001All right. All right. Thank you for everybody for showing up tonight. I am uh looking forward to tonight's meeting. Uh board members, welcome here. And Dr. Shifflet, good to see you as well. Uh the first thing we do is call to order tonight uh Monday, May 6, 2024, Rockampton County Schoolboard meeting. And the first thing on our agenda tonight is to approve tonight's agenda. So, do I hear a motion to approve tonight's agenda? I move to approve the May 6, 2024 agenda as presented. Thank you, Miss Hurst. And do I have a second? Second. Thank you, Miss Lure. Any questions or comments? Hearing none. All those in favor say yes. Yes. All oppose, no. Motion passes 50. At this moment, we will have a moment of silence. Thank you. This time I'm going to ask
002you to to stand, take your hats off if possible, and say the pledge of allegiance. I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands, one nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. All right. First thing on our agenda tonight is board highlights. And I will start uh with Miss Berlin. I had a feeling you were going to start with me. Um so my highlights, um I'm glad you started with me. It is teacher appreciation week. I'm sure that's on everybody's highlight. I know. Um, so if you have teachers or a specific teacher or multiple teachers, if you go to the RCPS, um, Facebook page, um, I also posted on my schoolboard Facebook page, there's a link that you can send in,
003um, multiple remarks about multiple teachers, um, and just appreciate your teachers. It's also nurses appreciation week. Um, and I know our school nurses work really hard, so you can include them in there in your staff appreciation. Um, so my other I have two other board highlights. So, um, my daughter had a field trip this week. I did not get chosen to go. My husband did. Um, which I'm okay with because it was golf. It was at Mulligan's and it was really cool. And Sarah and I were joking and she said, you know, you can always find a way to make a make a reason to have a fun field trip. But then when when they went, um, they came back and it was all about economics and it was really cool and they had a
004blast. So, um I just appreciate our teachers for putting so much thought and and time and effort into kind of having cool fun field trips, but also make them educational. And then, um my last one was I got to go to Mountain View Elementary School after hours one day to meet with Mrs. Cherry, um who is their challenge teacher. And I got to see some really cool stuff that they were doing. Um, like they've got a 3D printer and all kinds of just really cool technology that I cannot imagine having when I was in elementary school. Um, I remember we had like a computer lab with a few Apple computers and that was it. But this was so cool. They were doing prosthetics for a fake turtle. Um, and all kinds of really neat stuff.
005So, I was just very impressed by that program. Um, and I know that our challenge teachers are just awesome and putting so much effort and energy into making those programs really unique for our kids. So that was that was it. Thank you. Thank you, Miss Burgloin. Chris Bryant, good to see you here in the house tonight. Looking good over there, Miss I was going to say when she said that about the computers, first thing I thought of was the organ trail. Y'all remember that in the school? Are they really? Cool. Cool. Miss Cave. Um I wanted to highlight Miss Reagan Ree this week at Eastrock. She is one of our um career and technical education teachers there. And um I asked her a bunch of questions about her trip to Anaheim, California. And uh she
006took uh several students there uh for the international career development conference. And uh they qualified for that for being the top seven at the state conference. And she just does an excellent job out there. And one thing I was asking her is how many different things she teaches. And uh and I had to write them down because it was it was a lot. But she said, "I do five preps." And she said, "I did sports or I do sports and entertainment marketing, digital and social media marketing, fashion marketing, entrepreneurship, and principles of business and marketing." And uh she is just excellent. We're lucky to have her down there. And it sounded like they had the best of times in California. And that's that's a lot of work. Um, I know it's a labor of love,
007but to take, you know, that many students all the way across the United States just shows the commitment that we have out of uh the teachers that we have here in this uh division. So, anyways, I appreciated her and well, I still appreciate her. Wanted to highlight her this week and I also want to highlight the Elton Elementary School um PTO. I think I mentioned them once before, but this past week was their spring playing and McGisville had um their similar one. I don't know what do they call theirs. Riverbends is Cardinal Carnival and McGisville has it. So, it's all happened at the same time really. Um, but all the schools did an excellent job with the Elton Elementary School. They had a plate auction and I um several weeks ago saw one of the
008plates online and I had to be super secretive cuz I wanted this plate so bad. Um it's the back the blue in honor of our school resource officers has um officer Lamar Warwood. I have a hard time saying your last name. His signature and our officer Bruce Hornick on there and I was just so excited. But the lady I had well Miss Tina Kaufman um bidding for me because we were out of town this weekend. um she was bidding against um Deputy Arnick's wife and I was like a nervous wreck and I thank goodness I didn't know it till after the fact. But you know we just we are a community school division and I just love it. Um but I was really excited to have that and I'm going to treasure it. Thank you
009for all the work that you do. Um, I just I'm a big believer in law and order and so I appreciate what our school resource officers do and so um, excellent excellent events put on by all our PTOs and thank you all very much. Deputy Wars, good to see you in the house tonight, Mrs. Hurst. It is teacher appreciation week and I just want to share a few thoughts and words of thanks. Um, if you really want to know what teachers do all day, um, I have a little video clip that I want to share, um, from Lily Esculen Garcia. She was a former, uh, National Educator Association president in 2015. And I think she sums it up pretty well in about 1 minute 10 seconds. What teachers do We serve kids a hot meal.
