids in school, right? So if we can make do with our schools that do have does have room to be able to shift kids down, you know, we're talking
048about two-mile difference there. I know everyone gets upset when it comes to redistricting, but being a good steward of what we have is really important as well for everybody involved in the process. And so redistricting is the hardest thing a school board member will do. a lot of it's not popular uh to do and I just hope the board makes a decision what's best for all of Rockham County constituents and not just one group. >> Yeah. No, for sure. And again, the the U not only as I said earlier does it hit the CIP, but also the 3.8 million, you know, whenever that opens, we've got to be thinking that's that's a budget year where you're asking for a lot of the taxpayers, right, to open that new school. Um, that's a good segue into
049my question. I think the thing that raised eyebrows when we started talking about the Spotswood renovation many many years ago before we were on the board um well, Miss Hurst and I um was the price tag on it. Was it 70ome million? And if that number is right, is that for the renovation and the addition? >> Yes, both. >> Okay. Do we need the addition? I because there's capacity there now and and where you get to it only being a one remaining capacity is after that projected development and that always bothers me building schools doing additions um based on projected development because I mean who predicts the future? I mean, I know we have great models to do that, but that like, you know, when we're talking about taxpayer money, >> I just want to
050be really careful. >> So, so I think two things. One, um, Spotswood currently does serve the urban development area. So, from the county government perspective, when if they're looking to add additional subdivisions, what have you, there's the area that they're going to look to, you know, build these spaces. So I think they will be impacted with growth like more than probably any other high school. TA has quite a bit of growth in their area as well. Some with you know the Bridgewater community and all those I mentioned for Pleasant Valley, Boulder Ridge and Windgate. They feed into Turner Ashby. So that's we have to keep a pulse on that. The other piece was we were hoping to you know build the capacity at Spotswood up to around 1200 1250. So all four of our high
051schools would sort of be similar in size uh with feeder schools that could you know uh fill fill them to capacity. Um so I think it is you know what is that balance and and the 70 million or have we started re look not yet we're having some conversations about um working with a with our architect to go in and maybe uh look at those numbers again and make sure try to get us a very accurate number for what that actual price tag is. I don't want to say that we guess. We use some other remodeling uh projects in other school divisions to kind of get an idea. So, we'll have to try to get a better sense of what that would cost. >> Have we ever looked at it um with the renovation without
052the addition? Steve, I'm looking at you. Yeah. So, I think um I don't everyone could hear, but Steve was saying that that price was sort of kind of lump sum and and I think part of the conversations with the board of supervisors and county government is as we're, you know, McGake elementary schools, we're working to renovate that school while we're there. it makes sense to to add some more classrooms to build capacity. I do I do think Rockingham County is going to continue to grow in the future. So, you know, when we when we add some space, I think we'll, you know, we'll we'll benefit benefit from it in in the long run. But, u it's uh and it is it is a projection a projection, right? Just trying to determine and and it could
053be that more folks, right? If we have a baby boom, I I I have no idea when that's coming, but if if there's a baby boom that comes five years after that, we better be ready. So, uh but yeah, like you know, and we've had these conversations before. How do we utilize our space, right? Because we do have room. Uh it's just not always where we we want it. You know, construct beautiful, beautiful facility, but it doesn't right now. There's not a huge projects. The mass nut project will hit this a little bit, but not significantly. Um, thank you for um preparing all this information about the the elementary schools. I do really appreciate that. Can you drill down into the um middle school numbers a little bit? I'm concerned about -26 andgative8 seats in
054those schools for long-term growth. So that is prior to the additions >> and we're doing it like we are we already have additions scheduled, right? >> Right. So in the CIP for five-year plan, Elton Middle School is in there and so is Monovido. >> So if if we don't if we decide to make some adjustments, we're going to we're going to have some holes there as well. So that's we're we're trying to show you sort of real numbers but also letting you know that we are trying to address it through the CIP. Does that make sense? >> I think so. The numbers in this chart for the elementary schools include renovations and additions but not they don't for the elementary schools but they don't include those additional spaces for the spot the high school sponsored
055high school and the two intermediate schools right schools. Okay. And what are we looking what kind of capacity are we looking at adding to those schools? >> So spotswood would go from what is it,50 to 1250 something like that. I don't know what the exact number is. 1240 1260. >> Mr. Reed, do you know what how much we're going to add to the middle schools? So, what you're looking at long term is to have, let me get the numbers right, about 1250 total seats at Spotwood High School and then follow that up with 1250 total seats divided by the number of grades because obviously there's fewer grades in the middle correct >> at Mont Video. >> Video >> and then we're going to do the same thing at Elton Middle for Eastrop. That's our plan.
056Okay. >> Thank you very much. >> Um, one more maybe. >> Uh, the 2028 addition to Elton Middle School, is that the start date? >> So, what what kind of completion dates are we looking at on on all of those? If you can go back to the second slide, please Mr. Gillette >> 1229. >> So the 2026 >> just started >> most of these um projects are going to take a year with the exception of technical >> MTC the technical center would be more >> one year and these are the start dates and the completion date just tack a year on. >> So like a speculating that the el the addition of Elton to middle school may start January 2028, right? And then finish before the next school year, right? That's would be sort of
057the idea. >> So, if we're talking about redistricting, I don't even like to say that word. Um, but we're almost at capacity right now at EMS. And in previous years, we've been over capacity by a few. Are are we going to survive for three to four years moving? I mean, how is that even going to work? >> Yeah. So, >> move. >> So, the students that we're like in this plan, again, this is just a just a hey, throwing something at you. We're not moving any students to Elton Middle School or East Rockingham High School. These are only students moving east. So, the kids going from Riverbend to Eliminate They'll still be on that same path. The kids from McGakeville to Riverbend, same path. The kids we bring into Makisville, they will go back to
058Monavido and Spotswood. The ones who are currently in the Spotswood attendance area. Make sure I'm clear on that. So, the ones who are currently in the Spotswood attendance area would continue on the Spotswood path, but they would be in Makisville Elementary School. So that that particular school would have students who are Eastrockbound and Spotswood bound. >> So because we would have less going from Makisville to Elton Middle, it would still balance out. What you're saying? Because all of Makisville goes to Elton Middle right now, right? Yes. Exactly. >> That's going to change. And you feel that that will balance? >> Yes. >> Okay. >> Sure. No. And then thank you, Mr. Cross. It's not unusual in school divisions where there's an elementary school that sort of feeds two separate high school. >> Yeah, that that
059part doesn't bother me. It was just that the number going into the middle school. >> Yeah, I got you. I understand. >> No. And there's no chance we can move EMS up. Justin, >> I mean, it's, you know, >> shifts. I know 26 would be a push, but what about 27? >> Yeah. Okay. >> And I'm going to go ahead and point out Mont Video Middle School. >> Yep. >> I mean, that's that's looking at opening fall of 2032. It's a long way off. >> It'll be here before we know it, but it's still a long way off. >> And how many So, I know Mont Video uses currently uses mobile units. >> They do. Elton does as well. >> And how many at each school? Do you know off top of your head? >>
060I'm sorry I'm asking the hard questions. Oh, >> here. Oh, look at that. We have teachers right here. Okay. So, >> now I just remember >> Elton has four and Mont video >> has five. >> Okay. >> And and again, I can again I go back to whenever 1997 I started teaching in the mobile unit. The entire sixth grade at Pence Middle School was in trailers. Correct. Like 10 12 trailers, right? And then we got to the point where we said, "Oh, we got to do something." Right. So, I'm not saying that's a bad solution. It's not ideal. I'm not promoting that's let's let's do that, but that's sometimes sort of a a band-aid to get you through to another period, right? And all these projects again um they come with a price tag and
