001Good evening. Welcome to um our schoolboard meeting for um today's date which is Monday, March 24th of 2025. We did begin a little bit earlier this evening um in close session and so we're now ready to begin with excuse me with open session items and we will be go ahead and begin with a moment of silence if you'd like to join Thank you. At this time, we will stand for the pledge of allegiance. Thank you. The first thing uh first order of business are um some recognitions and presentations. The first thing um we're going to be doing this evening is an inspire award. The Inspire Award was created for our CPS stakeholders to recognize a teacher or staff member who has impacted their life, inspired their learning, or made a distinct impression on their child.
002Nominations are accepted from students, parents, student teachers, classroom volunteers, and community members. The RCPS Inspire Award is made possible with financial support from the Rockingham Education Foundation and DuPont Community Credit Union. And I believe tonight we have Miss Jenny Brown, um, a parent presenting to Miss Jana Grandle, who is a fifth grade teacher at John C. Meers. If you guys could come forward, please. Okay, it's on. Thank you. Okay, I'm just going to read the nomination. Janet is so much more than just a teacher. She instills kindness and compassion into the kids she teaches. My son has had a rough start this year emotionally, and she was in daily contact with calls, texts, or notes home. He felt supported and loved. He recently did excellent on a test, and she made sure during carpet time
003to tell to call out his motivation and and determination to not quit when things get hard. He was so touched. She talked about that with me for a while. We are so thankful for Jana. She teaches so much more than academics. We need more teachers that have her values, goals, and support. [Applause] Thank you. Next up on our list um is a fine arts appreciation month presentation by Miss Becky Ford. Good evening, Dr. Shifflet and Chair Hurst and school board members. Thank you so much for having us here tonight. Uh we are so excited tonight and it's our pleasure to speak on behalf of fine arts appreciation month which is the month of March. So welcome or I suppose we're on our way out of uh celebrating this awesome month. Uh this presentation is going
004to highlight the arts that Rockingham uh county offers both curricularly and extracurricularly. the research behind why fine arts are not a special they are an essential part of our students public education as well as some highlights from some ensembles and individuals rockingham has embraced the five C's as part of Virginia's state curriculum and fine arts courses offer a fertile ground for all five to flourish within our students the arts foster creativity collaboration critical thinking and communication skills within the classroom and are constantly ly engaging with our school's surrounding communities in order to develop students who are good citizens. Further, students in art courses demonstrate enhanced engagement within the school, increased academic achievement, and improve mental and behavioral wellness as researched across the United States. The fine arts is a huge umbrella term and we understand
005that. So, we want to make sure that we understand that in Rockingham County, we offer three primary disciplines of art forms, which are the visual arts, music, and theater. So, this program tonight is going to dig into some of their subcategories there. The visual arts in Rockingham span from elementary through high school. And here you can see a list of our wonderful art educators. On the left side of the slide, we have 11 elementary art teachers who combined to cover our 15 school buildings and 10 art teachers at the middle school and high school level. Out in the lobby, you might see a selection of artwork that is uh chosen from our central office art show. And it represents all educational levels chosen um from our central office art show and as well as some
006of our featured artwork for our winners um of some state competitions. At the elementary level, teachers teach the basics of color, line, shape, texture, value, and pattern. But those are just the technique SOS. In addition, there are strands that require our students to create artwork using a variety of media materials and techniques to identify spatial relationships, practice and expand their fine motor skills, and learn about the world around them. The four other strands specifically are the creative process, critical thinking, history and culture, and innovation in the arts. Art is so much more than just going and coloring, as some people might tell you. There's so much going on, and our teachers are encouraging all of our students to encourage all five strands in every class. On this particular slide, you can see one of our
007schools who did a project on Appalachin art, history, and culture through a grant through Reffy and through partners excavating. They explored the different mediums and techniques focused on weaving and stitching pottery and how that played a part in Virginia culture and how that's going to continue in their lives. At the middle school level, art educators introduce some more advanced techniques within the same so strands, but allow students to do more individualized clay and kiln work. As you can see there, they created a pie box so that they could take it home and have that to keep. They explore shading and perspective within 2D work. Sixth graders have opportunities to do it in nineweek patterns while seventh and eighth graders have the opportunity to do it on semester and year-long arts. Art electives are in severe
008demand with some of our schools having more than a third of the population in an art class every single year. And so art educators are working overtime to make sure that all students have access. At the high school level, we have the full spectrum of instruction as well, but we're still digging into the advanced techniques. We go into crafts, digital artwork, advanced placement, portfolio, AP courses, and we do some more competitive and community building. So, on the left side of the screen there, you can see this is one of three murals that Rockingham County Schools provided for the Bridgewater Riverwalk. And so they provided this artwork that's going to be up in our community for all Bridgewater residents and anybody else who wants to go to the Riverwalk to see at all times. On the
009right side, you can see a flag winner. Sarah Haristston will be honoring her in a little bit. And Chelsea um had two pieces of work that were honored at the state level. This winning design is chosen out of hundreds of applications and just represented Virginia at the National Education Art Conference in Louisville, Kentucky, and will be on display for the next year. Moving into the theater strand, theater is found primarily in Rockingham at the middle school and high school level, but it's a mixture of curricular and extracurricular. You can see a list of wonderful teachers who are involved there on the left. But out of that list, we only have one full-time theater teacher. We have five who teach theater in addition to another curricular subject, whether it's an art subject or a different content
010entirely. And everybody else on that list is involved because it's a labor of love that they think that theater is important. And so they get involved as sponsors and coaches to teach our kids theater. At the middle school, we do have theater electives, either a theater or a middle musical theater that kids can choose to take. But we also have one of our features that you guys have been partaking in over the last month, our middle school musicals, which are extracurricular, featuring pre-recorded tracks, shortened songs, and age appropriate dialogue. Junior and youth musicals are the perfect way for students to learn how to work together as an ensemble, create stage magic, and promote their own self-confidence in being on stage. Theater opportunities at the high school level are expanded not only to do curricular uh
011theater and musical theater, but also technical theater and four different leveled versions of theater where students can get advanced uh coursework there. They learn the ins and outs of set design, lighting technology, makeup, costumeuming, stage management, and more. Students that are able to in our schools that have the availability for it also take students to state and national thespians conferences. And so there you can see one of our groups that went to the state level um thespians conference and performed and did incredibly well competitively. As we move into music, this is probably our widest discipline. So music encompasses so much. We have music education from elementary through high school with instrumental, vocal, and general music threads. We have 11 elementary music teachers and eight oral directors and eight band teachers at our middle school and
012our high school levels. At the elementary level, teachers use a combination of orf and kadai techniques to make sure that students are playing, singing, and moving every single class. So, every student has the opportunity to play uh mallet instruments, percussion instruments, or instruments, ukuleles, and so much more. They're learning folk dances and learning about our culture, as well as they're learning about the music that's all around them in daily life and how they can interact with that. You can see on the left that same school that had the Appalachin Project learned about Appalachin folk instruments and had people come in to play them for them and they were able to experiment with that. On the right, you can see how students interact with our community. That's an elementary fifth grade choir who went to EMRC
013to perform for the retirement community. In middle school, we split into coral music and instrumental music. Coral music gives students the opportunity to perform both together and individually. All of our Rockingham County choirs attended assessment this past week, which evaluated students on their diction, tone, tamber, uh stage presence, and intonation. and all of our schools earned either excellent or superior ratings on stage, which speaks to the level of education that our students are receiving. We also have individual competitors that are doing incredibly well. We're going to talk about it here in a minute. The students who are competing on the state level for choir at both the middle school and high school uh levels each year. Within instrumental music, we typically think about band, but there's so much more. Students have the opportunity to learn
014guitar, piano, or instruments. We have adapted classes for students with disabilities. We've got so many instrumental genres. And then we've got all of our extracurriculars. Here you can see a picture from our Rockingham County indoor combined percussion which had students from all four high schools competing together as a Rockingham County group at the state level. They did incredibly well um going to multiple competitions and raising their final performance eight points from the beginning of the season to the end of the season. So they did really well. On the right hand side, you can see our marching bands, which are probably the most visible of our music opportunities. They're at parades and they're at football games, and they do so much for our community, but they're also incredibly competitive, going to state level competitions every year.