010We put band-aids on boooos. We diversify our curriculum and instruction to meet the personal and individual needs of all of our students, the blind, the hearing impaired, the physically challenged, the gifted and talented, the chronically targeted, and the medically annoying. We make sure that they've had their immunizations, make sure they understand disease control, teach them to resist, drugs, alcohol, tobacco. We give career counseling, pregnancy counseling, mental health counseling. We get them on the bus safely. We take them off the bus safely. We provide computer instruction, sex education. We stop bullying. Teach them to say, "I'm sorry and mean it." We instill an understanding of civil rights, the political process, challenge racism, both foster social tolerance, and appreciation for our cultural and religious diversity. We teach the principles of free enterprise, how to be a good
011sport. We develop personal responsibility, practice bicycle safety, and check for headlights. We provide bilingual education, teach metrics, how to be a wise consumer, exercise weight control, how to drive a car. We teach the impact of wars, develop collaborative skills, how to tune a violin, how to use reason and evidence to protect the future. We teach them to revere their environment, how to manage their money, how to access information, how to make wise choices, how to balance a checkbook. We teach loyalty to the ideals of a democracy. We build patriotism, good oral hygiene and respect for the worth and dignity of every individual. We nurture curiosity, encourage a good question, build self-esteem, and then we teach reading, writing, and arithmetic. And it's true. Our teachers do all of that and more every single day. And so
012teachers, I I just know that you pour into our children every single day. And from the bottom of my heart, I thank you for all that you do, those that the things that we see and the things that we don't see. So that's my highlight for this evening. Thank you, Miss Hurst, Miss Lure. That was wonderful. Thank you so much for bringing that. Um, and so true. Um, I learned a new word this month, Mayvember. And Mayvember is all the work of December with none of the fun all in May. And it's definitely a Mayvember on the school board. Uh, there's so much going on. Um, as you've seen from our other highlights, just a few of my highlights include, um, I'm helping prepare the MTC Foundation for the Rock the Ridge concert series. That'll
013be June 1st. Get your tickets. It's going to be awesome. It'll be held up at Massanutton uh resort. Uh I attended the regional valley or the Shannondoa Valley regional programs for sped. That's my committee assignment. We talked about and we passed the budget and got uh got all that taken care of and then we had a large conversation about uh identifying and uh getting more teachers in that program. Uh or I they used a lot of letters and Dr. Shiffley, you're going to have to help me. There were letters like SPLS or S we we talked about getting employees. I know that much. and about how we have a shortage of this particular type of employee. Uh do you want to speech language and and they're they're teachers or explain what that person does. Speech
014language. Uh they work with students who have some difficulty in their speech. Uh primarily younger students, preK, K1, and then that's sort of a deficit that they can give them skills to work themselves out of. Right? So sometimes a disability that kids can grow out of and and learn their way through. A lot of kids end up getting some speech services and these are critical employees and we're having a really hard time finding these employees. So we tried to identify ways to maybe make that a better process for for Rockingham as well as the region. Uh so we we had a long a long conversation about that. Uh, I was also able to attend the trip, the Broadway High School FFA trip to False Cape, which was one of those awesome um, uh, field trips
015where it was just fun, but it was also educational. We learned about the environment and then got to go to the beach. So, it was wonderful. Uh, I've also I've been driving a bus, so watch out. Uh, Wednesday will be my last day behind the wheel and then I'll be able to take kiddos places. Um, and then I al there's lots of FFA banquetss going on and I just really wanted to give a shout out and a huge thank you to the Spotswood FFA chapter. They made me an honorary member, a chapter member. They gave me the honorary chapter degree and that really meant a lot to me. Um, and those are my main highlights for Mayvember for now. Thank you. I know, right? All right. Thank you, Mrs. Lure, Dr. Shel. Uh, thank you,
016Chairman Cross. Uh first of all um I too want to give a shout out to our teachers. Uh this is this is teacher appreciation week. I sent a video uh out to our teachers today expressing our gratitude for the work they do. Uh I say quite frequently and sometimes maybe I shouldn't say this but uh teaching is a terrible job but there isn't a greater calling in my opinion. And when teachers enter that classroom uh in Rockingham County public schools every day, it's a calling for them making a difference in the lives of students and and that's what gets them out of bed in the mornings and encourages them during the difficult times and the hard work that they have to do because I think that video did summarize pretty well all that teachers do.
017Uh the number of decisions that they have to make uh during a typical school day uh is unbelievable, right? So, I always wanted to say kudos to our teachers and and how much I personally value and and and trust you and your judgment. Um, you know, my two children, Mary and Michael, are products of Rockingham County Public Schools, and I can say that the teachers from kindergarten through 12th grade who who taught them and work with them, their coaches, uh, unbelievable, uh, the support that they received. And so, I'm I'm I'm just forever ever grateful and thankful to them. Uh, also I'd like to just take a moment if I could, uh, Chairman Cross to kind of give the board just a bit of a highlight. So on April 1st, our, uh, student conduct committee