061how does that hit the CIP and u you know what does that look like as we work with our board of supervisors for funding and you know I mean I when I go to the ad hoc committee meeting I can ask can we move we move everything up a year right what does that look like what does it do to the overall project I'm I'm happy to advocate in terms of our our needs and desires I would like to start them all next year and just do them all at one time. Steve Reed probably back there making like gestures towards you. >> I would at least like to ask the question because they've been busting at the seams for years at Elton Middle. So, could we at least just ask the question? What would it
062look like? >> I I'd be I'm happy to ask the question. And I also note that Elton Middle School only has one shop and our other three middle schools have two shops. So I I I hear in a very small cafeteria. So I I hear what you're saying and I will I will advocate but I just you know that's a lot of money on that on that one slide. There's a lot of dollars. Right. So >> understood. >> Yep. All right. Hurst it's your turn now. >> I have all the questions. No some of the board members have already asked some of my questions. Um could you please explain how you calculate capacity because we ran into this a year and a half ago and um when I first joined the board and I said
063hey capacity >> yeah how how you calculating this and then we found there there were maybe we were counting classrooms as hey there's 20 seats there and there's 20 seats there but those are we can't count those classrooms >> so in that way >> right previously we had basically taken in every classroom and did an average and in smaller classrooms I think was an average of 10. Larger classrooms was 20. And so we a year ago I think Justin and I I I met with principles some of them maybe can remember this and said I want to know how many classrooms you have that are largiz classrooms where we can put 22 students or 24 students whatever we can put in there. What's our capacity? And then also take out some of our smaller classrooms
064some of our prek programs. And so we recalculated all those averages. So I feel like our current enrollment uh student capacities are pretty accurate in terms of what we're looking at as far as what we can uh accommodate. Uh and you know I think on the books uh East Rockingham High School uh from the architect houses how many students? So Mr. Swagger, you got some work to do, man. 1,600 according to the state of Virginia, but we we we average this at about 1,200 or 12, let's see, 1248 East Rockingham. So, our numbers will be a little bit lower than what maybe the Department of Education uh would say, but we're we have tried to be more accurate. And I will also make a statement here about Cub Run student capacity 665. uh the school
065will actually hold more students than that. But if we put more students in that in there, then what happens? We go to that six day rotation, right? It'll hold over, we had over 700 students in there a year ago, two years ago. Um >> um I just wanted to make sure, you know, we weren't looking at classrooms that were being used for early childhood special education and counting that as capacity of 20 when in fact it's >> eight or that we were using some of our um strong start. You know, we have a lot of programs um fantastic programs in the county that don't house 20 students in the classroom. We have strong starts. We have now building bridges. We have several um newcomer programs. I just want to make sure we're not counting those.
066We're still going to have those programs and so I don't want a false sense of what what we have, you know, the space we have. >> No, that's then that's a great question. Um you're correct. And you know, we have some smaller EL classrooms and special education classrooms. So um you know we tried to calculate that into the student capacity. So they I think decreased. So we did not count those other purpose classrooms in the capacity count. Okay, that's some good work. Thank you. Can I ask >> and some of that too? I just want currently probably I'm guessing Mr. Swagger, you don't have teachers sharing classrooms. It's just a hunch. Okay. But if we move to a model where teachers shared the middle school or high school shared classrooms, you may get more students
067in the buildings when again I go back to my days of teaching. I shared a classroom with a with another individual, right? Not ideal, but >> um just to uh verify the cafeterias are sized to the the capacity. >> Yes. And I think that's that's part of our Peak View addition is we had to make some expansions to the cafeteria and change we just kind of reworked that whole entire area to to make that capacity. And and that's one of the sort of the hang-ups at Elton um middle schools. The cafeteria is is really small. I think >> um another question I have um is when we talk about a new elementary school, you're saying or your suggestion or a option, let me get this right. One option is to redistrict students and that buys
068us time and we think that would be shovel in the ground for new elementary school in 2032 or that's when we would think it would need to be completed. That's outside of the fiveyear window. >> So Greg, could you take us to that uh next to last slide, please? I Yes, there you go. Thank you. So if we go back to this last next to last sheet. So if we would, this is considering we redistrict, correct? And these developments come to fruition, we would still have capacity at PQ for 123 students in Cub Run at 69. >> Okay. >> So how many years does that buy you? >> Well, it's it is hard to know. I understand this is not an exact, >> right? But again, this is this does not account for a baby
069boom, right? Or a baby bust or like any of those things. These are some projections and I think there's there are as about as scientific as they can get as far as an estimated guess. Well, I I think >> for for the public to understand, which I I was not aware of this until we started digging into this maybe a year ago. um a lot of these developments that are now coming online um in district three primarily some in my district which is district 4 these were approved 10 15 20 years ago and they've they were just approved but the builders didn't start building until the last couple of years and so it's hard to calculate when we're supposed to build that new elementary school or how you know how it's hard to calculate until
070things start moving in construction, right? If if we were we would have had new elementary schools built ages ago had we been going based on those numbers back then. So, we do have to wait for it to play out a little bit. >> I think the one on what is >> board members >> switchboard, what is that one? >> Yeah, I think >> that one has been on the books for like 20 years perhaps and now they're starting to build. Right. And that impacts Mountain View, doesn't impact any of these schools and and there are developments in other parts of the county. I don't want to paint a picture that the only places we're building new homes is is in the urban development area, but um this these are the that is a location where
071the the most developments are occurring and where we're seeing the biggest growth. >> I do have one more question, but we're down three. We don't we don't have >> qu. >> So, we're going to take a >> actually parliamentary inquiry, I think, is what I'm supposed to call for. and I'm going to go ahead and answer it. I don't think we have to have quorum for discussion. We only have to have quorum for voting. So, we can go ahead and finish this discussion. Okay. Let me have my last question and then I'm going to we're going to take a recess. Um, if we redistrict all of these students and how many of them are we going to look at moving back if we build a new elementary school? So play this out with me because
072I don't want to walk students down to the east, you know, don't want to make a move that only buys us three to five years to only have to swing them back the other way. You're saying maybe eight years. >> So >> help me understand. >> So a couple of things I would say. Um I think it's more than six years. So any student who would uh be asked to move a current student again this is not this year be next year but a student who would be asked to move we wouldn't be asking him or her to move again. Okay maybe at the middle school by then. The second thing as we looked at these lines, we tried to be thoughtful about where a new elementary school could be built and where they would
073draw students. And we feel like we wouldn't be redistricting students. I mean, as far as different students, we could feel it. It'd be a different different location of of the urban development area. Okay. >> Yes. >> Okay. Um board members, I'm going to call a recess, five five minute recess. Um the next thing we have is a lab school presentation. So if you folks could get ready and Dr. Shifflet, thank you for your presentation. Thank you for all of your all's hard work. Okay, five minute recess. Thank you. Okay, board members, we're going to come back to order now. Thank you all for bearing with us. We had lots of questions. um capital improvement plans are um really important topics and I think really complicated with a lot of things to consider weigh and consider.