015Our bands also went to assessment, uh, which again, just like coral assessment, rates them on how well they're teaching the SOS in class, and all of our Rockingham County groups did incredibly well at assessment. We'd like to honor some special people and so I I brought my fine arts crew over here that we'd like to uh recognize them real fast. Some of them are able to be here tonight. We also have uh we're competing with an Eagle Scout ceremony which took out a large portion of of some of our honores, but we want to make sure we mention all of them by name. Uh making middle school state honors choir. This is a head-to-head competition where these kids sang into a tape recorder. uh they had to perform their individual competition and go against all
016the other middle school students in the state. We had Ashlin Kyle, Vivian Lunsford, and Shay Mcome make that. Can you guys stand please? From Elkton Middle School, we had some Lions Club art contest winners. Jaden Chase, Emily Staer, and Aspen Gray. I don't believe they were able to be here, but I would like to make sure that they are recognized. uh making all Virginia jazz band in the fall. We had Derek Mickelson who is at his Eagle Scout ceremony at the current moment. Uh again, he competed against the entire state to win one percussion spot out of the entire state as the jazz percussionist um playing the set. Incredibly impressive. Uh making all Virginia elementary orf. So, these are fifth graders who went and spent a weekend in the fall uh practicing what their elementary
017uh music classes are teaching them, and they went and performed really, really well with students from all across the state collaboratively, Elijah Ford and Becket Solder. Uh we had one student make all Virginia band this year. Again, this is a head-to-head AC against all the students across the state, and that is Caleb Eastep from Broadway High School. [Applause] making all Virginia choir. This is one of our our highlights. We have so many students making all Virginia choir from Rockingham County every single year. If you could please stand and be recognized. Brett I, Natalie Flora, Lydia Good, Seb Harper, Ivy Herrick, Emily Makavoy, Reese Mills, and Avery TW. And while you're standing up, I forgot to put it on the screen, but making uh senior honors choir, right? We had Brett I and Emily Makavoy. [Applause]
018Yeah. Uh making all Virginia musicals. So, this was a new one for me, but we had a collaborative across the state musical. They competed uh with auditions in the spring of last year and made it and this fall was the performance. Uh we had two of our very own who were elected as the directors of that all-state musical which was Justine Mackey and Ian Dively. And the students who made it from Rockingham both on stage and with the set uh Emily Burge, Cass Frell, Jenna Kyle, Alex Lensford, Emily Makavoy, Derek Mickelson, Reese Mills, Caitlyn Morris, Liam Rodrik, Ellie Schill, Elizabeth Sber, Alex Underwood, and Rowan Whitmire, and Kenneth White. [Applause] Um, a very special award, Youth Art Month, led by the VA, but as I said, going to the NAEA convention. Um, so we had
019students who submitted a flag design to represent Virginia. So, each state got to have students compete and one student was chosen from each school who would be the flag winner, but then there were also several runners up. We have them here tonight, Sarah Haristston and Chelsea [Applause] Kavasos. And their artwork is specifically up on the board. So, as you're coming out tonight, I hope that you get to see it because it's really wonderful flag designs. And then we've got one special thing that is yet to come. Our Turner Ashby High School choir was asked to perform at a state schoolboard meeting. So, that is coming up in May. I'll send you all all the details. Um, but we are really excited that our Turner Ashby High School choir led by Ian Dively is going to
020be going and getting state honors with performing [Applause] there. All right, so here's my 30 secondond pitch. The arts are so important and we all know it and we see it and we see what they do. Um, we can have all the reasons behind it. Being part of the arts improves students attendance, which we all know is so important. If they aren't there, they can't learn. And a lot of kids show up each day because they want to be in their arts classes. It encourages their mental and well health well-being as they think through their emotions and they're able to process and perform and be part of a group that is collaborative and positive every single day. There have been so many numerous statistical studies to show that being part of the arts improves students
021academic performance. There's a direct correlation. I won't say causation, but there is a correlation there and we want to encourage our students to continue being part of the arts. And lastly, but definitely not least, it encourages students to graduate. Being part of the arts encourages students to stay as part of something because it is not something that you take as a class and then you discard. It's something that students stay in every single year. So, investing in the arts is investing in our student success. And so, we thank you for what you do for Rockingham County Arts. Strong fine arts programs encourages us to have well-rounded students all across. And so, we're so proud of our students and we're so proud of our teachers for all that they do to do that. So, thank you
022for your continued support of the fine arts programs in Rockingham because we need that to continue that. So, thank [Applause] you. Thank you, Miss Ford. And congratulations to all of our students in our fine arts programs. Y'all are doing amazing [Applause] things. Okay. Next up on our agenda are public comments. We have one public uh one person signed up for public comment tonight. Um Mr. Fitzgerald, if you would come forward. I think you're probably familiar with our three minute rule. And three minute rule. Three minutes. That's going to be hard to do. Not well. Well, we we put a timer on you. You can't mess this up. See? No. Absolutely. They they'll give you a little alert. 30 seconds. You know, I do remember well. I do remember. Well, uh Chair Horse, school board members,
023and Dr. Shifflet. Uh, tonight I come to you to talk about something that's very near and dear to my heart. Uh, and I say with very sincere thoughts, uh, the comments I'm about to make about Mass and Technical Center. Uh, I never thought I'd really come before the board again and and speak, but I felt compelled to do so based on some press coverage that I've read and listened to and uh, just some folks I've talked to about the idea of Mass Nut and Technical Center governments changing Uh first and foremost, I think you got to know that, you know, I've been in CTE, career and technical education or when I started vocational education for 40 years. I still consider myself a part of vocational in career and technical education. In fact, I've tonight I'm
024teaching a teachers um how to I just finished up a little bit ago how to work in the laboratory setting of our schools in Rockham County and Augusta County. I provided labs for that. So, I feel like I'm in touch with CTE. Um, I was a CTE student and again I have a lot of background in this. MTC has always been a diamond for Rockingham County. Every state meeting that I went to over my 40 years over especially the last 20 have done nothing but shined light on Massutton as being the number one regional center technical center in the state of Virginia. One of the reasons that that has happened is because when Masson Technical Center was first envisioned back in the 1970s, there was a system of shared governance. It wasn't about which school
025system controlled Massanutton, but rather what Mass and Technical Center uh could do for the public and for the businesses that share Harrisonenburgg and Rockingham County. Not a single one of the businesses or industries that I ever met uh with during my tenure ever thought it would be good for one of the other systems to have either system to have more of a say in a center like meant than the other. Businesses honestly don't care. Businesses want access to students, not just our students in Rockingham, but they want access to all students. That's something we heard over and over and over uh from that business community. So what I want to challenge you guys to do please before you make your decision on this please please talk with business and industry leaders talk with the ma
026mass nutton foundation board talk with the people on the CT advisory committee we have one that's a joint committee and I've talked to many of those members they didn't even know this was happening so before you guys make a decision please talk to the people who know what that means it could result in reduced funding for mass nutton It could result in uh initiatives not being offered to Masanutton because of that regional concept. The regional concept's a good one. It's been really successful since 1972, I believe it was. Please, before you change, just keep that in mind. Thank you very much. Thank you for your comments. The next thing on our agenda tonight um is something called a consent agenda. It's uh new for us but not new to the world of school boards and
027boards that govern things. And so um I just want to share just a little bit about this. During our schoolboard retreat with the um SBAMA, we discussed adding something called the consent agenda. It's just a list of action items um that boards vote on that are expected generally expected to pass unanimously without discussion or comment. Um it's just a way to make our meetings more efficient. If there's ever an item on here that any board member wants pulled off of the consent agenda just because you'd like to have more discussion about it or you think you might vote against um this one item, all you have to do is ask and we pull it off. that is this is not a um a way to circumvent um schoolboard members rights and and authorities in in
028voting. It's just a way to make things more efficient. Um tonight I'll read what's on the consent agenda, although I will not do this in the future. Um tonight's consent agenda contains minutes from March 7 and March 10. And so if you've been following any school board meeting of ours, you'll know we pretty much just approve those 50-0 and we move on. So there's not usually any discussion with items like that. Um same thing with personnel listed listing, which is on there tonight. Bills and mileage for February of 24 um field trip and field trips. So, those are some things that we generally um when we're preparing for our meeting, we've already asked questions about them or um we just know when we come in here, there's not any changes or any discussions that we're
029going to need to have on these items. Um and it's just a way we take one um one motion, which is like a blanket approval. So, if there's anything on this consent agenda tonight, board members, that you want off, um, all you have to do is ask and and we can move it to an information or an action item. Um, if in in this vote tonight when there's a motion, hopefully we'll have a motion to approve the consent agenda as presented. And your yes, that one yes, applies to all of the items in the consent agenda. So rather than having to make a motion to approve the minutes and then make a motion to approve the minutes and then make a motion to approve the personnel and then make a motion to approve bills and
030mileage and one to make you see how this is going to save us some time and um and so any so we might maybe I'll be heavy-handed and think that it just needs to go you know there might be an item in here that um I think needs to go in consent agenda and you all will say know, we need to talk about this and that's fine. We pull it off and we talk about it. We can make different motions with it. Maybe it's um maybe there'll be policies that we've already talked about and I'll pop them in there because I feel confident, you know, we can they don't have to be a 50 vote. Um but in approving a consent agenda, that is how it would end up going. Um so for tonight, is