018met for the first time, and we began having some conversations about, uh, some of the, um, occurrences that we're seeing in our schools, what are the repeated behaviors, what what do we need to pay attention to? And we looked at some information that Dr. Otterer had uh shared with us in some previous schoolboard meetings and and had some really good conversations. And then at that point we we did recognize that elementary and middle and high school are dealing with different issues when it comes to discipline. So we divided that group of 12 folks into an elementary into a middle into a high school focus group and ask them to encourage other teachers to participate other administrators counselors. uh I invited uh the parents on the superintendent's advisory to participate trying to get parent perspective as
019well and so they had a couple of meetings among themselves in these focus groups and then we reconvene this afternoon uh to talk about some of the um work that we have to do that's that's still before us. And uh in particular, we do uh plan to send out a survey to our teachers to get some information specifically from them in regards to what they're seeing with discipline and and what support they would need. Uh and then also looking at how can we more clearly define some of our expectations, right? I think it's very important that we're clear with our expectations and then we teach students what those expectations are and then we work from there. So had a good conversation. We plan to meet again uh on May 20th with this group and uh
020continue having this conversation and talking about what what steps we we may need to take. Uh Dr. Otterer and I will be working on some uh sort of almost like flowchart um parameters that we may provide to schools as they're dealing with major discipline infractions, not minor, but what what they may do, what actions they may take and and trying to work through the process. So, um, just want to give you an update on that and and hopefully at the next meeting we'll we'll share some more information as well. How how long do you think that it'll the process will be just to kind of give an idea to the public? I would hope that u sometime in June, definitely before next year, right before we open the school year, we want to have these
021expectations established and and looking at some of the um you know, if there would be consequences for major violations, what are we what are we talk, you know, what does that look like before we start the school year? Yeah. So, hopefully thinking about in June, maybe bringing something for information. Thank you guys. Thank you for doing that. Really appreciate that. Again, I just want to highlight uh all all of our teachers and say thank you for all that you do. I wish I could name all my my son's teachers and tell but if I name one uh above the other, he may not be happy with that, but he has quite a few teachers that he's happy and loves being in their class that make him feel uh good to be there. this is his
022first year back in uh the public schools and uh he's enjoyed uh his eighth grade year and he's enjoyed a lot of his teachers and he's enjoyed getting back and meeting a lot of kids back in the neighborhood and riding his bike together and so thank you again to all of our teachers uh all the work that you put in. Uh I want to highlight Miss Matias uh and say thank you so much. She was my seventh grade English teacher and she is still teaching for RCPS. And so she's at Folks Run now and I was just want to say thank you. You helped me get through my seventh grade English and I helped me get on that year. So uh she's been one of my favorite teachers of all time. I still contact her
023and uh she's a great person. So thank you Miss Matias. Um that will conclude our board highlight uh from tonight and we will move on to our action items. And the first thing on our agenda tonight is to approve uh the minutes of the April 22nd, 2024. So, do I hear a motion to do so? I move to approve the minutes of the April 22nd, 2024 meeting as presented. Thank you, Miss Burggo. Do I have a second? Second. Any questions or comments? Hearing none, all those in favor say yes. Yes. All oppose. No. Motion passes 50. Next on our action item tonight is bills and mileage and I believe that Dr. Shifflet has this presentation. Chairman Carlson, board members, I recommend approval of the April 2024 bills as presented. Thank you, Dr. Shifflet. Hearing the
024superintendent's recommendation, do I hear a motion to follow that recommendation? I move to follow the superintendent's recommendation to approve the April 2024 bills as presented. Thank you, Miss Hurst. Do I have a second? Second. Thank you, Miss Cave. Any questions or comments? Hearing none. All those in favor say yes. Yes. Opposed? No. Motion passes. 50. Next on our list tonight is field trips. And Dr. Shifflet, you have this as well. Uh Chairman Carls and board members, I have one field trip for your consideration. Turner Ashby High School FCCLA National Leadership Conference June 28th through July 4th. Five students, Seattle, Washington. and I do recommend approval of this field trip. Hearing the recommendation of sec of the superintendent, do I hear a motion to follow that recommendation? I move to follow the superintendent's recommendation to approve
025the field trip as presented. Thank you, Miss Cave. Do I have a second? Second. Thank you, Miss Lure. Uh, any questions or comments? Did you say Seattle, Washington? Yes. How are they driving by bus? Mrs. Lor's driving. I'm just kidding. your first field trip. That's great. I mean, plain. Oh gosh. All right. Any questions or comments on this? Hearing none. All those in favor say yes. Yes. All oppose. No. Motion passes. 50. Next on our list tonight are policy revisions. And I believe Miss Becky Tennel has these for us tonight. Good to see you. Good evening, Chairman Cross, Dr. Shifflin, and members of the board. Um, I saw you two weeks ago and brought you some policies to review. Tonight, we're asking you to take action on them. As I told you at our last
026meeting, they're very, very minor changes. Um, we don't have any new policies that we're bringing tonight. I think I had told you last time there are a lot and so we're going to group them and bring you another large group. But tonight, I'm just bringing these to you for action. If you have any questions, I'd be happy to answer them. Thank you, Miss Tel. Chairman Carlson and board members, I recommend approval of the proposed policy revisions as presented by U. Rebecca Tanell, supervisor of policy and compliance. Thank you, Dr. Shipla. Board members hearing the superintendent's recommendation. Do I hear a motion to approve that recommendation? I move we follow the superintendent's recommendation to approve the proposed policy revisions as presented. Thank you, Miss Lure. Do we have a second? Second. Thank you, Miss Berg. Any