074I think it'll be a topic of interest especially in district three and five since that seems to be where um where a lot of that movement is occurring. The next thing we have on our information items tonight is the lab lab school presentation by Miss Don or by Dr. Donica Hadley. Thank you for being here. >> Absolutely. Thank you for having me. Can everybody hear me? Um good evening chair hurst and um Dr. Shifflett and members of the board. Thank you for having us here to give some updates about lab school. We have officially completed year 1 and we're about a month into year two and so this was a perfect opportunity um to be sharing some highlights with you. So I'm excited and we brought some um see some members of our lab school
075family. So it's not just my voice you get tonight. Um forgive the redundancy but I think it's really important to um again repeat and reiterate the purpose and what we're doing here at Lab School. Um, for those of you who don't know, Lab School is a partnership between a university and a public school system. And gratefully, we are partnered, JMU has partnered up with Blige Community College and Rockingham County Public School and really trying to reimagine, rethink the way that we're teaching secondary education here in the Commonwealth of Virginia. That's what the purpose of all lab schools are. Everybody has a different spin on it. Everybody's comes with a different idea about how to not necessarily reinvent the wheel but almost how we can do things one step better than we've done them before. Um
076the way that we've done it is we are taking interdisciplinary approach to teaching the content, teaching the standards, teaching our curriculum to our students, putting 50 students in one classroom with four teachers, four subject areas specifically in grade nine. um using a project-based learning approach, hands-on learning approach, um field explorations, field experiences, really focusing on career exploration, trying to show our students what pathways lie beyond them after they leave us in 12th grade, whether it is for higher ed or trade school or military or being an entrepreneur, whatever their path is. So Lab School is trying to take all of these experiences, making sure they have tools um and skills and a really solid foundation on top of their curriculum to make sure they're as prepared as we can make them. Um so our mission
077and our vision have stayed the same and our two goals are to one become a premier innovation hub. The students actually um find this one fascinating because we like to think of Lab School as we're doing something that's bigger than all of us as individuals. Um, collectively we are all kind of putting um a meeting of the minds together and trying to serve not necessarily or serve as a as a beginning stage and in a hub so to speak that can be reproduced not just throughout different schools in the commonwealth but perhaps do something that's um can be innovative for other school systems within the United States within our nation within our within globally internationally. Um, so again, it's bigger than all of us. And then, um, the career exploration, making sure that we maximize
078all of our students potential academic and social progress. That's just a little bit about who we are, what we're doing, what the purpose is. Whoops. Too fast. I'm trying to go back to slide two. It's going the wrong way. Yes, please. Keep going. Keep going. Two more. One more. There we go. U. Thank you. Great. Um, some year one highlights we have. Um, we obvious obviously like to put first and foremost our student academic and personal growth as we've seen in the natural progression as our ninth graders at East Rock and Broadway have now moved to 10th grade and um have successfully completed year one at Lab School, year nine. Um we have seen some a lot of personal growth which you will hear from some of our students and obviously academic growth as well
079which is obviously the primary pre uh purpose of what we're doing here. Um we have one of our highlights is that we were able to um live and breathe the student centered curriculum that our teachers have developed alongside JME professors. Um it has been very teacher guided, teacher centered as far as the curriculum development but we have asked and we surveyed our students prior to even beginning lab school to see what their interests were, what their thoughts were, what their wantings wanting to know about um just learning in general and that's where our student center curriculum development began. Um we have also done a lot of work with our community engagement liaison but also talking to different people within the community. Um, we call that a highlight and a and a huge success when we
080hear people throughout our community actually coming up to us and saying how can we be a part of this? How can we support the work that's being done? How can we can how can we help with the students growth and progress? Um, so we actually are incorporating that more and more as we um continue to grow in year two. We are developing our footprint slowly. We are getting really good at our elevator speech so to speak about what we do, who we are, why we're doing this in the first place. Um, again, this is just a snapshot. It's nice to just take a little bit of students or a small group of students. At first, when you're trying something new and figuring out what works, what doesn't work. It's not a utopian society, so to
081speak. Not everything happened perfectly. We definitely stumbled along the way. We tripped and we bumped and we but we also grew and we also rose and we also learned a lot of things as we are trying to accomplish what we saw our two goals being. Um, this is a collective effort of educators. Um, even just today, and I'll tell you a little bit more about today. Um it was you know I was in a meeting earlier with one of our curriculum directors um myself a professor another professor that I actually personally just met for the first time today over in the college of science um several of our teachers and we were brainstorming some of our 10th grade curriculum and to me it's just the meeting of the mind a really collective effort of our
082educators um throughout our community it definitely takes a village and we are living and breathing this every single day um so definitely one of our highlights also one of our highlights for year one was we launched the JMU labs school uh the data lab um this was a this was designed and developed by the center of the Madison center group um NJMU and our teachers and together we have created this database we work alongside our school registars we input data from the schools so that we like I've said before we're collecting all of this data that we are doing that we're working with in lab school and hopefully not only just saying telling you the stories the qualitative stories but also giving you the quantitative data from this. So that was just launched and that
083was that was a definitely a highlight. Um I'll tell you a little bit more well before I even go on. So the data lab was not officially launched until about March. So mid year. It took a while to grow. It is a very um homemade handgrown data lab very very specific to what our needs were and what our pro what our um what our goals were. And now that we have developed it we are now still collecting our baseline information. And so that is what a lot of the information from last year was. And now that we are entering into year two, we're going to be able to do a lot a large collection of data for this year and then also have some good comparison data um not just for year one and year
084two, but also from our students um in comparative to the rest of the population of Rockam County students as well in their cohort. The clicker doesn't like me. There we There we go. Okay. So, here's some um that was some of our some of our reflections and some of our highlights, but here's some hardcore um concrete, so to speak, growth and progression that you can kind of see with your own eyes. And and um as you go into our schools, as you all know that we have we have increased this year from eight teachers. We had four teachers at two schools and we now have 26 teachers all across all four schools, all four high schools where lab school has fi has sites. We now have ninth grade sites in every single school and 10th
085grade sites at two of the schools. Um we have met our target enrollment. We have increased from 50 students, I'm sorry, we increased from 100 students, 50 at each of the schools, that's typo, and to 300 students. So that is huge. Um we've increased from two to four sites. So we went from two schools to all four high schools and we are um we are also we have instead of two classrooms we now have six classrooms. Um we are midway point of planning and developing our 11th and 12th grade logistics which I will share with you um momentarily. So you can see we've have a lot of actually concrete uh data of our growth and our progress. All right. Um again there's all all four high schools are in progress. We have now I think
086the last time we talked with you we were still trying to uh narrow down our 10th grade courses. They are up and running right now. We are actually our 10th grade has a combination of three content areas as opposed to four. The reason that we did this was we um when we were looking to develop our 10th grade curriculum, it didn't fit the students what we felt was in the best interest of our students to have four classes all combined because by doing that we would be eliminating students from taking certain electives. band, C course, art, some things that are really important for a whole child's student development. And so we left it at three. Um the three that we left it at are very strong in my opinion. They mesh really well together. Um
087English 10, biology, and inquiry. These are all stu well English and bi biology are two courses that all 10th graders have to take anyway. And the inquiry we obviously that was a new one that we added in, but it's more of an independent research that we've put into uh that we've kind of put into the mix. Tammy Stone helped us to kind of fold it in in a way that felt very natural um and really um beefed up what we what we thought was the curriculum um the curriculum needs. We know that biology is a really tough so um that happens in 10th grade and so the inquiry course actually has a science focus. So we actually have two science teachers primarily um to we were thinking doing two science teachers in the class to
088give more of a of a emphasis on the science that they're doing that students are doing. Um students are going to be doing inquiry based science projects um throughout the year. We're go we're in literally in the m middle of developing this is what our meeting was about earlier a science fair that will be a divisionwide science fair come March. Tammy Stone is very excited to bring this to Rocky County. Um she's building it along with us. We are hopefully going to some students will even go ahead and do a regional um science fair and then students will actually take some of these projects and go ahead and present it to 9th graders and then middle school students at the same time. So they're getting a lot of bang for their buck. Um so students
089are really excited and these are the skills that they truly truly need this inquiry these inquiry skills to be really successful no matter what pathway they choose beyond high school. glimpse into year two. Um, and these are all pictures directly from year one and year two because we kind of go around with a camera all the time. The students do as well. Um, we are really focusing on obviously our students growth and progress. Really collecting data going to be collecting it and putting it into our database so that we can um present to you hard um concrete qualit quantitative data at the end. We have continued curriculum development. Our teachers have worked over the summer. They continue to work throughout the year. Um we have focusing on teacher retention, taking a look at how teachers
090are finding their joy in their in the work that they do. Um making sure that our teachers are um just happy with what they're doing, happy to come to work again. one of our teachers um our our teachers at one of the schools that just opened this year. Um I came to his school site on the very first day and one of the things that he said to me directly was I haven't been this excited to teach in years. And to me that's the those are the those are the moments that I that that I really um lean on when we're trying to look at what is it what do we need to do to our teachers to help keep them in the field where they are experts and where they're very much well needed.