031there anything on this consent agenda that a board member would like pulled before we move on? Okay. So, I will now ask if there is a motion to approve this consent agenda. I move to approve the consent agenda as presented. Thank you, Miss Burggoyne. Do I have a second? Second. Thank you, Miss Lure. Any questions, comments, or discussion, board members? Okay. All those in favor of approving the consent agenda, please say yes. Yes. All those opposed say no. Motion passes 40. Okay, next on our um list for tonight are some policy revisions that I believe um Miss Tanel Oh, nope. Dr. Alder is making his way up here. Um it's all yours. It's working. Yeah. Yep. Uh yes, I'm pinch hitting for uh Becky Tanel uh this evening. Uh Dr. Shifflet, members of the board,
032um I do have four um policies here for your approval for action this evening. Uh they had come to you last meeting for information. They are adjustments in annual contract salaries of teachers when additional academic work is completed. um policy on grading, promotion and reporting student progress, parent involvement in title one and LEP programs and student wellness. Um so we are bringing these to you this evening for approval. Chair Hurst and board members, I recommend approval of the proposed policy revisions as presented. Thank you, Dr. Shifflet. Board members, do I hear a motion? Thank you, Mr. Mr. Cross has so moved that. I'm sorry. I'll second it. Thank you, Miss Lur, for the second. Board members, any discussion or questions? I do have a question about um JZP. Uh there's a whole lot of stuff
033added about smart snacks in schools. Is that basically is that something that's coming from our division or is that something that's coming from legislature? I don't know if Miss Williams is here. Do you want to speak to it? So, nothing's really going to change. We We already have healthy snacks in our vending machines that are available at certain times, and there's certain vending machines that are turned off during those times. Okay. So, it it's just wording. Okay. Thank you. Great. Thank you very much. I just pulled that up and just wanted to bring to your attention. It says fund raiders instead of fund razors. We're raiding the funds. We got a problem. Fund raers. Let's not do that. Good. Yeah, we'll make that an edit. Thank you for bringing that to our attention. Any other
034questions or comments? Hearing none. All those in favor of um approval of the proposed policy revisions, please say yes. Yes. All those opposed say no. Motion passes 40. Thank you, Dr. Aldifer. We're now moving into information items. We have several things here tonight, beginning with Dr. Shifflet, who is going to um give give a budget recommendation to us. Good evening, Chair Hurst and board members. I want to share u my recommended budget for the 2526 school year and u I will thank you now but also at the at the end. I think we began these conversations in December beginning early on meeting with you guys individually to talk about priorities and what you wanted to see in the budget as we move forward and it's been an ongoing process um ever since then. Uh priorities
035from our comprehensive plan. And so we uh approved our comprehensive plan and we want to make sure that it is out in front of what we're doing and everything that we do aligns with that plan. So um in our comprehensive plan we talk about the importance of school safety. We address academic excellence uh employment recruit employee recruitment and retention, student behavioral health. And so we wanted to make sure that we uh acknowledge those aspects of the comprehensive plan within our budget. And as always, we want to make sure we're being collaborative with our Rockingham County um staff, working with uh Mr. Armstrong and um Miss um Davidson and and the board of supervisors through this entire process. Uh expected revenue around $786,000 and of an increase of about 46,000 and this is primarily from Medicaid
036reimbursements. state revenue um 89,889 839,44 an increase of what 7.1 million this is um as you are probably aware we currently do not have um a budget from the uh state I think August uh April 3rd I think is I think the deadline where when they're going to be meeting again but we used the general assembly's budget uh it was a little more favorable to Uh, and this uh does include a 3% uh raise um for um all of our employees and some additional funding for some other staff that you'll see as we get into the presentation. um in expected revenue um will be a bit of a decrease from the federal uh side of about 132,000 and then uh an increase of about 5.5 million from the local share of education with our um
037again asking of the board of supervisors. So, um, our total budget will, uh, increase to, um, $189,244,497, an increase of 12.6, which is about 7%. I know the 12 million sounds like a big number, but when you look at a budget as large as ours, it's not quite as significant an increase. So, one of the things maybe you're asking, well, why why the increase and what's what's happening? One uh significant increase for us has to do with some of our special student populations and our E elel enrollment numbers have increased significantly um 123% increase in the last four years. So if if you go back and look at our previous budgets, there's been additional funding for EL teachers and assistance to support uh to support their learning. and and another um variant this year is
038the department of education changed the formula for support for EL students. At one point it was 50 to1 and then you know 50 students per one teacher then it was uh changed to 40 to one and now it's based on the actual level of the student. So a level one student I think is 20 to one, level two student 30 to one, and level three and four students 40 to1. So you'll see later in the slide to to make our uh school division compliant with those new uh formulas, we're going to be hiring 13 EL teachers, which is the most we've ever hired in any given year. Uh another area where we've seen significant increase is in special education. And um last board meeting or board meeting prior uh Mr. Bryant gave us a presentation
039about their needs in the special education department. And you know again a 20% increase in four years of our special education population. And I think something that you know we need to acknowledge is that students with autism um 51% increase of that particular group of students that we're serving. many cases um these are self-contained classrooms with a teacher and a number of assistants uh trying to work with them not always the case but in some areas. So I want to walk through a little bit of our expenditures uh highlighted expenditures and and kind of talk about what we're asking with this increase in revenue um school safety. So, we requested two additional school resource officers uh which would next year would put four um for the sheriff's office to uh hire. We have two in
040there now uh that have not yet been hired. So, we had four this year. Two were higher, two were not. And so, in conversations with the sheriff, he felt like that four could be a a reasonable number for this for this year. um again depending on the job market and and um who he can hire, but we are requesting uh two more. So that would give us four next year to hire. And then also some other school safety initiatives. Um I'm not going to publicly get into the details of all of those, but u think they would add some layers of safety to our schools. And we want to be mindful again that was one of our high priorities for um for a comprehensive plan. Uh when we talk about employee recruitment and retention, uh
0413% increase in all salary scales, which is approximately $3.3 million. Don't want to bear down too much in the weeds here, but I think the board has a really solid understanding that when the state says they're giving us a 3% raise, they are never providing enough money for us to give a 3% raise to all employees. maybe half or 60%. So that means the local the localities have to make up the difference. Um we also um this year in the budget have a supplemental play pay for our special education personnel. So teachers who are working in the adapted sped programs would receive a supplement of $4,500 per teacher and also the pair professionals working in those same classrooms would have an index on their salary of one uh.12 uh which is like a 12% increase
042and our speech and language pathologists would be an additional increase of $2,000. That is an area where we're finding it very difficult to attract and retain teachers because that because there's such a demand for them in private industry. And then bus drivers adding or increasing the hourly rate. I think currently it's $15 an hour. We would take it to third uh it's it's currently $15 an hour. Would take it to 18. Um some other division proposals. We currently have two strong starts programs in Rockingham County. We serve students on prek, K, and one. Our plan would be to add another program and extend that resource to second grade and then add a new program, a pilot program in grades three to five. And so, um, this is again a program for students who maybe have
043not yet been identified as having special needs and we're trying to help them get acclimated to school, get their behaviors regulated so that they can participate in school fully without um being a disruption to the learning environment. So, well played. So, so um also a pilot for elementary uh math uh teachers. Uh this is something that um the school board and I have talked quite a bit about um trying to um find um teachers who have a passion and really a strong gift for teaching elementary students math to improve their achievement and at the same time allowing some additional planning time for our teachers at the elementary level which they're lacking. and we've talked about it and really tried to even look about doing a pilot this year, but it didn't come to fruition. So,
044we want to put dedicate some dollars to doing a pilot this coming school year, begin advertising these positions once the budget's finalized, work out the kinks, and then hopefully kind of continue our work to move this uh forward in the in the future over the coming years. uh middle school full-time substitutes. Uh this has been a request the last number of years from our middle school principles and we're trying to uh again help them in an area where they're having some shortages. Um we're also going to be moving some of our fine arts teachers to extended contracts. Currently, I think they're on a 10-month contract and then they they get paid on a time sheet through the summer for some of the band camps and some of those things that they're doing. So that's not
045a tremendous expense, but it it is would be a slight increase. We need um two sped vans and again we talked about the two SRO's and we have the two from last year and then 504 coordinate coordinator stipens uh some additional personnel um that we're just again I mentioned earlier 13 EL teachers uh two sped instructional coaches u part of that came from Mr. Bryant's presentation about um trying to um the the the road map for um the special ed department. Uh one sped teacher for the postgrad class and that would also require two assistants. Uh two additional sped teachers uh to help in in our schools to to make us you know in compliance with uh ratios uh studenttoteer ratios. Two uh sped assistants. uh three and a half reading teachers, nine elementary teachers.