027questions or comments for Miss Tenn while she's here? All right, hearing none. All those in favor say yes. Yes. All oppose, no. Motion passes 5. Thank you, Miss Town. Thanks. Next on our list tonight is student accident insurance and Mr. Justin Moyers will be presenting that. Good evening, Chair Cross, members of the board, Dr. Shifflip. So, every year we procure student accident insurance coverage. We do not provide the coverage. It's just a opportunity for families that would like to purchase it for their students that they can um purchase it through these vendors. So, we put it out to bid. We received two bids in response and we would like to award the bid to K&K Insurance Company. And that's our also our previous um provider from last year as well. I'd be happy to answer
028any questions that you may have. Thank you, Justin. Chairman Carlson, board members, I recommend approval of the plan for voluntary student accident insurance as submitted by K andK insurance for the 2024 2025 school year and presented by Justin Moyer's chief financial officer. Thank you, Dr. Shiplet. Board members, I hear a motion to follow superintendent's recommendation. I move we follow the superintendent's recommendation to approve the plan for voluntary student accident insurance as submitted by K&K Insurance for the 2024 2025 school year. Thank you, Miss Lord. Do I have a second? Second. Thank you, Miss Burgloin. Any questions or comments for Mr. Moy Moyers as he's up here? Yes, I have one. Can you share um why you chose one over the other or what the major differences were? Yeah, we compare the coverage they provide and
029then as long as the the coverage is comparable, it's all based on cost, whatever's the cheapest. And this basically the biggest thing this provides is if you're not insured and you want your stu you want your um child to play DHSL sports, this is one way that you can get coverage that you need to do so. So we're just offering a vendor option. Correct. So and it used to be we would get more responses, but now a lot of these have consolidated. Sometimes we'll get two vendors responding that offer the same insurance coverage. Okay. That's something I find. How many students usually sign up? I don't know because we post the link then to get with the agent but nothing goes through us so I'm not sure how much it's utilized. Okay. All right. Any
030other questions? Board members hear none. All those in favor say yes. Yes. All oppose? No. Motion passes 50. Thank you. Next on our list tonight is Mr. Steve Reid and he has a bid recommendation for furniture for Broadway High School edition. Chair Carls, Dr. Shifflet, members of the board. Uh we're getting ready to open up an addition at Broadway High School and we better put some furniture in it, I guess. So, the bid was uh properly specified and advertised and we sent the packages to nine firms. We had seven suppliers respond with sealed bids. We broke the bid into four different sections to kind of group like furniture together in what different manufacturers or different vendors may provide. Section A was classroom furniture. U the low bidder there was school specialty. I'm sorry, the supply
031room. Section B was teacher wardrobes and bookcases and the low responsive bid was Virginia school equipment. Section D was science lab desks and that was again the supply room. And section D was conference room tables and chairs. And then that was against was the supply room. So our recommendation is to award sections A, C, and D to the supply room in the amount of $133,333.35 and section B to Virginia School Equipment in the amount of $57,351. Thank you, Mr. Reed. Chairman Carlson, board members, I recommend awarding the bid for the furniture for the Broadway High School edition to the lowest responsive bidder as presented by Steve Reid, director of maintenance. Thank you, Dr. Ship. Would school board members do hear a motion? I move to follow the superintendent's recommendation to award the bid for furniture
032for Broadway High School, the Broadway High School edition, to the lowest responsive bidder as presented by Steve Reed. Thank you, Miss Hurst. I have a second. Second. Thank you, Miss Lure. Any questions or comments? Mr. Reid, as he's here with us tonight, when would that be? When would they be uh bringing that all in? Uh 75 days is the uh factory schedule right now for the majority of it. Uh middle of July. Okay. Things moving along quite well out there. We're getting I know we're going to be taking a tour soon, seeing everything. So, thank y'all for all you're doing out there. It looks good. I was out there April, beginning of April and just saw the outside. I didn't see the inside, but saw you walking around the roof, but yeah, you had your
033hard hat on. Thank you, Mr. Reed. Any other questions or comments while we have Mr. Reed here tonight? Hearing none. All those in favor say yes. Yes. All post, no. Motion passes 500. Thank you, Mr. Reed. All right. Next on our list tonight, G is superintendent's recommendation. You have a recommendation for the supplementary uh materials. Uh yes sir, Chairman Cross and board members, upon review by the content review committee in accordance with RCPS policy IABB, I recommend retaining The Invisible Boy by Trudy Lewick as the book does not contain sexually explicit content at that term as that the term is defined in RCPS policy. Thank you, Dr. Shifflet. Do I hear a motion to follow superintendent's recommendation? I move to follow the superintendent's recommendation to retain The Invisible Boy by Trudy Lewig as this book
034does not contain sexually explicit content as that term is defined in RCPS policy IABA. Thank you, uh, Miss Cave. Do I have a second? Second. Thank you, Miss Hurst. Any questions or comments? Thank you guys for doing that as quick and getting that out. We really I really appreciate that. I can't speak for the whole board, but I appreciate getting this book back on the shelf and and thanks for doing that. Let everybody know how grateful I am that we got that back on as fast as we did. And board members and any other questions or comments? Hearing none. All those uh in favor say yes. Yeah. Yes. All oppose. No. Motion passes 5. All right. That is the the end of our action items tonight and uh will lead us into our information item.