091Um, community partner expansion. We are continue to part uh to expand our partnership as we're looking into year 11 and 12. Um, those community partners are really becoming more important. Um, we we pull them in every opportunity that we can. I know we're going one of the schools is going downtown Harrisonburg tomorrow. They're going to be doing a Top Chef kind of experience talking to people who own restaurants, run restaurants, talking to people at Hotel Madison, learning about that career exploration. every all the career exploration is all embedded into everything that we do. Um doing research based practices and evidence-based practices, making sure that we're doing that PD along with our teachers and then continuing to serve as that innovation hub. Fast forwarding a little bit to 11th and 12th grade curriculum. Um we are
092hopefully in the final stages of landing this part of the plane that we've been flying for quite a bit. I know I did not have these answers last year, so I'm excited to have them this year. We've been working tirelessly with um Donna Abernathy and Blige community um professors. Um we started working with um Liza Kaufman and then Emily Holloway is now working with us to make sure that the courses that we have designed are fitting our curriculum and fitting the needs of our students to the best of our abilities. We're still having that footprint of that interdisciplinary hands-on project-based learning approach. We are all the stu all the classes that we do in 11th and 12th grade. They will be the students will be coming to JMU's campus. They will do the they will
093be dual enrollment credits. Um all of the classes that the students do. Um it's going to be taught by JMU and Blige Community College faculty so that we're not overburdening our J our RCPS teachers. Um and again, we're going to have a real career exploration, community engagement focus as students engage in different products. Um the logistics of it are still being developed as far as scheduling. Does it happen every day? Does it happen every other day? Um and then come 11th grade, students are going to start to feel or start to have different pathways to choose from. Some students are going to go more the governor's school pathway. Some are going to go more MTC. Some are going to want to do AP courses. We don't offer any AP courses in lab school. And some
094are naturally going to want to stay with projectbased learning and this kind of this kind of learning. And so they will continue on coming to lab school. Um we are still building the facilities as we speak at Memorial Hall. We are renovating two classroom spaces. Um once we finalize some of the logistics of the courses Blige Community College and JMU will um determine the faculty. We just met as a governance board last week and we met with President Downey at Blige Community College. Everybody is on board. We met with Dean Lebron uh Dr. Shifflet um all the principles. So everybody's still working to very much together and collaboratively on what this is going to look like in the near future. Um and of course working with our our curriculum development and community experts and partners.
095The next couple of slides are just some slides from our student portfolios. Um these are all pulled from student portfolio. Students in lab school are expected to create a portfolio of their entire experience. We have a rubric. We've got um different artifacts that they have to collect and it's a very reflective process and um experience that they have. They do one at the end of each year they're with lab school and then eventually when they get to 12th grade they have a huge portfolio. We explain to students these portfolios can aid you in college applications but mostly it's a reflective piece of yourself. It's a piece it's your footprint that you get to take away from lab school. But I thought it would be better to hear from students than to hear from me about
096what this experience was like overall. >> Hi. Um, my name is Ellie Kaufman. I'm Issa Steinbach. We're in 10th grade. Yeah. So, we both really enjoyed our time as a freshman in lab school because so that was the first year lab school had been a thing. So, for us to be like sort of the guinea pigs of the scenario, I think it was really beneficial to us. Um, going into this, we weren't really sure what to expect, but both of us, we are students who feel like we haven't always been challenged and uh we are always striving for the best. We want to learn more. or we want to go places, go to college. And we've always felt like school has been a little bit boring or we're not learning as much. And so going
097into lab school was really a great opportunity to see how things could be different such as the projects and various activities that we did that were very different from our average school experience that we had. >> Yeah, I think that all the projects because obviously Lab School has project based learning. So I think I mean up on the board you can see some of the field trips we've taken and I think the projects that we've done and they've really helped both of us and everybody else in lab school grow as a person. Um I moved to Broadway to Rockingham County Schools my freshman year. So I was at a new school and doing lab school. So I didn't know anything well I knew a little bit but I didn't know whole much about how it
098was going to work or what the school was like. So moving there really helped me. I was felt like timid because it was a new school. I didn't know anyone. And I think lab school being with a community of people who also didn't really know exactly what was going on and how it was all going to work out for the rest of their high school years helped everyone and me especially grow as a person. I think you can ask my mom or like my family that I've become a little bit more outgoing because I don't two years ago I would not have wanted to come up here and speak in front of a school board about my freshman year of high school. But I think all of the community projects that we've done and the
099collaboration that's involved in lab school because you have to communicate on every single project. It's all involved growing and learning. I think that's really helped me in this part. Right. And that's another thing we talked about too. Lab school doesn't just teach us the average school curriculum that we're supposed to be learning, but it also teaches us real life skills that we need to know and it opens up a community. I also was worried about not having friends in my classes. And going into lab school, I really didn't know anybody either. But the teachers were very good about putting us with new groups. So, we had to learn how to talk to new people and how to get along even with people who maybe we had differences with or we just didn't know as well.