046And so um trying we you know we continually through the spring we look at our elementary enrollment numbers and class size ratios and try to keep them in balance. And so those nine teachers would help make sure that we're we're in a good good place to begin the school year. uh four elementary assistants, um one secondary elementary teacher, I believe at the high school for math or science. I cannot remember which off the top of my head. Doug, do you remember which school was okay? And then uh back in the fall, we talked about the idea of adding medical science as an option for our students. We felt that like that was one place in the CTE world where we weren't really offering our students what what they would need. And so we you guys
047approved that. We put it in the course program of studies and we've had enough students sign up for that to warrant hiring two teachers. That would be a part-time at each of the the four high schools. Cyber security manager as we think a little bit in the future about um potentially getting some some securing better cameras. Someone's going to need to keep help keep an eye on that along with some other things. an FCS teacher, uh a BSA, some administrative interns, uh three EL assistants, um a clerical position, and then extending a couple of social worker contracts and some early special education teacher contracts. So that's sort of what all we're asking for and some uh so our increase in local funds from our board of supervisors would be 5 million and then some one-time
048uh request for some one-time expenditures. So local revenue would be 84 million uh 84.3 million uh dollars. Um capital um and and capital capital projects fund just at the bottom we have um 9 million going towards uh renovations at Elton Elementary School. um 15 million towards MTC and we're not exactly sure today if that's going to be renovation or new build but we're setting aside we'll have to get money for that and then Makisville renovation and addition and um the Pleasant Valley addition of 66 million so $34 million a little over $34 million in capital improvement so and then food service is basically money in money out, break even. That's the the goal. We had to use a little bit of money this past year in reserves. So, moving forward, uh, based on this budget,
049you know, $7 million coming in, $7 million going out. So, I need to call your attention to this piece, and I know we've talked about it, and I will do my best to hopefully explain so folks understand. Currently in this school year, we have 14 schools participating in the federal community eligibility provision. And so for those 14 schools, all students and and that who attend those schools, all of them get free lunch. Okay. We have nine schools who are participating in the free and reduced meal application program. And in those schools, if your family is in need financially, you may qualify for a free meal. No cost to you or your family. And in some cases, maybe you don't qualify for a free meal. So you would requ you you would qualify for a reduced
050meal. So you wouldn't have to pay as much. But families who can afford to pay for their child's lunch would pay for their child's lunch. So moving into next year 2526, all of our schools will be participating in the free and reduced meals application program. All 23 schools. We're moving away from the um community eligibility provision. If we continued on this path like we currently are in 2425, we would have to come up with another $600,000 in the budget to offset the loss. Okay? and in conversations with board members and our colleagues there at the board of supervisors. Um they fully support us offering free meals to families who need them, reduce meals to families who need them, but for families who can pay, we would expect them to pay for their child's lunch. So
051um hopefully that is understandable by folks. You know, again, I'll repeat, families who have a financial need, their students would still qualify for free lunch. We continue to feed students each and every day. We have no intentions of moving away from that. But the C program just doesn't work out financially for us. it it's not um you really to to really make a difference I think you have to be at like a 60% threshold or some really high exorbitant number to to make it make sense. So uh that is going to be a change and I think um for some of those families in the 14 schools it could be a little bit of a a heartburn but I think um it's it's the right it's the right move forward for us makes sense financially
052some next steps. So, um, Tuesday, which tomorrow, wow. Uh, we're going to be meeting at the, um, central office, John Kidd, um, schoolboard offices at 3:30 to approve the budget. Um, and I'll make a recommendation and seek your approval. And then on Wednesday, March 26, that evening, I'll be presenting this to the board of supervisors and, uh, you know, making our sort of stating our case for why do we need these additional dollars and revenue? And I understand, you know, we all, you know, have needs and trying to uh do the best that we can and and we've looked really carefully at our budget this year. We went to our um div division leadership teams and said, "Hey, go back in, comb through your budget again, see if you can find some extra dollars. Let's
053let's make sure u that we, you know, tighten our belts." Um and we had to give up again some things that maybe we wanted to do, but we can talk about that later. Uh I again um want to um say that again thank thanks to you know you folks school board members and our counterparts again at the board of supervisors. I want to thank Justin. He's been on this since I think December. He's been crunching numbers which he enjoys doing and Zena his uh supervisor finance and Brenda and Caitlyn helping me put this presentation together. One comment I I would make that I think you know you always when Jess and I both we were kind of new in our roles last last year we did this the first time and you you kind of
054live through it and you get into it the second time you say well what can we do better and as we think about um you know an operating expense like uh adding additional elementary math teachers right it's kind of a long-term commitment that we you know need support from our local board of supervisor advisors maybe, you know, work thinking through what would what would it look like to have a sort of a tenative three-year plan as we look at some of these um uh um division uh projects that we want to do and explore uh with pilots that help inform our decisions moving forward. I think that would help us. I think uh the board of supervisors uh in our liaison meeting expressed something similar about getting information a little bit sooner and and thinking
055through the process. So, um, you know, we have a 5-year plan for our capital projects and and that's a little bit more concrete and sometimes you don't know what's coming and going, but I think we want to be mindful of, you know, maybe what's around the corner, right? So, this year there were zero increases in health insurance, but I understand there may be some next year, right? So, we need to be thinking ahead to what that looks like and what else we, you know, we may be incurring uh at some point. um you know I don't know when six seven years from now we may open a new elementary school so what does that look like for you know operational money so I think it would behoove us in the future maybe to have conversations
056with our liaison committee about looking you know sort of over a maybe a three or four year span of what we foresee in our budget not knowing everything and it will be it would have to be flexible but I think would maybe help us in in moving forward uh so they know what our ask would be and and and they would know how they could support us and help work through that situation. But, uh, they've been very helpful to us this year. So, um, there's the budget. What questions do you have about this? Board members, take it away if you've got questions for Dr. Shifflet. I my my only question is and I I think you fixed it in your presentation there was for the SRO's. So it looks like we still we're still asking
057for four. So there was two left from last year. We asked for four last year. We only got two this year. Had two from last year's budget. We're going to carry that over. We're going to ask for two more which will be a total of four again this year. Is that correct? That is correct. and my conversations with the sheriff. Um, he and I chatted about this a couple weeks ago and and and he felt like, you know, it was a little bit of with some of with the job market, he wasn't able to to get the four this year and but thinking that looking for better days ahead that we could get four next year. So, the two plus two more which would be, you know, a great benefit. uh we've continued to to
058add SRO's and appreciate the work that they do for us and the way they serve our students and our and our staff and our community. So yeah, that would be the the plan, Mr. Cross, to have four added next year. The second thing I wanted to say, I wanted to say thank you so much to uh Chair Hurst and Vice Chair Burggoyne for all the work you two uh specifically put into this year's budget. And I know you guys put a lot of time and effort into it. I know you guys get a lot of money paid from the county to go do that. And so I appreciate all the time that you put into it, all the uh meetings that you were in between the board of supervisors and with um Dr. Shifflet, our
059executive team. Everything that you guys have done this year for this year's budget has not been um lacking on our behalf on the board. And these two individuals have done a great job advocating this year for Rockham County Public Schools. And everything that you see in this year's budget isn't even close to what uh the school board really wanted. And so I I just want to say thank you too. I want to recognize both of you tonight for the work that you put into this year's budget because looking on the outside, people don't see it. Looking on the inside, I saw how much work you guys put into it. And as a board member, I want to say thank you publicly for doing that. So, thank you guys. Um, I'd also like to thank uh
060Dr. Shifflet and his team, Justin, for meeting with us uh a number of times, many more times than we've been met with in the past, and I really appreciate it. so many times. So many times we met um individually uh and you were just available to answer any questions we had and um I have a much better understanding of this than I have in the past. I appreciate that. I do want you to clarify some things for us if you would Dr. Shifflet. Uh you we're talking about school lunch but it's actually school meals is it not? It breakfast too. That's true. Breakfast as well. Yes. Um, so, uh, if if and I I am fortunate enough to be able to pay for my children's meals, so in the future, I would be doing that.
061Um, and then also, I want you to explain a little bit how the process works. Say, cuz I definitely am one of those parents that forget to send the check-in and the balance gets down to zero and I don't get the message. What will you do with children like that in the future? So, we provide meals. Thanks for the clarification. Breakfast and lunch regardless of how much a student owes on debt. We don't, you know, refuse food. Uh nor do we uh publicly shame students and make them go last or, you know, do other things, right? They just come in, get punch in their number, get their meal, go have a seat. Uh but we will call parents and ask them for those funds, right? Um, when parents register, we will provide them with the
062application for free and reduced meals. Um, you know, I recall back my days and Miss Williams, if you need to help me out here, but my days as a principal, if a student began to incur some debt, right, we would um, you know, you know, they start mounting up, then we may reach out to the family and ask, do they need free meals or reduce meals, right? And so trying to um, you know, um, help them help themselves, right? And so, uh, it it will, I mean, be a for those 14 schools who have not collected money for meals. The last few years was going to be a little bit of a strain now for them to work on maybe collecting dollars and doing some of those things. But I think when it boils down
063to it, it's about um making sure the kids who need the meals are provided the meals and the families who who can pay are paid. And I think that makes sense and that the children will never um be made felt poorly because of mistakes that maybe their parent has made. Correct. Just wanted to make sure that that was out there loud and clear. No, absolutely. Thank you. That's all I have. Okay. Thank you, Dr. Shifflet. Again, thank you for all of your hard work. Um I'm definitely ready for March to be over. So, thanks for everything you did to put all this together. Thanks to your team. Um, looking forward for looking forward to the meeting on Wednesday night. It's a new kind of March Madness, is it not? It is indeed. Um, next up
064for information items, we have Miss Donna Abernathy. No, we do not. We have Miss Kim Tate coming up um to discuss our Val's midyear student achievement data. Gotcha. Chair Hurst, members of the board, Dr. Shifflet. Um I want to share with you as requested just some midyear information regarding vows, which this year we give in K3. Last year we were part of a pilot for vowels. Um previous to vowels our screener for K3 was PALS but this is a result of the Virginia literacy act and that movement towards what is vows in Rockingham when we had the advantage of piloting this last year. So this would be the second year that our K3 teachers have administered this particular screener. Um, I'm going to go over some quick vocabulary and just a summary of what the
065screener might look like for a student and family and then give you the specific data. Um, vows is a bit more explicit than the previous screener pals. Um, one of the things that vows looks at is first of all that smallest unit of sound, the phone. Um, so for example, if I said with you out being able to read cloud and clown, the difference is one phone. So it's that ending sound in that we are looking at and students need to be able to substitute manipulate phonemes. Uh, vowels also looks at decoding. When we think about students being able to take what they know and move from print to speech and speech to print. So, I now know my letters, I know my sounds, and now I'm going to put that all together. Um, decode
066text. And we work predominantly in K1 with decodable text. text that addresses the letters and sounds that students have been taught explicitly. Um, because that's the way we know the science of reading tells us we learn to read. When we get to encoding, it gets a little bit more complicated. I would say that um encoding is probably much more difficult because now we're getting to spelling. If we think about the word cloud and clown again, the owl sound in cloud and clown is spelled two different ways and it gets a lot more complicated for students. So our teachers explicitly teach encoding and spend a great deal of time helping students get from that speech to actually using those graph themes to write and to spell words. Fluency. This is an area that Vows uh screens
067for. It is the rate and expression that students use when they read. And I think the important thing to understand I can decode the sentence every risome contains over signifying lines of segmentarity according to which it is stratified, territorialized, organized and signified. But if I am not a fluent reader, attending to the punctuation, putting phrases together, I can't comprehend it. And so, particularly when we get to the end of second grade, third, fourth, and fifth grade for students who may have difficulties, we're working a lot in that rate and expression area in their flexible groups, and Val does the screening for that for us. Syntax um is what I explain simply is Yoda speak. I can say happy am I or I can say I am happy which is the traditional syntax that we use.
068The complicated thing as a former AP teacher is when the sentences get really complex, it's important, and I probably did not do as good of a job as I should have, to make sure that students understand the complexity of the syntax, how the phrases are put together to be able to break that down to then comprehend. Um, also screened in vowels is the RAN. That's that rapid naming, the automaticity. This was not previously screened in PALS. And we talk about this when we talk about processing. Um, it is being able to automatically see a word, know what it is, know what it means, to be able to process it um as a word and to be able then to internalize its meaning. So this is the vocabulary that students are screened with all the areas
069that will on a student summary of a vow screener. And with our I'm going to look at this closer up than up there. Um uh with our vow screener, what we are determining is the risk band that a student might find himself or herself in um according to the screener. We when all of the screening is complete have students who are identified not at a particular benchmark but as a band of risk for their potential for having reading difficulties. And if a student has an asterisk um in this case it's by phone segmenting. It lets both a teacher and potentially a specialist know this is an area where a student specifically needs work. So we get each student gets a student summary um and the parents also get a summary of a student's screening information.