035And our first on our list tonight is behavioral threat assessment and management in RCPS. And we have quite a few people that are going to be presenting. So, thank you guys for coming tonight. Good evening. This is a team presentation because this is a team process. Um, so Chair Cross, members of the board, Dr. Shifflet, thank you so much for giving us a little bit of time today to present. Um, this is just for information. I will not be back to ask for action. Um, this is an FYI. This is a process that we're already using in Rockingham County Schools. Um, and because of the board's focus on safety, um, I thought this might be something that you would be interested in having a presentation about. So, um, I have with me this evening, um,
036the team from Eastro, and I am, uh, very grateful that you all are willing to be here this evening. Thank you very much. Um, principal Mark Swagger, uh, school counselor Sandy King, and SRO Lamar Warwood. Um so um this evening we're going to talk about behavioral threat assessment and management in RCPS. So we have a process um that we know that we need to be prepared for and that we hope we never need to use. Um but sometimes we do when as defined uh through our policy a threat has occurred and that has a specific definition where there's concerning communication or behavior that indicates that an individual may pose danger to the school staff or students. Um, and through this process, the goal is always to prevent violence and keep the community safe, to resolve
037conflicts or the problems that underly the threatening behavior. the behavior or concerning something that is causing the threat assessment may have some um may break some other rule that requires a disciplinary response, but that is not necessarily a part of the threat assessment process. The threat assessment process is designed to keep the community safer and prevent violence. Um, so you can see right there in the model policies and guidance available from the Virginia Department of Criminal Justice Services, which does a lot of the training um that we provide for this and is like the um main model guidance behind it. Right there in bold print, they emphasize it over and over again. The primary goal of the threat assessment and management process is to support and enhance the health, safety, and well-being of the school
038community. And in order to do that, we do that best as a whole team. Now, I'm going to let the expert talk to you about the code requirements. How you doing? So, okay. So, the Virginia law requires each local school board to establish threat assessment teams consistent with a model policies developed the DCJS Virginia Center for School Board and Campus Security in accordance with 9.1-184. We're required to access and intervene with individuals whose behavior pose a threat and safe school and staff and students. Use a team approach including people with expertise in counseling, school administration and law enforcement. Establish procedures for referral referrals to community and service boards and health provides for evaluation and treatment which when appropriate and trains all train all team members. Okay. Beyond code requirement, research and practice tell us that
039target violence is often detectable and preventable. Threat assessment and and management processes designed to identify and assist persons in need as early as possible. How has RCPS prepared staff to respond? Uh this past summer, five RCPS staff members participated in a multi-day train the trainer threat assessment event in Wville, Virginia and Virginia Beach. Um we adopted their model form to guide team assessments, documentation, and management and developed guidelines for form retrieval and storage. This past fall, as school was starting in August, we provided training for all building administrators, school counselors, school social workers, and psychologists, as well as school resource officers. We are currently providing support to team members with questions, and this August, we are planning to train new members. Once again, Mr. high enough. I'm going to try and speak from experience at
040East Rock, so I'm not going to read directly from here, but kind of show you what it looks like in our building. So, the first thing obviously we get an initial report or we have a discipline incident in the school and most of the time the assistant principles are at the head of the discipline incident. Um, but what would happen in that instance, if Barbara En was the assistant principal, the four of us right here with Barbara would be in that first meeting. So, it wouldn't just be two members of the team. It would probably be four of us that have that discussion. Um, I am huge about not making decisions on my own. So, it makes me feel very comfortable to have multiple people in that decision-making process. um we either close it there
041once we have that conversation or we open it for the threat assessment team and we pull that team together and one of the main components of that is our local um social work would join us and then we have all the counselors, all the administrators and others um that are on the team, school nurse if needed and then we go over the incident very very um distinctly going through a form step by step and we decide if this individual or this situation poses a high or moderate threat and whether or not to close that case directly or to carry it forward um to the next step going from there an ongoing assessment and management plan and then as we move forward the team continues to monitor and reassess the plans and then obviously I talked
042about the uh social worker coming in we can use some community based services that aren't available at the local school level to assist in the process so uh we've been through it a handful of times uh the process is very effective in my opinion brings a lot of different professionals a lot of different perspectives ives um to light and um ends up with a very good conclusion as far as we have experienced at East Rock. I'm not going to read those. Thank you. There you go. I'm not going to read them either. Um but so the point of tonight's presentation is not necessarily to turn you all into threat assessment team members but it is an FYI of the process to get some big ideas that it is uh required by code that we through
043that code we are required to use a team-based approach and we are required when uh that team determines that a student poses or the um person in question um of the threat assessment team is um currently functioning at a that is a certain level or higher to the community that we are required to um provide management. We are required to continue to engage to provide some a referral to outside services or to provide some things ourselves. So um I would be glad thank you for the opportunity to present. Great job team. Um thank you for coming. I sincerely appreciate it. It's hard to um make the point that it is a team-based approach if I were standing here alone. So, thank you very much for lending your expertise. Do you all have any questions? Board
044members have any questions? Uh, how how many refreshment about five six still on the on the threat assessment team at the school? Um, so that number could vary, but it probably is around five. So in the code there are certain um roles that we are required to have represented. People with certain expertise um but sometimes that overlaps right like the person with instructional and administrative experience could be like an a principal or someone with classroom experience and administrative experience but probably around five is a good number. That's awesome. Our school at the high school think it's nine. Is it nine? More administrators more counselors. Right. Okay. That's awesome. For board members that don't know, after Sandy Hook, Governor Bob McDonald put this in play and made the public schools, this is part of the the