100Um, I think to touch on that too, the lab school learning, I think it's given us a purpose for our high school career because some people if you're go you're going to high school, you don't exactly know exactly what you want to do in the future. So, taking lab school gives you a guideline of as Dr. Hley was explaining she was explaining the 11th and 12th grade years. It gives you a more set out area for different pathways for you to take and then different courses that are available to you um when you're going through and that the to touch on the purpose too. I think that using all of the people in groups as Isa was saying the people you might not know as well or that you don't connect with once you learn
101and become better close friends with them because in some of the photos you can see we went to the Jamie ropes course we did that in the very beginning of the year which was so helpful because that was so that field trip was so entirely focused on collab collaborative work and getting to know each other in lab in the very beginning allowed for a better setup for the rest of the school year. I think you can ask the teachers. After that field trip, everybody started getting louder in the classrooms. People started knowing each other. They wanted to talk to each other more. The other lab schools in the beginning of the day. So, your classes throughout the day, you could see people in your classes that were in lab school and you could talk to
102them. You had a friend in every class because there's always somebody you knew, >> right? And what Ellie was talking about with kind of lab school giving us a purpose. I know a lot of people in high school feel like school is kind of pointless sometimes. Maybe their career isn't going to be exactly what we learn about in high school. Maybe they want to do something like at MTC. So, a lot of this doesn't feel very like very I don't know like it relates to us at this time. But lab school, we learned a lot of things about what's happening outside us in the real world. Like we made a sustainable city project which taught us about the environmental issues that we're facing today right now which kind of helps us to be more aware
103of what's going on around us and how we can help our community as well. >> And to touch on the outside world, I think we took a field trip to a landfill which really opened everyone's eyes when we were doing the sustainable city unit. I think it opened everyone's eyes to the how the world is actually being affected by our actions every single day. And I think it's taught us a bunch of different skills such as I mean I know I've already said collaborative but that is such a big one throughout lab school. You're working with people every single day. You're always talking. Every project is you're communicating all the time. You're building off of each other off of each other's ideas. There's always some form of communication going on and learning how to involve
104everybody's ideas and build it all into one project. That is so helpful with the portfolios. >> That's something we'll really need later on in life. Even simple skills like presenting our portfolio is helping us to gain the confidence in presenting in front of other people like us right now. I don't think I could have done this at the beginning of the year or maybe last year, but it's taught us a lot of things that can be useful for outside of school and really been it's really been a super fun opportunity and given me a reason to wake up and look forward to going to school instead of boring worksheets and everything like that. But really getting to see other people I think was the big thing for us at least making building those friendships and
105making those connections. In other classes also there's no you're not doing project based learning which is an obvious but you're not taking as many field trips. I think taking field trips in lab school I mean I know all the kids love it but I it's also it helps your in school because we took a field trip to a Lynville Creek and we learned about the macaron vertebrates there and how they affect the waters and what which ones are there what tells us about the waters pollution levels. So that I mean obviously that's one example but we went to different national parks. We saw how the world was being affected. We saw how we can better it at some points. Um, we did one JMU had a celebration for us in the beginning of the school
106year, like a welcoming an opening ceremony almost. And I think that one really helped everybody's eyes to open up to see the opportunity we were getting and how grateful we should be to have to be the first ones to have this opportunity and to be able to grow and learn in a setting like this. Thank you. Yeah, very grateful for this opportunity. >> Is it work? There we go. Uh, so I'm my name is Mr. Ernie and I am their teacher at Broadway High School. um kind of hard to follow your students when they spoke so well after that. So, this was I've been this is my 20th year at Broadway High School. Um science the whole time. And I'll be honest, last year when they asked well two years ago when they asked me
107to do it, I was like, uh I don't know about this. Um last year when I think a couple of you guys came to open house and I probably still had a deer in my headlights look. I was like, we're going to figure it out. Like we got this. And I would have to say it's the most eye- openening experience I've ever had. Um I think in 20 years of high school, I may have cried like once. And those kids with their letters and their portfolios and stuff, I can count five times in a year. Um just the couple weeks ago, one of the sophomores knew that like because I'm doing freshman and sophomore this year because I liked it so much I'm doing both. They knew that I was having such like I was
108struggling to keep up with everything that they wrote this like nice letter um and handed it to me, put it on my desk and like it was really like I don't even know how to explain it. It was that emotional. Um and some of the stuff the kids put in their portfolio, they really are a family. Um and the experiences they're gaining, it's way more than just science or English or history. Like they're learning how to survive in the world. um and the things that they're doing like the field trips and stuff like I would never have thought when I scheduled that landfield trip field trip that so many people would have enjoyed it. I mean it was eye opening. It was nose opening as well. Um and it came up in like their portfolios
109and I was shocked at that just because they never even though they you know they know what they throw out in the trash they never really understood what happens to it. Um, so with the different field trips and stuff, like these kids have really they they've grown to enjoy school and like they kind of they are their own little family. Like there there might even be some sibling rivalry coming on soon here in the next year or two with these guys. Um, it's just absolutely truly amazing. Um, I know some of I wasn't going anywhere. I've been at it 20 years. Like I'm not going anywhere for at least 10 more. Um, but like some of the teachers involved, they were tired. They were burned out of regular education. And I haven't heard a single
110one of my co-workers say that. Um, I mean, might be tired, but not ready, not because of education or anything like that. And it really has brought joy to them. Um, if there is a way like in the future, like this is the way I always envision school should be. Um, and it would be really, it's it's been really beneficial to me, to the students. Um, I never would have thought I would have those connections with kids. Um, I've always been, you know, when I go out in town, like I know people, I talk to kids, talk to their parents, but now like I get emails from parents. I I run into them at my own kids events. Um, I have a child in seventh grade, second grade, and first grade, and like I'll see
111parents of children that are that young and they're like, "You're going to keep this thing running, right? You're going to still be there. um in 10 some of them 10 years and I'm like well 10 years I don't know um but you know it it's a really great opportunity and we are very blessed in the county to be given this. All right. Um good evening. My name is Xavier Greer, the uh community engagement leaison. And uh like I said, a lot of these pictures is from the moments of the uh the students here. And u just from my my end of it, um we talked about that family. They even nicknamed me the field trip guy. Um guess that's a little easy to say a community engagement leon. So I give them that one. But
112um like I said, what I enjoy about it is that not only is this program built for our students, it's built by our students. Um Dr. may have touched on. So, we do these surveys. We do these things where we're asking kids, what is that you want to what is it that you want out of your educational experience? This is for you. We want to push you out there so that you have the tools needed to be able to succeed in the world. Um, like a lot of these kids when they come into that high school experience, like they students that spoke, it's like I come into high school and I'm so worried about what's ninth grade going like, what's 10th grade? Well, they don't really think about after four years, what does life look
113like? Right? And so, preparing them for what's kind of how to kind of attract those um what President Smith from JMU stated like to coin is power skills not soft skills you know like to say communication collaboration that team building called those soft skills those are skills that are not only needed within the learning process those are skills needed within life um and so just kind of allowing the students to be able to have these experiences not only build the learning that teachers are looking to enhance from the classroom to out of the classroom now they're enhancing on those life skills that will benefit Um, and I'm sure like not only Mr. Ernie, but a lot of teachers can kind of attest to is that that you don't really get to see the impact of
114the learning of that that goes on from a trip to the ropes course or from a trip to the landfill or to JMU to look at different forms of solar energy or electrical energy until you get back into the classroom and they're bringing up those moments. They're reflecting those moments within their portfolio and expanding on how that kind of impacted the way that they just what's in their backyard, right? A lot of kids look at taking the trash out. They never know where that goes after it goes that the trash truck is dropped down the road, right? And so it's just kind of understanding how these moments not only impact their learning, but impact their lives, not only creating better students and better people as well. I got to get moving moving along. I want