070So we have high-risisk students, moderate risk and low-risk students. Our students who are high risk are required to have intervention by law. This has been in place since 2000 um the early intervention reading initiative. And so those students should get two and a half hours a week of intervention by a reading specialist in addition to their work with a teacher in the classroom in core instruction and in flexible group. our Val data last year. Um, and again, we have this because we gave the screener as part of the state pilot of vowels. Other divisions would not have this information at this point. Um, we only have fall and spring because they did not give us midyear information because again, we were part of the pilot. So you can see by grade level um 30% of
071our kindergarteners in the fall of 2023 came to us at high risk. Um, you know, you look at some of that data in the fall of last year, uh, and if you look at that spring data, 30% to 23% by the spring, 30% to 28%. They're moving in the right direction. And that was preh having a curriculum for them to use. Um, they were certainly doing amazing things. If you look at that second grade work, and we need to applaud our teachers in all of this data because that's who's doing the heavy lifting. Um to be able to take a student who, you know, almost half of our second graders last fall in the fall of 2023 were high risk and they got them to 28%. So, we're moving in the right direction. If we
072look at this year's data, even more of our kindergarten students came to us as high risk. A teacher hasn't done any instruction. That's how they are sent to us. Um can you explain how a kindergarten is sent as high risk? Like what? In other words, those students come to us not ready to learn and to read. What we would think of, in other words, whatever is happening prior to their entry to school, they're not possibly being given the exposure to letters, to books. Um, they may not be being read to. they may have many of our students come to us. Um, and Dr. Shifflet talked about speech language pathologist and the need for more of them with severe speech issues. And if you can't hear the sound and then say the sound, it's almost impossible
073to learn to read. Okay. Okay. So, you're basing your metrics off of kids at kindergarten, what we're talking about, 5-year-olds, correct, at risk because they haven't been read to or when they enter in. Yeah. We don't know what's happened to them. No teacher has done this. That is where they are when they come to us. Yeah. The the risk is is based on how they perform on that initial beginning of the year assessment in vowels. And there can be a lot of reasons, right? like you can have Yeah. They're using an assessment to determine who falls in these in these bands. Yeah. But if you look at our midyear data this year, um 34% and now at midyear in January, kindergarten teachers had students at 22%. And if we go back, can I go back?
074Maybe. Yes. Um, the 22% is already lower than the end of the year data last year. Are we using We're doing vowels in preK as well, but it's just not in this. Right. Correct. And I just went through this with my twins, and I will show you. It was very confusing when I originally went through it for me because I'd never seen it before, but now that we've done it twice, it makes sense and seeing the comparison is interesting. So, um, kindergarten and first grade in particular, I think there are a couple of reasons. And again, I think you need 3 to 5 year data to truly know everything that's happening. But I will say that it is the work of our teachers. It is an explicit sequential curriculum um that they are being provided
075that are moving students in the direction we want them. Our division literacy plan as required by the Virginia literacy act indicates that we will have 5% reduction annually of students who are at high risk. Now with this we'll make even great we've made even greater gains. Um but those are certainly our goals in trying to be reasonable for what teachers can do. Um I would say too at second and third grade the rigor of the curriculum with students not having had that rigor in kindergarten and first grade um we will see differences I think moving forward u because of what we've learned and also the hard work of our teachers. So if I look at takeaways from a literacy team perspective, over a third of our students are coming to us in that high risk
076band and so that is a lift for our teachers and our specialist. This data is not disagregated and vows does not do that. So we don't know where gap groups might fall. um it it is just screening for the grade level. So we just wanted to be transparent in that improvement is certainly evident and I want to give credit where credit is due. It is the explicit instruction and collaboration of classroom teachers, reading specialists, special ed educators, and EEL teachers who are helping to write student reading plans and really digging down to try to help students be able to grow at the greatest potential at which they can grow. Um, additionally, the high quality instructional material that is required by the Virginia literacy act, part of our division literacy plan, does take the pressure off
077teachers about what to teach. It is designed to let them know that they are covering all the components of literacy um in the course of a lesson. student reading plans. We are progress monitoring students every two weeks to determine if those students who are high-risisk are moving in the right direction. We're not waiting until vows in January to see if what we're doing is working. And since January, we are continuing to progress monitor those students every two weeks to make sure that they are continuing to make growth and progress individually. Um, we're on the way. Uh, you know, I really think, uh, there's great credit to the educators in Rockingham County. I can't think of anybody I'd much rather be collaborating with. I've linked in the presentation the division literacy plan. I know you've seen
078it, but I linked it there as well as the EIRI information um and what our goal is in that plan. We are required by law to um update and revise the division literacy plan for the bienium by June 30th of this year. Thank you, Miss Thank you, Miss Tate. Board members, do you have any questions? Question. Um, and maybe you said it and I missed it. I apologize. Uh, the the point this data is not disagregated for gap groups. Are we giving this testing to every single kindergartener? Yes, we're required to meet. The only exceptions would be if they had a prek IEP. Some students can, and we actually were meeting with our uh sped supervisors today. We've been meeting with them pretty regularly to try to align the IEPs that students have in special
079education so that our student reading plans are helping students who have an IEP meet their IEP goal. So there are in vows, exemptions, accommodations and so forth for students, particularly adaptive students, students who might not be able um or they may have some sort of communication issue um some students are nonverbal. It has to be in their IEP as to what we can do in their accommodation to vows. And so, um, Sarah and Carrie have been working with us tirelessly. As a matter of fact, we've already got a day in June that we're going to be working all day and making some presentations in the fall to help our elementary schools. Well, really K8 because BAS goes K8 in the fall. Um, so we want to try to help everybody be on the same page
080as best we can. It's it's complicated. Yes. Thank you. Dr. Schiff, would you give could you come back to to the board some point in the near future and give us a a division report card on proficiency and reading in fourth grade and also by the time they graduate? Sir, just based on the so assessments, whatever you feel like is the best. Okay. To to give that number out, I I would like to know that number. Sure, be happy to do that. And one thing while I'm on the mic, Mrs. Tate, I want to if if I recall, the midyear assessment is not a repeat of the fall assessment. So, it is basically a benchmark as to where they should be in January or February. Is that correct? I'm correct. And again I I I
081clarify that it is not considered BDOE would not consider it a benchmark but the band of risk does move and u Mr. Cross too to help I was in VDOE meetings all last week. I will say that the VDOE has moved to align the 2024 standards with NAPE, which does that national reading assessment. Um, and so that has been something with the new standards that VDOE had them privately evaluated to determine if they align with the NAPE standards as well, which are national. Miss Tate, I have a couple of questions. If Oh, no. Go ahead, Mr. Cross. You finish. I didn't realize you still had some. Um, my my I just want to clarify or double check that these numbers that you're providing are just the high risk numbers, percentages. Is that correct? Correct. And
082that in that because there's high, moderate, and low. So, we're just looking at the data for for those students that we're serving for with interventions, right? Okay. Um, what other assessments are we using to track our student progress, especially in um because this just I know you say vows is coming, but what are we using um especially for grades four through eight right now? Well, in four and five we're using MCLASS, which is a part of our highquality instructional material. Actually, we have data points on MClass for K3 as well. Um, in I'm sorry. Or how do those align with Virginia SOS? It they it aligns more with vowels. Okay. Than I would say Virginia SOS. Okay. Um because again we know that sometimes students don't do well on an so test and it may
083not have anything to do with their ability to read. There may be other factors in play. So, it's good to have those multiple data points, not only their so test, but some students, especially when you get to students in um possibly upper grades and middle school, I don't know can become I don't care for a variety of reasons that again um I think in six and seven we have used this year a cadence which is very similar to vows. The reason we moved, we already had seats in Aadience because we'd been using it in grades four and five previously since we had the new curriculum. We moved our Acadian seats to grades six and seven because it helped us look at students who needed intervention, but also students that we kind of wanted to be
084watching for whatever reason. also so that classroom teachers would know the maze score. Um that piece for comprehension, we wanted to make sure that classroom teachers were aware of that. Um six, seven, and well actually yeah 6, seven, and 8. Thus far, the state board voted in February to approve um approved interventions and supplements. So, they have not voted. They're out for public review. They have not voted yet to approve those. And so, until they do, we have not purchased anything um that might do that. The other concern of course we have is we do not know who we're going to be required to give vows to and four through eight. Um because we don't know if it's going to be a financial issue or not on behalf of VDOE. Sure. A screener should be
085given to every student. The literacy team and I have a plan in place to be able to do that. Um, and if we are allowed to, that would be our preference. BDOE could tell us the money's not there. You only can service students who fall into these categories, in which case we'll abide by Yeah. their law. Um, another question I have, um, kind of switching gears here. Um, uh, as a former reading specialist, I know the importance of literacy coaching, but I also, um, fully believe that our reading specialist time should be with students because they're the specialists trained to help with those, um, targeted at risk skills that we need. Um, so I'm sure we don't have this data yet, but I would like to have an ask that we find out um, how
086much time our reading specialists at the elementary level are spending working directly with students versus what percentage of time they are spending working um, in a coaching model, whether that's in bridge to practice or some other form. And of course, you know, I realize in every school it could be there's one one reading specialist who all of her day is spent um all of their day is spent with students and then maybe the other reading specialist is doing kind of a part model where they're doing some um student work and then some coaching. But I so I would like that information broken out. Um not just I don't want an average for the school. I just want to know each rating specialist how much time is being devoted by school by specialist or by by