045deal after S the Sandy Hook in incident and that the threat assessment team came up with and one of them was the safety director that we put in the budget this year to hire. So, I'm excited about that as well. So, thank you for the pres this presentation tonight. Thank you all for presenting. It's good to see every single one of you. And uh any board members, everything? Okay. Um to what degree do um when you're running threat assessments, you have a situation. How often or what's it? Maybe you can't say um to what degree do cell phone, social media uh play into the number of threat assessment situations that you have. That's a great question. I don't know the exact number. a lot a little um I say that it may I'm I'm guessing
046it may vary by level and I'm guessing that also it's sort as with a lot of technology right there may be some parts with technologies role that may help us because we may be able to be aware of things going on that we otherwise wouldn't without technology for instance like with stop it the anonymous reporting app that we use there's a place where people can upload uh pictures and videos which then can be in the possession of the administrators to be able to use for that. Um there definitely are a number of times when students online lives and personas and activities do come into school and would be considered by a threat assessment team. Gotcha. And the complaints can come from a various sources, right? I mean they come students, the counselors, the principal, law
047enforcement, CSB may have a report. I mean there may be something that happens in the community over the weekend and that they get the uh administration involved on Monday morning. So it can come in a number of people reporting, right? Yes, sir. So anyone else have any questions? I do have a question. Um I know you guys said you went to a conference over the summer. Is there like additional training you would like to have a scenario set up? like anything additional that we can do to be better prepared. I have heard from other schools and other teachers that it'd be really cool if we could collaborate with this person or if we could see right you guys all have radios. Do you know what happens when you hit the red button? Nobody knows. I
048know because I work there but they've said hey we would love to come to them once and we'd love to see what happens and how this all kind of the whole process you know start to finish ends. So, is there additional training you guys would love to do or things you want Deputy Warwood to teach to the school? Um, my mind just runs to those places. Like, what what more can we do for for the teachers, for the staff, so you got I don't want to hog the microphone. Okay. Um, I I don't I don't know off the top of my head. I appreciate the question and I appreciate the offer. I think that um when we can have more people trained about how to respond especially in a team approach and to provide those
049kinds of like what do so let's say there is an emergency or there is a situation because some of the situations we deal with we work through in um threat assessment and management come more on the management side than the emer like thankfully they they don't escalate to the emergency side um so that's a great question um I don't know the answer yet, but I want to say yes, but I don't know what yet. Well, I would love I mean, if teachers have ideas or whatever, you know, this is why you have a rehearsal before you get married so you don't fall when you walk down the aisle, right? So, I think if we could, you know, do some training ahead of time so you know what happens when those things happen. Yeah. Well, you
050know, when it when it if and when if ever, you know, you're better prepared. So, yeah, I'd be glad to talk more about that with you if you'd like. Thank you guys for taking time out of your evening to show up here tonight. Really appreciate it. Thank you. Thank you. All right. Next on our information item tonight is our financial review. And board members, you have that in your packet tonight for your convenience to go over and to review. I'm at your leisure. And that will lead us into public comments tonight. We're moving right along. And the first on our list tonight for public comments is Jacob I speak here today representing one of the 20 students who penned the open letter to the school board. Frankly, it is infuriating and downright ignorant the way
051wi witnessing the way some individuals have treated us. They have the audacity to label us as uneducated and stupid teens when our behavior is more dignified than some people in this room. It's an attitude that exposes a deep-seated problem of the systemic dismissal of student voices. Our age should not disqualify us from being taken seriously. We understand the realities within our school better than most. Abuse and oppression run rampant through these walls. And yet, the school board seems intent on stripping away even more of those rights. We refuse to accept this injustice any longer, and we demand our voices be heard, our rights respected, because we've endured being ignored and trampled upon for far too long. It's time to have our voices heard. As members of this school community, we demand action from the school
052board, listening to our grievances and working with us to create a real change. Our rights matter and we will fight tooth and nail to protect them. Send an email to for the books if you want to listen. You have our email. Thank you, Mr. Next on the list tonight is Ellen Fu. Sorry, I'm getting I got that wrong, but Free. Okay. So, my name is Eileen Free and I'm a parent. I raised two children in Rockingham County public schools in John Whan, Wilbur Pence, and Turner Ashby. During the combined 15 years that my children were in the school system, I was a PTA member, a band mom, cross-country mom, and much else, which is to say, I'm not an outsider to Rockingham Public Schools. I'm very much an insider. I'm very troubled by the new
053supplementary materials policy that you passed at the last meeting. And I continue to have many questions about what happens next. First, I would like to know what happened to the now 56 books that were pulled from the shelves, where they are, and will they go through the process that was established as you've previously stated? Will challenges be filed for each of the books as they were not previously? Presumably, each book will have its own committee review because if this isn't outright censorship, but is an actual process to assess the literary worth of each book and determine whether it might place our children in grave harm, then each book needs a thorough and thoughtful review. The committee members according to policy must read each of the 57 books in its entirety to understand any challenged content
054in the full context of the book and meet with the committee to discuss. That may take a year for them to do so if they met over the summer and through spring break and through Christmas and through all of the other breaks. Hopefully during that time the books that weren't being reviewed would be back into circulation because otherwise those stories and ideas are presumed guilty before they're proven innocent. The process says that any challenge book must the committee must include educators. Will they get a stipend? This is a highly contentious and political process. It is difficult and I think it is perhaps not ethical to ask staff and teachers to serve on those committees with all of this public pressure without being appropriately compensated. So, I continue to have these and other questions about how
055these new policies will be implemented to asssure that the books get an honest review as they deserve and especially so they do not unfairly target our students of color or our LGBTQ plus students. Thank you. Thank you, Miss Free. Low spot. Good evening, school board. I thank you for the uh opportunity to be able to address you tonight. uh and I would like you to thank you for providing a place of refuge for the students and the parents in today's world with the daily assault that's been uh that happens on the minds and on the hearts of the young people that uh that are just they're struggling to find themselves. Okay, young people are are they're enticing uh they're being enticed with words, pictures, and books and media just a few short years ago would