115to mention two things. The first one is I'm a former world geography teacher. I taught history for 15 years. as we started building this even before it came into the schools I got super excited and would have loved to been a part of it but obviously I've moved on to the next role but that's how excited I was helping to build it second thing and lease kind of prompted this which you didn't think you did but she talked about new student coming in and being welcomed by a family and we're experiencing that this year with a teacher um I had a veteran teacher do an excellent job last year she relocated to a different state brand new teacher zero years exper experience comes in with three outstanding mentors that he teaches with four periods um
116every two days. So just a great opportunity to help grow from within and uh we've seen those benefits early on and obviously I'll keep track of it as we move through the year but an unintended uh positive consequence that we didn't think about as we built it. >> So those are some highlights. Um the pictures keep going on and on but the at the end of the day we just wanted to say thank you for this opportunity. Thank you for giving us this space and this time to do something outside of the box. Um I think that um here amongst the people here um and there are a lot of other voices out there that are not present tonight without um for sake of time I just wanted to um sorry give you a new
117teacher perspective that's brand new to this uh to lab school her voice and she says as a new teacher I'm still developing my skills and learning different techniques lab school has given me a space to learn from other teachers professors a diverse group of students trips and even books I've gotten the opportunity to collaborate with other teachers teachers in my ca in my county as well as teachers across other subjects in my school. I have learned how to promote active learning in my classroom and I've gained confidence overall. I still have a lot to learn. The lab school has given me resources to keep doing so. From a student, I always have a hard time with school and focusing, but I love learning. It's just always been so hard. These teachers explain stuff so perfect
118and make it fun while learning. It's the only class really with 50 kids and who know each other and treat each other as family. And what makes lab school so special to me are the teachers, the opportunities, the love and all the above. So, thank you for this opportunity and I welcome any questions for any of us, myself included. Thank you. >> Thank you for that presentation. Board members, do you have any questions? Um when you talk about curriculum development um in the ninth grade lab school and then continued curriculum development in the 10th and we talk about this inquiry um research honors where like what are your sources for curriculum development for that? That's a great question. The primary resource are the standards. We use all the standards from that they have to learn
119whe from from the BDO8. That's our that's our starting point. That's our foundation. We take all the standards. We look at them. We look at how they connect with each other and then we take what students interest is, take the standards, combine it all, and then figure out a way to overlap the curriculum or the content so that it makes sense. So we're allowed to so we're able to go deeper into the content and into the standards than if we were just teaching them in isolation. So the foundation of where we're getting everything from is the state are the state standards. Um as far as the inquiry, we actually used stam Tammy Stone had a syllabus. It's been done in Rocky County and we use that as our premise. That was our foundation and then
120we just kind of expanded on that. Um, we talked for hours with her about how we can um, infuse it into our curriculum and make it very hands-on and project based, you know, including project- based learning and we were able to go deeper. So, that's the foundation of everything that we do. So, there's still all the kids are getting they're getting the same, same standards that they would in a traditional traditionally taught class. It's just the delivery of it. That's all that's different. >> Right. I understand. Um, and And just thinking about that in SOS, Dr. Shifflet, is there a way that we are looking at or that we will be able to in the next year or two or three um how these students are doing on their SOS, what are their results as
121compared to the students that are not in the lab school. Is there any way that we're able to track that? >> Yes, absolutely. So, this year at Broadway and East Rock, we're doing biology. So that is a u sort of the new gatekeeper if you will for high school graduation. So how those students do compared to their their peers and then we can also track them and I know JMU is doing an excellent job of of collecting student achievement data and trying to measure those things because you know at the end of the day people want to know does this work >> Right. And so I think that's um trying to gather glean that information and and obviously social science data sometimes it's hard to you know determine what is that you know is it
122a correlation causation what have you but uh definitely we can uh keep tabs on the students who participated in this and and I don't know what all maybe at some other point they can come back and talk about some of the data they've already gathered and what they plan to to to to continue gathering as we move forward through this process. >> So that's exactly what the purpose of the data lab is. to collect that data. Because we started it last year, we thought we would have more of a concrete, but it was really more of a collection of a baseline. And so we'll have more comparative data for you probably around January. Um because we'll also do surveys. We've done some midpoints. We're looking at assessments before midway and the end. will obviously have
123the so the biology so um the database is set up so that it can compare not just the cohort but also the cohort in comparison to the entire population within the school and across the county so that's data for Rocky County also we um just were looking at in um nth grade they do IDMs instead of SOS at for the world geography and just I and this is very I don't have the concrete to back it up it was just a conversation with one of the teachers at one of the schools and he already did look at the data and he said that the scores were higher as comparative to the other to other students within the school. We were talking about that in one of our team meetings this day the other day. I
124don't have concrete to back that up, but that was a that was a qualitative response from a from a teacher. So that's the those that's the data that we're going to be able to be very concrete and succinct about delivering to you all. Um this is also the VDOE asks us to share the results of every school year. Um there was a report I shared it with um Dr. Shifflet and Donna Abernathy. It's pages. I am more than happy to share it with you. Um, and it shows some of the baseline data that was reported because we did report it to the BDOE. Every year we have to report these results because they're the ones that are funding this particular in um initiative. They're also wanting to see it. Not even just our constituents here,
125but also the state. If this is working, if this is something that we can really really pivot on, we have to have the data to back it up. Hence the data lab. Thank you. >> I would love to see that report. >> I would love to share it with you. >> I would too. Thank you. >> I could send it I could send it via I could send it to you after or Dr. Shifflet has it as well. >> Sure. Thank you. Anything else board members? >> Thank you lab school team for coming and presenting tonight. We do appreciate it. Thank you for sharing. The next thing on our information tonight are some policy revisions. Dr. Amy Painter is coming back for those. Good evening again. Um I made myself a cliff's nose version since
126this is handed to me this afternoon. Uh but we have four um policies up to be revised forformational tonight and hopefully to be acted upon the October 13th meeting. Uh the first policy J student records it's moving from BSBA to a SBMA policy. Um, it would add a section on confidentiality of specific situations such as address confidentiality and foster children policy. JRCA, school service providers use of student personal information. It's moving from BSBA to SBMA. It adds uh the definition of a schoolisssued device and school technology provider. uh differences I found is that it states that all student personal information is deleted. It adds limits to providers from accessing or monitoring students on devices. It adds a provision to allow RCPS to access and monitor the devices. Uh policy JEC school admission changing from BSBA
127to SBMA. Um it adds art about students of service members and then a special power of attorney for non-custodial parents and then because of that policy if you choose to revise it there would be a new policy added SBMA policy JCA admission policy for children of active duty military because we have no current policy and that is actually mentioned uh in policy JC if you adopt the SBMA version uh JEC AA would be a new policy. Board members, do you have any questions for Dr. Painter? Okay, maybe we just need more time to ruminate on them. Thank you, board members. The um next item for information is our field trip policy, ICA. Um I requested to have it put back on for information. Um I left draft A and draft B on there for information
128even though um I don't think any of us are looking at draft A anymore. Is that correct down the table? Yes. No. Maybe. So, we're not sure from from A to B is where we're at. Um so, I've had an opportunity um to I came out to Spotswood. Um Miss Lure met me there. We met with CTE teachers from the East End and fine arts teachers as well. Um and then um Miss Burggoyne met teachers at Broadway with Miss Lure and Miss Lure also. She was um she was busy. She went to all of them. She also I was able unable to get to the TA um side of things and so Miss Lur was there as well. Um I just wanted to share that the um I think a lot of the questions and