087specialist by school. Okay. Yeah. So, Dr. Shifflet, would you refine my search to the so standards? Board members, do you have any other questions? Thank you, Miss Tate, for coming. Yeah, I appreciate your time and um we're I'm hoping to bring um more data because you know more data about student achievement because that's what we're all about. So, thank you for your time. Next up, um Miss Liza Kaufman coming to us with some information on grant funding for something called Let Grow. Good evening, Chair Hurst, board members, and Dr. Shifflet. Um, I'm glad to be here this evening to talk a little bit about an exciting grant that we were awarded through the Office of Parental Engagement by the, uh, Department of Education. So, um, in the late spring and then through the summer, a
088lot of people were reading The Anxious Generation. And then, um, the first lady Yncan hosted the Fireside Chat with the author Jonathan Height. I think I said his name correctly. Um and through exposure um through that book and through conversations and the fireside chat a lot of our staff became aware of a program called let grow which is a um as profiled in anxious generation. It is a national sort of organization or program that provides materials free of charge to uh schools or other organizations that want to increase their communication with parents about the importance of with their child um developing independence. So, it's not that like we're going to I was telling my dad about this the other day and he was like, "Well, you know, uh, in sometime in the 60s, he's like,
089"My friend Whit and I, we got on the bus and we went to the expo in Montreal." I was like, "Dad, we're not talking about that." Um but we are talking about things like um whatever is the next right step for parents with their children to develop independence because there's tons of research that shows how important independence is in building self-confidence and resilience in students. And it might be something little like this week I want to learn to pour the milk on my cereal all by myself or this week I want to walk to the park with my friend or whatever it is that the parents and the children decide that is the next right step for them. Let grow helps us um communicate more effectively with parents to encourage that kind of um self-confidence
090building independence. Um so some of our rockstar administrators and counselors have started pilots um in the schools this year specifically at Riverbend and Mountain View and they are working with small-scale projects to um help to start implementing Let Grow. And sort of around the same time, we became aware of an grant opportunity, a micro grant opportunity through the Department of Parental Engagement at VDOE. And we applied for that to be able to um purchase some materials and contract for some services to be able to reach more parents and promote more independence um for students. And um we received word in December that our grant was funded. And then we kind of didn't hear much from Richmond um until maybe two maybe three weeks ago when they told us that our grant funding we were still
091going to be funded, but they were going to draw our money from a different pot. So originally we were going to be able to draw the funds from the um Department of Behavioral Health through the Office of Parental Engagement and now it turns out it's going to be Title One Part A money. And so for title one part A, you know, different pots of money, different rules. And the rules for title one part A are that it needs schoolboard approval. So that's why I'm here to present to you and answer any questions. I'm just this evening for information and then next meeting I'll be back for approval and I'll be glad to answer any questions either this evening or anytime in in the two weeks. the main um terms of the grant, right? It's $10,600
092that we are grateful to have and we basically want to spend it for three main things. We want to um purchase some uh translated copies. We have materials in English and in Spanish, but we'd like to make sure that we're reaching more parents and some of our parents speak languages other than English or Spanish. And so for four different languages, which are um I hear the major languages for our families to be able to reach the most folks, those are some of the things we'd like to buy with the grant. Also, some of the projects that students might consider and families might um the the right project for the kid might not cost anything, right? Pouring the milk on your cereal, not not a funding impact. But we'd also like to create at the two
093um elementary schools a lending library of sorts because some of the things like if you want to learn how to jump rope but you don't have a jump rope or you want to go um to the park but you need a ball or just like basic supplies. A lot of students um when schools roll this out, a lot of things that they um find is that students want to be able to cook for their families. We're not going to stock like steak and caviar, but a like pancake mix that's just add water and some syrup and then you have breakfast for dinner and the student has developed that self-confidence being able to fix dinner for their family. Um, so a few simple materials in a lending library and then lastly we would like to be
094able to use the money to um capture some Rockingham specific stories. So, the national organization LetGrow has um really great promotional materials, I think, that um capture stories from um parents and from kids who have participated. But being able to access these grant funds would let us capture some Rockingham specific stories, especially at these two pilot sites, which then we're hoping um would be able to catch on to other elementary schools or maybe even secondary schools throughout the division to um have more of our families and more of our students aware of the positive self-confidence building um that is there in independence. So I would be glad to answer any of your questions. I have something to add here. So after we went to the watch party at Mountain View and watched that, it really
095like I felt terrible as a parent that I had been mom I guess is the term. Um, and about a week later, um, there was a pizza night at my kids school. And so it was at the Domino's in Broadway, and it just dawned on me like this was an opportunity. And I know lots of you have met my daughter. Um, and there was no one in the pizza place, and I had already ordered it. And so she's eight. So I said, "Do you want to go in and get the pizza?" And she was like, "Me by myself?" And I was like, "Yeah." and she she went to the door and I saw her pause for a moment and then she went in and she had to figure out how to I mean this is
096the most silly thing but this this is something that I think this program that silly to but for her it was great. So like do I like push the door? Do I hold it and then risk dropping it and push the door open? Because mom had always walked alongside her with these things and I stood outside of my car with the door open so I could watch her. Um, and what I was like 10 ft from her. So, she comes to the car with the pizza. She gets in the car and she goes, "I feel so great about myself." And I was like, "What a silly thing." But for me as a mom to be like, "Get the pizza." She that confidence. I mean, she felt so good about herself. And I said, "What were
097you doing at the door when when you paused?" She goes, "I just said,"Adrien, you got this. You can do this. You got this, Adrian." So, then she went in and got the pizza. But that just coming to that watch party had a huge impact on me. And then letting her do some things that I probably normally wouldn't have was really cool. And just seeing in that silly get the pizza uh moment, the impact it had on her and the confidence boost was awesome. So I love this. I would love for every kid to go like buy a pizza, but you know, funding. But I I I love this because it really really I think changed a lot for her. So she is super confident now. Yeah, Domino's is a great community supporter. I don't know
098that we'll stock the lending library with Domino's, but thank you for sharing your story. That's really powerful. So, one thing with grants a lot of times is of course we don't get any more money after the grant runs out and then usually the division or Yeah. Usually the division or organization would then have to take up that cost in the future. So is this something that will be an addition onto our budget in the future as you wanted to see it spread to other schools or So while I would never turn additional budgetary allocations away um I think that because the materials are already available to us in English and in Spanish. Um, and part of what we want to use the money for is the um, having additional copies in additional languages. Um, those
099won't go bad or get used up, will be able to use those in an ongoing way. Um, the lending library, if those um, end up being consumable supplies, they may need to be replaced, but I'm not that's not a mandatory thing to have to run the program. Um, and the capturing the stories, the Rockingham stories, that would be like a first time kind of thing. And then we could use those year over year over year to be able to like once that exists, it wouldn't be something that would have to be done over and over again. I'm not sure if this would be something um that different speaking at the elementary school level, like if a a PTO or some building level money could be used to restock things once they're there. Um, I wouldn't
100see this as an ongoing thing that we would, you know, come back and look for this amount year on year on year for, but if you're giving it away, I would never turn it away for Well, as we saw during the budget, there's not much given away a lot of times. So, I understand. I understand. I just wanted to clarify that. Thanks. Sure. Board members, anything else? Thank you, Miss Kaufman. Okay, next up, um, we have a policy revision. Dr. Shifflet, I think that one's yours. Yes, Chair Hurst and board members, uh, policy IA field trips. Uh, we have been working with, um, Daniel Rose, our school board attorney, on making some adjustments, uh, on our policy regarding field trips. I'm bringing it to you as information tonight. Uh, and then in the coming weeks,
101uh, we may re revisit this. I I know I've already had some conversations with some board members about some things they may like changed. Um I think the biggest um change in this um policy as it sort of stands before you tonight is um when we talk about uh field trips, overnight field trips, uh in this policy, uh it would indicate that um anytime we have an overnight field trip, there should be um the same sex uh chaperones for students attending. So if we had u male and female students attending a overnight field trip, we should have a male and female chaperon. Doesn't designate they that they have to be an employee. So it could be a parent of one of the students or you know volunteer what have you. But this is um again
102just for information to sort of begin the conversations. Uh so please, you know, talk among yourselves, call me, let's have conversations about things you would like, you know, revisited or or altered in this policy and then when we feel like it's getting where it needs to be, we can maybe bring it back for action. Thank you, Dr. Shifflet. Board members, do you have any questions? I would just like to um point out there's a couple of things that I'm not crazy about with this this policy. And as you all well know, I participate in a lot of overnight trips with students. Um, and I don't really like the wording of discourage. We discourage overnight field trips. That was a perfect segue of the um I forget the name of the program now of a sudden
103I'm blanking. But uh the program that we just discussed about how you need to let go and let kids develop their own their own person. And one great way to do that is overnight trips. And if you're not comfortable with your child going on an overnight trip, you absolutely should not let them. But it's definitely a good idea to encourage your children to go. I've seen so many kids, I've taught so many kids how to tip properly and how to act at a restaurant, things that they don't necessarily get to do with their parents because some just some don't have the means and others I mean like I never let my kid tip when we went to a restaurant together. Um but when we did these overnight trips, they had to do it for themselves.