056have been deemed pornographic. They have so few formative years with their parents. And these years are too precious to be filled with things that will not enrich their futures. developing skills that will be brought to both to benefit both the students and the community that they'll be moving into is crucial is is cru is crucial. How to read a contract, how to balance a checkbook, how to develop good credit. And these are some of the some of the traits that will uh will will cultivate well-balanced productive citizens. The better we can equip equip our students with these real life skills, the better off that they will be. Truth and absolutes matter. Best intentions or feelings won't pay the bills or put food on the table. Thank you for bringing our schools back to the reality
057of what education should really be. God bless y'all. Thank you. Next on the list tonight is um school. Where are we at? Schoolboard comments. Before we do that though, um I would like to recognize all our students that we have here tonight. So, if you're a student, would you raise your hand here tonight? All right. Good to see you guys tonight. Glad to have you out here. And I know that uh many of you need to get this one in before the end of the year. So I'm glad we didn't go too late tonight and we can get your form signed. You guys can get home tonight. So I started on the right side tonight with uh board highlights. So I'll start on my left with Mrs. Lure for schoolboard comments. Thank you. Um, I
058thought Miss Free had a very good um, point and I kind of agree with her as far as I would like some clarification on what we're going to do with the books moving forward. So, can somebody speak to that? Miss Lur, you have plenty of time to ask that. And also Miss Free is and the public is welcome to uh call the superintendent's office office at any time during the week. So, but if Dr. Schiffer would like to talk to that to speak to that tonight, you feel free to you can. Oh, absolutely. I'd love to speak to that. So, uh tonight you heard a recommendation from me about the invisible boy and that was based off the content review committee. We had one meeting last week, I I believe. Yes. Um this the content
059review committee is a superintendent committee. It's not a schoolboard committee. So we're not subjugated to FOYA and those types of things. Uh but we did meet and we talked about the parameters of the committee and the work that we will do. Uh we will read all the books. Uh some of the books are sort of like graphic novels, right? So they're pretty quick reads, but um I think this the speaker brings up a good point. It's going to take us some time to get through the books, right? Um, and maybe over the summer uh to read to read all the books. Uh, I delivered to the committee a stack of books. Not all of the books, but a stack of the books. If you give me a second, let me count them in my head
060here. I think it was six books I had given them. Uh, Heartbreaker series 1 through four and drama. And I can't think of the other the mist of fury which is a really thick book. So that's going to take that's a really big book. And there was one other one I cannot remember off the top of my head. I can go back and look at my notes but just speaking off the top of my head. So we met collectively and talked about the process which is read the books and then after we've given ourselves some time to read, we'll come back together and discuss whether or not the books contained sexually explicit material. these books that we're going to review, it's only based on sexually explicit material as defined by the code. I also provided
061to the committee the policies that were adopted as well as the the definitions in Virginia code as to what is sexually explicit. So, we understand that here is a definition, but now we're going to have to have conversation as to whether or not the content in a particular book meets that threshold, and that's where the dialogue will take place. Um, so I'm I feel very confident about the process. Uh, and we we do intend to be thorough. Um, and then moving forward after we get through these list of books, uh, we would expect books to be brought to us with a challenge to the actual challenge material form that has been created through the policy. I will also add that seven of those books are not even on our shelves. So, the book of 57,
062seven of them aren't in Rockingham County Public School Library. So, um I'm not sure that we would review books that aren't on our shelves. So, uh I've already eliminated seven. So, I'm working quickly. So, I'm now down to I'm down to 50, right? Uh but it it will take some time as you acknowledged. And uh one of the members uh who's very diligent and thoughtful about the process um when I contacted that person about being a part of this, they actually gave me a time frame and said, "Well, if we do this, it's going to take us x amount of time to get through this many books." So, it will take us some time. Hopefully, at the next meeting, um we will have some more recommendations, right? So basically that's just going to be an
063ongoing agenda item that we're going to hopefully, you know, we're meeting the 14th. We'll talk about those books I just named except for the Mr. Fury because that's going to that's like the summer read. And then uh we'll the committee will make a recommendation and then we'll you know hand out some more books and set up another date to meet and keep keep the process going to try to be as efficient as we possibly can without right getting away from the process. Thank you Dr. Shipley. Um and then follow up on that. How did you pick the committee was very thoughtfully if you don't if you don't mind sharing please. No. So what I tried to do is I put all the parents in Rockingham County's name in a hat. I'm just kidding. I did
064not Thank goodness mine didn't come out. That's a lot. I did not do that. I So I tried to get representation from all four attendance areas in some capacity. So we have um Yes, we have that. I can check that box. And I tried to get um uh representation from all levels, elementary, middle, and high. And really to to to be on the committee, I I was really looking for two things. One that you could read and like to read. You have to, you know, that Mr. Theory is a thousand book, thousand pages, right? And then you had to be the reputation of someone who would be willing to have dialogue, right? To sit at the table and and have a conversation. Uh, you know, here's a book. You know, granted, The Invisible Boy was
065easy, right? There's some books on this list that are pretty easy. There's nothing sexually explicit in the book. Okay, that's easy. But there are some books that have some some sexually explicit language, right? And then we have to have conversations about that, right? So, people who who were willing to talk and have dialogue. And when we met um this past week, um I I thought the conversation was very um very respectful dialogue and people kind of understand the task at hand. So it it's one committee. They're not committees for different grade levels or just just one committee. Just one committee, right? Yes. Okay. Very good. Thank you very much. That was my understanding. I I'm I'm hoping you're not telling me I need to get 57 50 committees, one for each book because I may
066rethink that. It'd be quicker. Thank you. I just needed clarification. Yeah. Are you done, Miss Laura? Good. All right, Miss Hurst. Um, I just want to share a little bit tonight. Um, with our teachers. Um, change is hard and there have been a lot of changes in our school division in the last year. Um, we've changed superintendent. We have three new schoolboard members. We've changed policies. Um, and the one thing that I remain focused on is what's best for kids. I've said from day one in my campaign that I am for teachers and I'm still for teachers. Um, we might disagree on issues and that's okay. As a as a former teacher in Rockingham County, I can still understand your heart and your concerns. I've been in the trenches. I know what teaching is like
