001good evening I call this uh Rockingham County public Schoolboard meeting to order our first order of business is to approve the agenda um members do I have a mo motion to approve the agenda so move thank you Dr moken do I have a second second thank you Mr Cross is there any discussion hearing none all those in favor of approving the agenda as presented please say I I oppose same sign motion carries unanimously welcome tonight everyone um it's a chilly night all of a sudden for us so I'm glad you guys could all make it out um can you please rise and join me in 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
002liberty and justice for all thank you and be seated please join me in a moment of silence thank you we will now move into our recognition and presentations portion of the meeting and I believe we'll have Mr Dan Sanders start us out with that good evening Madame chair lore esteemed members of the board and Dr shifflet we' like to welcome you to Broadway High School for tonight's meeting I would like to also extend a warm welcome to any Community member who's in attendance this afternoon before I turn the microphone over to our assistant principls for the award presentations I'd like to recognize individuals who helped set up the school for tonight's event our Broadway High School custodians along with individuals from the central office tech department dedicated time and setting up for this meeting also
003a big thank you to miss gilerson um for answering lots of emails from me and helping organize this event so right now I'd like to turn this over to Miss Madison for our first character counts award good evening um the faculty and staff of broad way high school is proud to name hersel hofit as one of our Britney lamb Kelly cogsdale character character counts Award winners Hershel will you and your family come on up yes right so hersel is one of our many outstanding seniors this year Hershel can be found socializing with his friends during both our Transitions and lunch but is more often than not found working in one of his classrooms on academics due to his willingness to go above and beyond to learn when he is not working on his classwork he
004is putting effort in honing his athletic skills on the football field or with the track team he devotes time to FFA events sources of strength and working with the local rtin Club of which he's a member when you ask anyone to describe Hershel the list of attributes is long and very positive Hershel care is is not only about putting in the time to create high quality work but is also one of the first students in his class to step up as a leader and help others when there's a concept or activity that he's mastered he's like a peer mentor many teachers have said that his work ethic the standards that he sets for himself his maturity level and his unique perspective makes him a driven and born leader amongst his peers while several teachers spoke
005about that his quiet nature they also mentioned his quick and very sharp sense of humor hersel is the type of student that every teacher hopes they get several of every year and that is why Broadway has chosen to honor hersel with the Britney lamb Kelly cogsdale character counts award herel you know me better than that Hershel and I actually go uh pretty far back actually since you guys moved uh to this area when you were sixth grade somewhere third grade oh my goodness I know you've grown a lot since then um and I I was also told to keep this short so I'm glad that you're the first one so I'm just going to do all my Spiel on you and then we'll try to to move a little faster as we go along but
006um I'm just so proud of all of our students uh and it's it's um fitting tonight that hersel is our character Council Award winner because and I kind of met through 4 he was one of my 4ers and the Kelly cogsdale part of this was my extension agent when I was almost heral age just just I I think the year after she came um but uh Kelly cogsdale is very special to me and uh Britney lamb was very special to uh Dan Breeden our former Schoolboard member so part of this award is a PIN to where close to your heart so there's we I offer you that to wear by your heart and then oh you have people with you tonight I know your people can you can you tell us who your people are
007and have them stand up your parents and your sister wait is Karina's not here no so have your parents stand up my parents herb hofit and Pamela hofit are back there thank you and as we know we as a board completely understand that the character begins at home so thank you guys for raising such an outstanding young man and for uh teaching him to be a pillar of our community uh and because of that we have a certificate for you all to hang on your wall proudly so we'll be giving each member a certificate so you can take that back to your parents and I think I forgot the best part of all okay there's the parent volunteers it's the other it's a um gift certificate to Klein's Dairy Bar so we got to make
008sure we get you the right one Yep this one so congratulations and I want you to go along and Shake everyone's hand and let's give hersel another round of [Applause] applause Miss Smith will be presenting our next award Asia can you join me up here the faculty and staff of Broadway High School is proud to name Asia Deng as our second Britney lamb Kelly cogsdale character counts Award winner at a as a senior Broadway everyone knows Asia as you walk through the Halls you can guarantee that Asia will acknowledge you with her friendly personality and her contagious smile Asia's Charisma allows her to be outgoing and her selflessness is of a level even teachers stated they wish they had themselves collaborative hardw worker compassionate and determined were traits that are repeated over and over when
009staff members overwhelmingly nominated Asia a common theme that seems to repeat itself since her nth grade year is that she's one of the hardest workers in her class teachers stated that they wish every student would put in the time and effort outside of the class on their academic studies as Asia does stories of Asia being willing to go into classes outside of normal class time for help or to help others were repeated from several teachers Asia always seems to have a positive attitude wherever you see her be it in the hallway the classroom or on the cheer team Asia is the is the type of student who will motivate others to be successful because her values and determination show themselves to others and act as constant motivators Asia stays true to her beliefs and values