104Um so in the overnight trips, overnight trips are discouraged. Yeah. Ax that overnight trips don't say discouraged. We just say maybe you just don't say encouraged or discouraged. Exit. Exit. Yes. Um and then also the the one chaperon of each sex going on the the field trip. That's going to be a burden in many ways, including I mean like we just approved one where I am a chaperone and another female is a chaperon and we're going to the Chesapeake Bay. We will be sharing a room. If we couldn't share a room, we would have to eliminate more children from the trip because uh there's only so many rooms at Smith Island. Um there's been multiple times where um it's been you we just can't get males. My husband my husband is not going on these
105trips in my place. I am blessed to have the flexibility to be able to chaperon these trips and um unfortunately men don't have as much flexibility in a lot of cases as some of us stay at home moms do. So, I think that's going to be a real hard thing between the flexibility of finding male chaperones and then the uh availability to room together because I've gotten to be real good friends with some of the uh the females uh in RCPS because we have to we have to room together just to save costs and to save space. So, I think that one's that one's a real hardship as well. But um I look forward to talking to you guys later more and I just wanted to get that on the record as some of my
106concerns. So, thank you. Anyone else? Okay. Oh, wait. There was one other thing. I have notes here. I'm sorry. I also feel like now is a great time to add training. We need to have a training component to this because even as doing it many, many times. Uh well, a couple of years ago, somebody came to me and said somebody on another with another company or another uh division got in trouble for drinking drinking at the field trip. And it never really occurred to me. I'm not a drinker. It didn't occur to me. We need to tell people it's not okay. You have duty of care of these children all the time. Whether you've put them to bed and you're hoping they stay in bed, you are still on the clock. And I don't think
107everybody realizes this. So, just laying out some ground rules. I know that there have been times when parents have been asked, "Can you please take this group and go here?" Well, it wouldn't be nice if we had background checks on those people to make sure that that we were okay sending them with a group of kids. Um, and then also to make sure that they understand the expectations. You're not going on an overnight field trip to have fun with your child. You're going to provide uh supervision for all the children. And I think we need some some um clarification and just some training for that. So I think that and adding that component would be helpful as well. Okay, now I think I'm done. Thank you. Those are some good notes. Thank you, Miss Lure.
108Um board members, next thing on our list for information item or items um is something on here called the schoolboard citizenship award. So I just want to explain I think the the thought or what that is. Um so as you know we've removed our character counts um presentations from board me from board meetings and we are having um we we're planning a character count celebration for the remaining students on April 21st. So that's Monday in a couple of weeks. Um and during this time we we will honor and celebrate probably about 30 students. Is that right Miss Gilkasen? Probably probably about 30 students. Um so that honor, you know, we're still recognizing um good character in our schools and honoring and celebrating those students. We're just doing it at a separate event so that it's
109not part of our board business meetings. Um but during that time um if there's any board member who would like to nominate a local um like an adult um and present them with a good citizen good citizen award um we'll have an opportunity to do that. So this would, you know, my thinking is that we would um honor and celebrate those 30 students and then at the end we would be able to maybe present to those students and their families a picture of what it looks like when that good character extends into adulthood and how um there are many people in our communities who are serving and caring for their community still even as adults. And so um it would just not a requirement. So, um, if you don't have anyone specific in mind for
110this, it's not a requirement, but if you do have someone that you would like to honor in our community, um, if you could get with me on the specifics of what you would need to put together, um, probably a couple of sentences of what you, you know, um, why they're being honored and then, um, I think we would like to do a plaque or something like that. And so, we would need to get that information to Miss Gilkas in advance. so well enough in advance that those plaques can be made. Um, so that's what the that's kind of our thought. We'll we'll try this out on our first one. There's a number of things we'll be kind of working the bugs out on this um first character counts recognition celebration. Um, but I look forward
111to that in a couple of weeks. So, just want to verify it can be anyone in Rockingham County. Doesn't have to be in our district. It has to be in our district. Whoever you feel like honoring. Okay. Okay, board members. Um, last information item is the financial review for February of 25. That's in your packet of information. Um, so if you have any questions, Mr. Moyers loves to answer those those questions. Um, moving on to item number nine, superintendent comments. Dr. Shifflet. Yes. Thank you, Chair Hurst. I have a few comments um I would like to make this evening. First, just sort of some highlights. I did have an opportunity on Thursday, March 13th to attend the FCCLA Star event at Turner Ashby High School. This is an event where all four of our middle
112schools and high schools participate uh and practicing for their upcoming state competitions. And so, it was it was uh really neat to see them in action and and they were getting feedback from the judges. I know Mrs. Carrie Gray was there helping Judge and and other teachers. Also, last week I had an opportunity to attend the teacher of the year or Yes, this was last week, man. Time. Yes, today's Monday, right? That's right. It's been a long week. It's just Monday. Attended the teacher of the year ceremony. Uh, and we honored 25 RCPS teachers who were uh selected at at their school to be the teacher of the year. And Susan Meadows from RA was um recognized as the RCPS teacher of the year. So, congratulations to her. Um, I was able to enjoy Willy
113Wonka Jr. at EMS on Friday evening. I think Miss Lure was there with us and Mr. Moyer. So, I think that concludes the musical season. Um, okay, that's true. That's right. We have some elementarymentaries. Thank you, Miss Laura. Forgot about that. I think there's an elementary school or two that they're that are doing some musicals. Um, I did have the opportunity to travel to VCU on Saturday, March 15th to watch uh, Spotswood capture the state title in boys 3A basketball and that was also a very fun time. Um, I was there in 1993 in the stands as well. So perhaps I'm good luck. Um, and then um, uh, in your packet I did provide some information uh, regarding faculty and student use single-use bathrooms. Mr. Cross had asked me about that a few weeks ago.
114So that's for you to look through. There was basically only one school that um Spotswood that maybe thought about making some changes. Everyone else seemed to be in a pretty good place right now. Um but I I did want to make you know make you aware of that. Um also uh Mr. Cross had asked me at one of the pre I think the last board meeting to speak to the Sheriff Hutchinson about uh the the potential of having our towns provide SRO's. And so I did speak with uh Mr. Sheriff Hutchinson uh the following day, it was Tuesday, March 11th, to inquire about using uh town SRO's in our schools. Uh he shares uh he shared with me and wanted me to share with the board that he welcomes any schoolboard member to call him
115or email him to discuss his thoughts about this idea. Uh he also wanted me to remind school board members that we do have a memorandum of understanding between Rockingham County Public Schools and the sheriff's office. So uh that was his comments uh regarding that. So, if you would like additional information, I encourage you to contact Sheriff Hutchinson on that. And then finally, I want to um maybe I don't know how closely folks pay attention to our schoolboard agendas and and how things are orchestrated. about a few months ago now, maybe a couple of months ago, I approached our school board and said, I I would like to put personnel as a voting um in the action of our open session meeting uh instead of after the meeting. Uh we kind of go and close and
116then open because I think sometimes it's prudent for us to make some announcements about things that are happening within our school division. And this is, you know, as Solomon said, there's nothing new under the sun. So, I didn't invent this. This was this is how business was done when John Kidd was the superintendent at Rockingham County Public Schools. So, um I you know this is how I kind of grew up as an administrator watching that take place. So, tonight uh under personnel I am sad to report that the school board approved the retirement of one Dr. Doug Oliver. And um Doug has been a tremendous tremendous asset to Rockingham County Public Schools. And he is going to be missed greatly in his role. Um Doug and I, you know, back in the day, we both
117taught civics and economics at the middle school. We were middle school teachers. That's why we're a little bit quirky. And um we both coached middle school basketball. Also, I mean, our relationship goes back for many, many years and and we're definitely going to miss him and we'll continue to celebrate him uh until he leaves us on June 30, but um I try to talk the school board into not approving it, but really and truly he can leave whenever he wants to. He's I think 32 years is what I understand. So, um, now this is coming to a shock and a surprise to many of you, but I've known this for a month and a half, right? Um, and our executive leadership team has known it for two weeks. One thing you'll learn about me is
118I don't let grass grow under my feet. And I'm going to miss Doug, but I'm already going to start replacing him. Sorry, Doug. Uh so um we've been working in our with Doug along with him and our executive leadership team to to make some changes and currently the way our executive team is structured we have a couple of assistant superintendent Doug being one of them who really focused on academic support and providing leadership to our principles and then the other uh Mrs. Abernathy who really focused on instruction and we feel like we want to kind of uh after even some comments from Miss Hurst at the last meeting about thinking about things from a secondary world and an elementary world we're going to be making some changes. So um the other actions on this personnel
119report is Mrs. Donna Abernathy will be the assistant superintendent of academic support and leadership and her primary focus will be support for secondary principles that's middle school and high school and support for secondary instruction as well as administrative design and Dr. Amy Payner will be the assistant superintendent of personnel and compliance. And so um we we've kind of made some internal adjustments. So tomorrow we will be advertising for an executive director of elementary education and um requirement for that particular role is to have uh successful experience as an elementary school principal and uh we would even prefer if they taught elementary school because they will do all things elementary. Elementary instruction, elementary academic support, elementary behavioral support, everything elementary. Uh and so we'll be uh posting that job um opening tomorrow and begin hopefully interviewing
120when we return from spring break and hopefully keep things moving forward. So u just wanted to bring you up to speed with all of the the happenings and RCPS. So thank you Dr. Shifflet. Um board members will now move into schoolboard highlight questions and comments. Miss Lure will begin with you this evening. Great. Thank you. And congratulations, Doug. Uh we did really consider not accepting it, but um yeah, I think there's some legal implications with that. So congratulations. Uh I I hope you thoroughly enjoy retirement. Uh and congratulations, Miss Abernathy. looking forward to you stepping up and taking some more responsibility. Um, I'd also like to thank Dr. Shifflet for mentioning uh teacher of the year. Uh, I'm super excited that a teacher from RA won that award. Um, because all of our teachers, all
121of our teachers of the year are amazing. That that award is voted on by their peers. So, um it it really it's it's not um it's and I think Sarah can better explain it. So u maybe I'll leave that for you but um it it really means a lot coming from the teachers themselves to nominate those teachers of the year and then overall is is formed by commi is chosen by a committee and uh our folks at RA work their uh work work so very hard and love their students in such a special way. Um it's it's just great that RA got that award this year. Um, and as Dr. Shifflet said, I was able to attend the musical um at Elton uh on on Friday, I guess it was. The days are very much
122running together. We've been busy busy busy. Um, and Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory was the final of the the musicals on the secondary level for the year. Um, and I was also able the week before Thank you. I think Miss Ford has left. I was going to especially thank the musical departments for working with me so very hard. I was able to catch the dress dress rehearsal at Pence the Wizard of Oz. It was great. The tornado was cute. Ed's all get out. Um and then I was able to catch the m musical here, Matilda. Phenomenal. Uh I was able to catch the dress rehearsal of that one one e Thursday evening. And then I was able to go to Jay Frank for what was the musical? I'm blanking. Uh, Anastasia. Thank you. Yes.