067postco. I'm here to help. There's a number of things that I have advocated for on your behalf and a number of things um that I'm still working on. I'm open to meeting with teachers and hearing your concerns. uh you have my email and I'll be happy to share my cell phone number. Um I want to encourage you to invite us to your classrooms and this is in no way for an evaluation or a gotcha moment. We're not looking for those. Um I'm not for me it's more of a how can I help or what is it that you need? I need to have those moments with you so I know how to continue to advocate for you on your behalf. We're going to keep visiting schools and I know that makes people uncomfortable, but the
068truth is how can we how can we know what's going on? How can we help fix problems if we don't know what they are? Um, so I'm sharing that I'm listening. I'm here to help because as I've said before, and I've said this time and time again during my campaign, and I really do mean this. Um, happy teachers have happy classrooms and happy classrooms have kids who are learning and that's really what we're here for. And so that's what we are striving to do and provide um in this county. That's that's my heart and I wanted to share that with you all tonight. Thanks. Thank you, Miss Cave. Um I would just echo all of those sentiments. Um and I just wanted to send out a big thank you. Um I didn't mean to highlight
069just one teacher in my highlights. um because certainly we appreciate every single one and um I hope that we can not just recognize you one week of the year um you know when there's a title of the week national you know teachers week but that you know that we appreciate you all year round you know in the good times and hard times um in May you know when we're just trying to survive to the end um of the school year so um thank you very much for all you do thank you Miss Cave Miss Burgling So, um I did want to just kind of address the the open letters that were read at the last meeting. Um and one thing that I wanted to quote from one piece of the open letter from the teachers
070was uh and I quote, "It is a great place to live, teach, and raise a family." And I couldn't agree more. Um I want it to not only be a great place, but I want it to be the best place. Um my job here on the school board is not to divide the community, scare teachers away, you know, do anything negative to to the school district. Um when I look back on my campaign, my my campaign consisted of the voice of parents, open and honest communication, supporting teachers. Uh and those have always been my intentions. When my daughter entered RCPS, I was really scared. She was my first kid. I was a new mom. uh my first kid to go to school. So that was really scary uh for me. But Lynville Edom Elementary School
071has a culture and a staff that just makes you never want to leave. Um I tell her teachers every year, "Oh, I wish you would move to the next grade." And then we go to the next grade and I love that teacher even, you know, just the same. Um so I I quickly fell in love with her school, with her whole staff, and I decided that I wanted to substitute teach. And uh I wanted to be in the school. I heard there was a need there. you know, they were short on subs and so I I'm a fixer by nature and so I wanted to help in in that position. Um, eventually I was able to kind of sub at different schools and became aware that this amazing culture uh with staff and with the
072schools is not just at Lynville, it's all over Rockingham County uh because of our staff, because of our teachers. Um I just am here to support our schools, support our staff. Uh like like everybody has said tonight, I'm here to speak with teachers. I want them to be able to come to me uh talk to me about what we can do better, what we can do better for their peers, for their students. Uh same with parents. I absolutely would love to talk to parents as long as you don't mind my kids tagging along once in a while. Um I don't take this position lightly here on the school board. I know that this has a a very serious impact on our community um that I love. Um, and I want Rockenham County to be uplifted
073and be the best of the best. And I'm always here if anybody wants to talk. So, thank you. That's great. Thank you, Miss Burggoyne. Uh, Dr. Chip. Um, I just again want to thank Mrs. Hurst and Mrs. Burggoyne for for your messages um to uplift teachers. Um, you know, I always I say a lot of different things, but you know, um, teachers make a difference, right? And they walk into the classroom every day and they close their door and and they have an opportunity to make an impact on the lives of students. And I want to make sure that we are doing the best we can to support our teachers in their work and to make sure that they have the resources they need to be successful because it impacts our students, right? And I
074always want to do what's best for kids, but for our students to be successful, our teachers have got to be empowered to do great work and to um again, as I mentioned earlier, I think about the you know, the the teachers who work with my own kids, right? I mean, you're talking about I'm hearing Miss Burggoyne talking about her students, right? You you can't find anything closer than your children, right? That you love and care for. And we have over 11,000 students in Rockingham County public schools. And parents are sending their children for us to take care of them each day. And and I don't take that lightly either. And I want us to be the best that we can possibly be, right? Whatever that is. I just want to be better um you know,
075tomorrow than I am today. And I want to be better next year. So what can we do to help give our kids the greatest success and chances um for them to have a bright future? Uh they deserve it. They they deserve it more than uh than anything. So, um, yeah. So, thank you for the comments and we'll continue to work to, um, make Rockingham County the the the place everyone wants to be. Thank you, Dr. Shiffley. Yeah, I would also highlight that Miss Cave and Miss Lur and myself also pointed out tonight our appreciation for teachers as well. We' we read through hundreds of comments when it came to the policy um, for our library policy and classroom policy. We spoke with librarians. We spoke with a lot of of community members. We ran campaigns
076over the past three years uh of our lives talking about these issues. And uh although at Turnby High School the other night, we didn't have a lot of our people that voted for us in 2021 and uh last year for the three new ones that came on, but they ran their campaigns on getting the dirty books out of our libraries. And that's what this uh policy was about. It was about sexually explicit uh content within books. And that's what parents don't want in their school libraries. And we listen to our parents. And we we're going to do our best to um withhold our promises to the parents of Rockham County. So I thank I just want to again say thank you for everyone that came out tonight. Again, thank you to all our teachers for
077all that you do. This wasn't a knock on you in any way. This policy that we just did with the library policy, this was uh for the protection of our children uh in our community and we want to make sure that they don't have sexually explicit books in their library or in their school library. So, uh thank you so much uh for coming out tonight. We do have reason to go into close session and I would entertain a motion to go into close session. I move that the board enter a closed meeting to discuss and consider the following pursuant to the provisions of Virginia Code section 2.2-3711A1 2-3711 A1 personnel specific public officers, appointees or employees for the purpose of considering such individuals assignment, appointment, promotion, performance, demotion, salaries, disciplining, or resignation. Thank you, Miss
078Cave. Do I have a second? Second. Thank you, Miss Lure. Any questions or comments? Hearing none, all those in favor say yes. Yes. All oppose, no. Motion passes 5. and we'll be glad to sign uh the students papers tonight. Thank you everyone for coming out. Meeting's over.