010and never has a bad thing to say about others her giving nature her work in the community such as helping with vacation bible school over the summer is the reason why Broadway has chosen to honor Asia with the Britney lamb Kelly Coale character counts award congratulation Asia Asia do you have people here with you tonight I do can you do you want do you want to introduce them I have my mother and father Viet Deng and Kristen Brooks thank you guys for for raising Asia to be a a a role model in our community and we have these items for you and if you could uh shake hands with all the school board members as well and let's give Asia another round of [Applause] applause presenting our NE next recognition is assistant principal Jennifer Nick
011all right Miss fandel can you join me at the front please thank you as a parent especially of a high school student it's sometimes hard to find a way to volunteer or help oftentimes high school students want their parents to be around only when the high schooler finds it convenient and the school is often not a place where many high schoolers want their parents to show up and help out however our volunteer that we want to recognize to tonight is a band parent and one thing to know is that band parents carry that title with pride band parents often carry the weight of many different things not mentioning helping to load or unload heavy instruments in and out of a trailer for competitions but by making sure that the band program is noticed supported and
012appreciated Stacy bandal has been working with the band boosters for six years now and is our current treasur she's been an integral part to our booster successes over the years and continues to serve our students we've had countless fundraisers and events where she is one of our most reliable members that's always willing to step up and help out sometimes those fundraising events are run by only her and one other parent the Broadway High School band travels to many events over the course of the year and it often requires feeding our band students she has been present for just about every band meal and has often provided meal items at the last minute where there's a need she's always made the time to help us and know and we know what an incredible sacrifice it is
013for any person Stacy has and always will be a part of the Broadway High School band family and this is why Broadway High School wants to recognize Stacy as our volunteer Award [Music] winner thank you so much for your dedication to our school and can you believe I'm looking at that picture our little guys are now big guys we I think we've been to several events together congratulations on uh I think the band actually did really well this past weekend at parade of Champions and then they went over and did Charlottesville too so did you do the trip over the mountain I did both oh bless your heart thank you place third and Charlottesville oh they Place third and Charlottesville that's wonderful and do you have people with you tonight I do my hus with
014me yarn my husband yarn thank you and thank you because uh I understand that a lot of times when we're volunteering our family is left without food at home because we're fixing food for other people so thank you yarn for for letting her uh participate here at school we also have a certificate and a uh a Klein's Dairy Bar uh award for you as well but thank you so much let's have another round of [Applause] [Music] applause we will now move on to our Inspire awards no actually oh new this year um our next speaker I left my glasses uh Lacy Spring Elementary School we're going to have um some more character counts Awards good evening everyone it is my pleasure to introduce to you Miss viani Perez verani viani is a hardworking student that
015puts forth 100% effort in not only her academics but her community and peer relationships she has outstanding character and displays a positive attitude each and every day her love for learning is infectious and her heart of gold makes her a friend to everyone this young lady has a strong desire to help others you will always find bani doing the right thing and setting a wonderful example for her classmates she displays citizenship in her school Community beani has earned the respect of those she meets the did you bring people with you tonight do you want to speak in the microphone or do you want me to do it I can do it I can do it uh your your mom can your mom stand up and does Mom have a name j beon that's beautiful and
016do you have any other people just your mom well thank you so much Mom for coming tonight and thank you for supporting viani through and helping her be such a great role role model for our schools and we have uh treats for you as well so thank you and let's give viani another round of applause than you so much congratulations you lilan Gainer if you'll come down please as Lillian's making her way down I will start reading about her she is a kind caring and compassionate student who is always willing to lend a hand to anyone who needs help she listens to others and genuinely cares about her peers her gentle and yet vivacious personality is naturally inviting and brings such joy and light-heartedness wherever she is Lillian is not only an exceptional person but
017also a very committed student she can always be found on task and doing her best work her character embodies trustworthiness and citizenship that is evident in the relationship she has with her peers Lillian is an exceptional example of a student with outstanding character who are your people my stoma and my dad Kevin okay so Lilian stepmom and her dad are here with us tonight what was your mom name Amanda Amanda Gainer and Kevin Gainer can you guys please stand there you are again thank you to you all and thank you Lillian for being such a great role model in our schools let's hear it for Lillian [Applause] again our volunteer of the year is Patty Phillips our PTO president if you will come on down please Patty Phillips our PTO president goes far beyond what