123And um, yeah, it was similar to And Anastasia is a hard one to pull off at the middle school. So was Willy Wonka. They all did an excellent job. But the reason and I I I love musical. Um, I appreciate all the hard work and effort that all the kids put in. Um, and definitely I heard what Ms. Ford said tonight about uh the way music and arts really help students because I cannot carry a tune in my bucket. My two-year-olds used to say, "Mommy, stop singing." when I tried to sing the lullabies. Um, so I appreciate music that other people do. Um, but the reason I had to shove everything in, I also uh need to thank the transportation department for hooking me up with an amazing school bus that I was able to
124drive. I I came here and picked up Mont Video Middle School and took them to the fairgrounds and um we did an FFA FFA rally where I also judged uh the public speaking contest and we've got some excellent public speakers in our midst, guys. Um they they do the the they do a much better job than I am doing right now. Uh great great students. That was such a pleasure. Uh and then I took that bus and the next morning picked up Broadway High School students uh government students to take them to Washington DC to the zoo on a field trip that their students had laid out and figured out. They've they they they had a contest where they did different presented different field trips and this is the one that won and it was
125an awesome trip um just a day trip to DC and back. In fact, we got we hit um Strawburg at about 3:00 and I was getting a little tired. It had already been a long day and I was I knew the ne So the next day I'll circle back to what I was saying but the next day I took kids to Blackburg from Elkton for contests for an overnight trip. Um and that that was a great adventure as well. And those kids uh are really great kids. I I we have great kids all over our division. But I was getting a little drowsy driving back from DC. So, I turned on the the the uh Rockingham County Public Schools radio, cranked it up, and it entertained the whole front of the bus the whole way
126because it was this driver is being asked to go back and get these kids. This driver is being asked to come get those children. This driver, they called and said, "Do you have do you have Bobby Smith?" He's wearing a red sweatshirt. And they said, "Wait, yes. Yes, I have Bobby Smith." Great. He forgets to get he doesn't like to get off the bus sometimes. So you need to the bus and the bus drivers like oh that's great news. That's great information. Thank you for sharing that with me. Where does he get off? Because we had I believe Chris they had four bus drivers out that afternoon and it Broadway was working so hard to make sure that our students all of them got home on time and they got off at the right spots.
127It's it is a huge job that we ask these bus drivers to do and I'm so happy that we do have a raise for them or for our for our field trip drivers um in the in the budget because they earn every penny. It is a hard job and I do want to point out I was doing it for free because I love Rockingham County Public Schools, but this is a difficult job to do. And I want to thank I want to thank Chris Sers, our director of transportation. And please tell all the bus drivers from Broadway that drove Friday um a week ago, amazing job. They did a great job. So, thank you, Miss Peru. I'll keep this brief, but I do want to say congratulations to Doug, uh, Donna, and Amy. I appreciate
128you all. Um, my highlight was just that, um, the Rockingham County Rurans pull together every year and give all of our third graders dictionaries, and this was the highlight of my daughter's week, and she's been reading the dictionary, and I am shocked and slightly annoyed. um just a read aloud in my back seat as I drive. It's so much fun. But um it's been really cool to see her finding new things in there. And so I love that the Rurans do that for our entire community. So I'm sure they're not watching, but I I do appreciate them. Mr. Cross, thank you. I appreciate that. Uh so Dr. Shifflet. Sheriff Hutcherson said to reach out to him personally and ask him that question. Uh yes, that was his comment to me, Mr. Cross. Okay. Um and
129I'll do that. I'll I'll call Sheriff Hutcherson and I'll ask him personally and because it is a great idea to have all the towns be able to have four SRO's be able to have Bridgewwater covered, Elton covered. Uh Dayton um has a middle school that once was covered by one of their town cops and that relationship was good. I know that because I worked with I think it was Dicki Connley at the time uh that was in there and we have Broadway as well. So, and there's a lot of opportunity for us to put four SRO's in our schools and the students uh protection is my number one priority as a school board member. Um, all the counties surrounding Rockham County have an SRO in their schools. Green County has SRO's in their schools. Page
130County has SRO's. Um, Chandel County has SRO covering their schools. Augusta County has SRO's covering their schools. I understand the logistics of being able to hire uh them right now. I I get that. I remember when Augusta County Public Schools um their school board, I think it was three years ago, they told um they asked they actually went to the board of supervisors said we want an SRO in all of our schools. And I think they um approved 11 at one time. And so we've tried to break it out over a few years, like four at a time trying to get that in because we knew it would be difficult in hiring that. And I know that Sheriff Hudson is a great leader. uh worked under him and I think he's a great guy. Donald
131Smith, it took him uh two years to fill those 11 positions and so I know it takes time to do. I just thought that would be a great idea to um reach out to the towns and to be able to ask them could they provide that because that would be something off of his plate and to be able to fill about four schools. So, we're we we're in need of of 13 schools to be covered still and we that would take off for those 13. So, I'll reach out. I'll I'll have that conversation and and I'll ask him about that. Um Mr. Mr. Fitzgerald was here tonight and he talked about MTC and I just want to say that MTC is going to continue to be a diamond uh in Rockham County Public Schools with
132or without the partnership of Harrisonburg City Public Schools. Um, as we have began to look at the contract, going over the contract uh with the regional program which the regional program it gets about $200,000 I think um to help fund it according to the state code. I think it was is it 600? Okay. And that won't be completely lost. I mean, one of some ideas that we have, if that happens, we could partner with other counties as well. And we could also do um other options on helping uh our private schools here locally to be able to accept more kids here in the county into MTC. Um I think Mr. Fitzgerald said that and he talked about businesses being disappointed if we broke this contract. uh as a board member, it's our number one responsibility
133towards the taxpayers of Rockingham County Public Schools. And so I'm looking as a board member as that being my f number one priority with this agreement. And right now we have about a 8020 split with this joint board. And we have 50% voting rights when it comes to it. Um there's a lot of different uh one of the biggest issues is is we have to tell students at MTC that been there say for uh they're going for electricity they go for two years uh to get their certificate in that. So the first year they'll go and then we have to tell them after they've completed their first year, we have to tell a number of our students in Rockham County Public Schools that you have to wait out a year and then come back for
134your second year because there's not seats that are there to fill uh because of students uh taking their place. So the program has grown. It will continue to grow and it will continue to be a diamond in Rockham County Public Schools. But I believe this board is wanting to do what's best uh for our students number one and uh then number two for our taxpayers. Um I wanted to say congratulations also to Dr. Oliver. Um it's you've done a great job here in Rocky County Public Schools and a lot of people here are going to miss you and u you've made a lot of friends uh along the way and so I'm sure that people are going to be reaching out to you and texting you and sending you emails. So enjoy that and thank
135you for your career here at Rockham County Public Schools. I want to congratulate Amy Painter as well for getting this the the assistant superintendent position. I think it's welld deserved and I think you're going to do a great job. Uh finally, thank you Dr. Shifflet for bringing back the uh data from the bathrooms um at all of our schools. And actually not that's not finally, but thank you for bringing that back. I will look over that and get back with you uh on that. I I don't feel like it's so much as a school saying it's working. I think it's um more of a board decision to say we want to give those bathrooms back to our teachers that are in there. And so I want to look over the list. I want to see
136how many bathrooms we're taking uh away from our teachers uh to make them uh private bathrooms u for for everyone and because I know it's not working in some places. And last, I'd like uh to direct to Dr. Shifflet uh to um one of the executive orders that uh President Trump has set out was making sure that there's no DEI initiatives or committees operating in public schools across America. So, I'd like for you to um to look at all 23 of our schools and make sure there are no DEI uh programs that are operating in any of our public schools and bring that information back uh to the board that you may find there. Thank you. That's all I got. Okay. Thank you all for coming out this evening. I do appreciate your time. Um,
137I'm on a video team. I told you I had ballparked a certain in my head, but you know, so we had good discussion this evening and we still beat last year's time, I think. So, that's a win all around. We're going to beat the alarm tonight. Um, thank you. Thank you. What? Oh. Um, last year I I think some of our schoolboard meetings just went long. Um, and I believe with stu we were doing student matters after board meetings instead of before board meetings. And um, I believe there were we pulled some late nights in a couple of our schools. And um, what 1:00 a.m. is being whispered up here. Um, I don't know. I'm I might have blocked that one out. But um anyway, I we've we've streamlined a few things and we've um
138move it was a good year, but we've we've moved a couple of things out of our off of our agenda. And so anyway, proud to say we beat the alarm tonight. You don't have to call the company and tell them we're still here. So, thank you all for coming out this evening. This meeting is adjourned.