129concerns that we had are kind of on an administrative end. Um things that are for Dr. Shifflet and his team to kind of sort out and work out. Um Becky Ford, director of fine arts and Carrie Gray, um CTE, director of CTE. They were both present and got to hear a lot of those questions and concerns that I heard. Um, I think the major one, and Miss Lori, you'll have to correct me if I'm wrong, that came up from this was, um, the draft B wording of when chaperone names are to be given out to parents. There's a, you know, a suggestion that we change it that the names of the required overnight chaperons must be distributed to parents, guardians either on the field trip permission slip or, um, on a supplementary material sent home
130a minimum of two weeks in advance of the trip. And so, um, I think that's a reasonable request for me. I just wanted parents to be aware of who the chaperons are in advance of the trip. I think it's probably best practice to say um as best as you can who this the school personnel are going to be um in advance of that trip. I think the more information you give parents to make a good decision about that trip, the best that you know, the better it is. Um but I certainly understand that sometimes you need to know um do I have eight kids attending this or do I have 16 and that changes the number of chaperons that you may or may not need to gather up for such a trip. Um, so that
131was one one I think significant concern on on wording. Miss Laura, did you want to add anything? Just that the way um B is written uh going from 8 to 16 doesn't really change the number of chaperones because we're having one chaperone, I mean two chaperones, a minimum of two chaperones. Um, but if you go and the reason, Miss Myers and I discussed it a little bit earlier, the reason it's laid out the way it is, it's a 1:8 ratio with a minimum of two chaperones. So, if you've got 24 students going, you only need three chaperons because 1 to eight, >> you you don't need six. >> You don't need six, >> right? And that's that's what that chart is, the chaperon ratio, right? And another thing that came up um at most of
132our meetings was that loan student and some of our some of our CTSOs have state officers and we're still kind of talking about how to possibly deal with that. Um if you've just got one student going to Virginia Beach to to a conference, what do you do about that? And I think we're still kind of discussing that, right? >> Yes. Uh, I also would say that a lot of our CTE teachers, I mean, I will just say our teachers are phenomenal. They will bend over backwards getting kids to conferences and to um, whatever competitions. I'm just amazed at how very busy they are. I learned some of them, you know, it's not necessarily during the summer when it makes sense to have a 10 and a half month contract or 11-month contract. Some of these
133things are happening. um you know, they leave school on a Friday, travel, they're there all weekend, they come home on a Sunday evening and just hit the ground running again. So, a lot of our um teachers are I mean just it's just incredible the amount of work that they do. Um, I I would also though say that one of the things that continues to come up is, you know, when you take just one kid or three kids on a competition that that means that teacher is absent for a day of instruction and there are however many children at school um still, you know, there with a sub or maybe not with a sub because we couldn't get a sub. So, I would also um just say and encourage to families that um it's That's a
134that's a really hard thing to ask our our our teachers to always be the sole chaperoons. And so sometimes it might it in my opinion we might need some help from parents um in chaperoning some of these um trips. So um anyway, and board members, do you have any other thoughts or adjustments you'd like to see? >> Um one thing that was brought up, well I have a few things here and that's why I sort of was iffy about taking the gender piece out of it. um was the question came up, if we take that piece out, are we okay with two male chaperones with one female? Like it's almost like culturally like we don't think about it if it was a boy with two teach two female teachers, but what if it's the other
135way around? And I don't I don't know if that's something that we need to think about. I would um recommend that we maybe put the policy policy B in and then um collect that data and see how often we're having um like two males or two females on a trip and see what the data shows us. Okay, that that would be my recommendation. Okay. And then when it's like one on-one with the state advisor, I don't know why I have both these written down, but I had does it need to be male with male and female with female? And I guess it wouldn't if we go with the Okay. >> And I think when parents are giving permission and they're aware, they're aware. >> Okay. And then um when do the two chaperones need to
136be there? Meaning, do the two chaperoons need to be from the point that they leave the school or wherever and go too or can one show up and they drive separately? Um, we have that question there upon arrival. I think if you've got, this is my opinion, but if you've got schools, multiple schools from our county going to the same location, I would think we're doing some form of car pooling just simply from the standpoint of cost and mileage and vehicle use. And maybe, you know, it doesn't make as much sense for Broadway and East Rock to carpool, but they're I be we need to know how many times that's actually an issue and ask why we're not sharing car rides maybe, right? I think um when we were talking about all of these different
137situations, it was okay, we know we need something, but what does it look like when we implement it? And I think from the people that I talked to, staff that I talked to, their biggest concern was we're we're okay with you putting it down in policy and we'll follow, but it they just didn't want the implementation of it to be unclear, to be crazy, to be asking all of these questions after the fact. And you know, they even pointed out things like a lot of times we may be driving a student from, say, Spotswood to Broadway for something. And so, I mean, that's that's a risk, you know, we're only really addressing overnight stays, but really, I mean, is it a risk for one staff member to drive one student from one school to another?
138So I don't this policy doesn't really touch anything or touch any of that but I don't know I think we we opened up discussion on this policy based on safety and I just I don't I feel like it got a lot deeper and I don't know that we're touching on on safety. I don't know that this is as great as what it could be should be. I don't know. I just want to be in a better place when when we end this than where we were and I don't want our staff to be crazy from it. And and gosh, I guess it's going to be on you, Dr. Shifflet, to that that was the part was like we we we're fine with policy what whatever you say, but like we just want to be clear.
139So, I trust you. >> Well, thank you, Miss Cave. And once we >> the board decides on a policy, then I I will have to go back to our administrative directive and clear clean that up, right? And what what those ratios are and and and provide some guidance. Um I just want to, you know, from my perspective, I I just want to make sure I have a clear understanding of the board the board's desire and what we're trying to accomplish here. And I know there's just so many nuances to it, right? It's not as simple as, you know, we want this this many chaperones, but um yeah, and I I agree with what Chair Hurst was saying, too, like how can we be, you know, more better stewards with car pooling and and you know,
140and sharing rides and those types of things as well. And uh the burden that we leave behind when a teacher takes one or two students out for the you know, for an entire day or two and the other 60 kids are left behind with substitutes. There's a lot of moving parts to this and um maybe in some ways warrant some more discussion but you know I feel like if you folks are feeling you know draft B is where you want to land and we can we can pick up those pieces try to make our approach. >> Okay. Thank you. >> So board members what what would you like to do with this piece? What? How would you like to proceed? Do you want me to bring it? Do you want me to put it on
141the agenda for the next meeting for action draft B? Um, one thing to consider is to pass it but postate it for implementation to like January 1 or something like that or >> February. fully my intention if if it had been on um >> and I'm sorry I interrupted you, but um if if it had been on for action tonight, I was going to make the motion to be for the policy to be effective January 1, 2026. And then also just to to give you a little bit more information, um I had some free time a couple weeks ago, so I kind of roughed out a um a field trip uh chaperone video script that I have sent to the executive team that kind of gives me because I I've gone on a lot of
142um overnight trips, so I kind of know what we need to know and and my vision is that this will help support our teachers and this will help let the parents things that I didn't know and it's taken me years to figure out and then I've also had training through 4 and I leaned into their 4 some yeah I leaned into their training and um kind of got the pieces that I think that parents need to know when chaperoning these events and then I was gonna save this for my highlights but um I then last week was it last week weekend not not yesterday but the weekend before I wound up going to the Big E with the FFA and discovered, oh wait, I left out something. So, there's still some things and I think
143it's just going to have to evolve. I think this is a good first step and we just need to kind of live with it and see what needs to be added and what how we need to make it work for our community. But this is a good first step and policies are living breathing things. So we can we can change them as we go along. But um I do think we need to just give our teachers a little bit more support and the parents as chaperones because there were lots of things I didn't know and when I started and when I first started doing things and these are things that are critical for people to know. I can help better support teachers knowing these things. So I think that part is going to be critical
144and I think it's going to be really supportive to our teachers. Miss Laura, you've been working on some training because that was a piece in the policy, too. So, um, someone had questioned her about that earlier. So, that she's been working on that for us and that's that's a piece that's in the works, too. Chaper and training. So, bring it for action at the next board meeting, but we will plan to push it out for implementation. That way, Dr. Shifflet and his staff can go ahead and get started on all of the details. Does that is that enough time, Dr. Shifflet? >> Yes, that'll be sufficient time. We'll put um we've looked at Miss Lure's outline. We'll make some tweaks, revisions to that, whatever is necessary, and then create our plan is to create a
145video u that outlines the expectations for chaperones. And then there will be a test that you must pass before we you're permitted to chaperon. But you can take the test as many times as you need. So >> not not for the teachers, for parents, you mean? >> Yes. Yes. Not for the teachers. Yes. Yes. No. Oh, yes. Another vector training. >> Another another bloodborne pathogen. >> Yeah. Another bloodborne pathogens. And then Yes. And and then we'll also have to be able to get, you know, make sure so any field trip happening after January 1, we can get people in for their background checks and make sure we're, you know, working through that. So yeah, but thanks for the clarification. And the training is for nonrcps uh faculty and staff who desire to chaperon. And I
146think um you know it's good to remind folks of these things because you know we work in the school system and maybe we take some of it for granted on a day-to-day operations and how we do business, but I think it would be helpful just to to be able to provide that for them. And I think that too will add a layer of safety to what we're doing on our field trips. >> Okay. Um, moving on to the final two information items. Those are financial review for August of 2025 and the finance department staff report dated September 22 of 2025. Both of those items are in your packet for your review. And that brings us to our final two items, superintendent comments and then schoolboard comments. So, Dr. Shifflet, you're up. >> Yes. Very quickly
147wanted to u make the school board members aware as well as the audience that uh last week we had a a meeting with our some of our bus drivers and our administrators uh collaborating to create a discipline matrix for bus behavior. So, uh, one of our goals is to make sure that our buses are safe for our students and that also for our drivers, uh, they know what the expectations are consistently across the division and that students can learn those and and be willing, you know, and able to follow those expectations. Uh, I did drive uh a a bus route uh this past Friday for Spotswood and Monovido and I can tell you um I tip my hat to all of our bus drivers and the work that they do every day. Uh it's especially
148difficult to be a substitute when you do not know where the stops and drop offs are, but uh the kids sometimes help you. Uh but we were able to uh I think get everyone home safely. Uh but again, I think it's really important that we have very similar to what we did with our classroom with our discipline matrix and expectations and what consequences will be. I think the same will help our bus drivers uh in terms of that. And also want to say that I was um invited to join the Agriculture Education Strategic Review Committee with the Virginia Department of Education and I will be uh heading to Richmond uh first thing in the morning for uh our first meeting. So I'm looking forward to that. >> Thank you, Dr. Shifflet. Board members, we'll now
149move into our final highlights, questions, and comments. Miss Keefe, we'll start with you this evening. Um, I don't really have anything other than Dr. Shifflet. I We've had some complaints about rooms again and I the app um and I know we had a student come a while back and um saying some things, but I I spoke with staff member over the past couple weeks and it it sounds like it's still really hard to I don't want to say navigate, but I think specifically One thing that we talked about that day was, you know, when they that it's constantly needing updates and like they were just sort of showing me around in it and how, you know, it was like the first name, last name like wasn't visible for them. They had to go into this
150and go into that record to figure out which parent they're talking about and so like it just I mean is that something that's going to improve with rooms? Is rooms the best option? I know we explored other options. >> So, I'm not going to say that rooms is the best option because I don't know what else is out there. I do think it is better than it was, but maybe it's not as not where we want it to be. However, whatever we do, we want to make sure that any communication that's taking place between our employees and students can be tracked, >> right? >> And so, that is a huge layer of safety that I'm not going to forego and say, "That's okay. Hey, you go ahead and just use whatever platform you want where
151we don't have access. So, so the the the beauty of rooms even though it's maybe a little bit cumbersome or hard is that uh we have access to everything that's that's exchanged between students and teachers. So, and when we talk about safety of our students and and taking care of their well-being, I think this is a is a really important layer. Now, maybe again maybe there's a better platform than rooms that's out there. If I'm understanding correctly, Greg, and you may know more about this, I think grooms is part of our u thrillshare suite. Am I correct in that? Yes. Yes. And so, um, it's sort of like we we purchased, uh, the product for the website and for the in the app and all this came together. So, we're trying to utilize what we've
152already kind of purchased, but uh at the end of the day and and I don't know, maybe Greg knows more about some of these um you know, technology kinks than I do. Uh I I don't use it personally because I'm not communicating in that capacity. I see the value in being able to have a platform to do that, but we've just got to make sure that um sort of Rockingham County Public Schools is the overseer of that. >> Yeah. I wasn't suggesting that we move to anything that we could not do that with, but I just wonder um it wasn't the first time I'd heard from staff about it and of course we've heard from students about it and just wanted to bring it up. Maybe it's something we could look at. I have a
153follow-up question on that because I did get into rooms and was and used rooms when I was at uh at um Big E in Massachusetts with the FFA and um they did I had to actually send an or a text and get added. Uh, and I'm not sure is that something that um anybody any adult could get access to or was it just because I already had an RCPS account? Do we know? >> I cannot speak to that either, but I'm going to make an assumption is that you probably have to have an RCPS account. Good assumption. Right. I get it. >> And and actually I had an RCPS or email address >> and and so so again I want to go back to safety. This whole field trip policy and overnight field trips is
154about safety. So I also don't want to give chaperoons access to our students, right? That on our field trips that we've sh that we've s sh sanctioned so that you know we know what that communication looks like, right? Because that's a violation of our policy. and and since I was not a parent of any of those students, I had to get special permission to get added. But it's critical that chaperones are involved in that communication because it's often communication like everybody meet at the bus at 8:30 and if I don't know to meet at a bus at 8:30 then >> but shouldn't the chaperon be with a student who gets that information like where's the like the chaperon all shopping and then you know >> well if I'm in my bed >> I would I
155would also say that the the as a chaperon I would expect there would be maybe like a texting group because you can do that once you're all adults. So, let's do this. Let's let's do this. We'll um someone's going to reach out and talk with you and and get and get some more information from you. Um >> it almost sounds like we need to like maybe have a a meeting like we did with the maybe not with schoolboard members involved but with >> somebody will be reaching out to just hear your concerns and and figure out where where things are going sideways. Let's move on to other board member comments. Miss Lure. Um, I just want to also give a huge shout out to my FFA National A Science Fair finalists. We have eight students
156with six teams. Um, let's see. It's a team. Let's see if I can do it all for memory. Um, and I can't remember Molly's last name. Molly and Hen Helens. Hel I can't even say her first name. Helley. Hensley. today is are tomorrow. They're having their interview tomorrow. Um Maddie is having her inter had her interview last week. Um Parker, Riann, and Olivia all had their interviews last week. And those are all students. Oh, and um Noah, and Leah had their interview last week. So that's a team of two middle schoolers from um Hillyard, one in one one individual from Pence, a team of two from Pence, and three individuals from TA. and they all so they're competing virtually um with an interview for their a science fair projects that they competed with at state
157and then qualified for nationals and then placed in the top 10 at nationals and are now um we're they're being placed with their interviews for the ranking of top 10 in the nation. Um, and then I will also, so I'll be going to Pence tomorrow to prep our last two little girls doing theirs. And then I'm also going to be um doing interviews for another division on the national level. And I was going to suggest to the lab school folks if they needed a science fair judge, I've done that or I will have done that after tomorrow. So I volunteer to help out with um science fair with the lab school as well. But please join me in uh wishing all those teams good luck. Thank you, Miss Lure, Mr. Cross. Okay. Um that brings
158me to me. I also do not have anything um to add this evening. I do appreciate that um many of you came out this evening and took time to watch our school board meeting. Be informed. Um board members, thank you all for being here this evening. And at this time this meeting is ajour.