018is expected as a PTO president like an Energizer Bunny she hops from one task to another to make sure that plans are made and implemented for students and families to enjoy our fundraisers to purchase necessary items and supplies for our school are far-reaching and impactful as our needs are always met we have several yearly events as a result of the leadership of Mrs Phillips our Lacy Christmas Cruise in beginning and end of the year school picnics trunk Retreat and staff appreciation meals during parent teacher conferences and at the end of the school year she has spearheaded fundraisers such as Chick-fil-A Dairy Queen and PX ice cream nights along with R cutlery and crisp Crispy Cream at fundraisers and labs for Lacy her Dynamic disposition and eagerness to truly make a difference in the lives of
019students staff and the community is easily observed and greatly appreciated Mrs Patty Phillips Patty did you bring people with you I did not you I can be your people I got lots of school family here [Laughter] though and and thank you to you all who support her and and uh full disclosure she gets me to help with the uh Christmas Cruise in and that's so much fun this woman is an amazing volunteer and yeah call me about this Trunk or Treat thing that sounds like fun okay but thank you so much thank you let's give Patty another round of [Applause] applause then next we will hear from lynville Eden Edom Elementary School um principal Karen Ritter good evening I'm going to start first talking about Reuben krid Ruben kingridge is kind and friendly to all
020his classmates he is quick to laugh with them but never at them as a team player he extends invitations to anyone interested in joining a game regardless of skill or ability he is eager to help wherever it is needed whether assisting a fellow student or a teacher and he often volunteers for special projects He is a hard worker and a dedicated learner he takes his time and put puts forth the effort required to produce quality work he even keeps his classmates on task which is sometimes not an easy job we are extremely proud to recognize Ruben as a role model for all lynville Edom [Applause] students okay can Ruben's people please stand up it's apparently quite a crew of you all so we have his grandparents his parents and his little SI little siblings they're
021all little yeah and thank you guys for supporting Ruben and thank you Reuben for being such an outstanding role model to our schools it looks like you have a lot of people to share your ice cream with so uh good luck with that but thank you so much let's give Ruben another round of applause okay now I'd like to talk about brillen Lee brayan Lee is a shiny example of what it means to be respectful she is warm and accepting of anyone who seeks her attention providing emotional support for her fellow students her positivity and optimistic attitude brighten our room each and every day she looks forward to our daily lessons and is eager to participate demonstrating perseverance even when encountering challenges she is also a good role model and looks out for our younger
022students taking care to see that they know where to go and making sure they get to the buses on time she seeks out every opportunity to help those in need brilin also is an e is has an excellent work ethic taking time and care with each assignment we are thrilled to recognize brayan's effort with this award okay who' you bring with you okay so brilin just said she brought like her entire family here so if you guys can all stand up we i' like to recognize you that is part of but thank you guys for supporting bran and uh thank you it looks like we've got some more nice little character uh Role Models coming up from behind brilin so thank you so much for brilin to not not only for being a role model
023in our schools but also for your little siblings thank you let's give brayan another round of applause conat and our volunteer of the Year award um I'd like to invite Sue Haley and I must say I had the privilege of being um Miss Haley's principal when I was at John whan and continuing that privilege to have her grandchildren at Linville and so she comes in and serves in a different capacity but it's always great to have Sue with us um so a few words about Sue as a former rcps second grade teacher Sue Haley knows the importance of Volunteers in our schools we are so grateful to have Miss Haley volunteer in her grandchildren's classrooms at lynville each week Miss Haley helps with small reading groups and reads with students often asking them questions during
024reading to check their comprehension she also assists in some data collection to inform the teacher about students progress with their phonics knowledge in addition she assists students during math by running math stations in order to help increase their math skills Miss Haley can also be counted on to assist with the Book Fairs held in the library each year Mrs Haley is a shining example of the importance of having positive adults interacting with our students she is a valuable volunteer love it thank you so much for your service to our schools you are quite a resource and I'm sure we're we're just thrilled to have you so thank you did did you bring people tonight my husband and my daughter my grandchildren are too tired to somebody's been making them read a lot at school thank
025thank you all for sharing her with us thank you let's give her another round of [Applause] [Music] applause and our final character count school tonight will be Plains Elementary uh Dr Todd Johnson all right good job good evening it's a pleasure to be here at Plains Elementary School character development and student leadership is a top priority We Begin Each Day celebrating our students and actions that help shape our positive School culture so to start this evening I'd like to take a moment to introduce Theo Enis son of trip and Karen Enis Theo Enis displays good character each day in both his words and his actions he shows kindness to each classmate which is a wonderful example to others Theo treats others the way he wants to be treated in class Theo is always striving to
026do his best and his effort level is always topnotch he listens attentively and follows along follows along well Theo is respectful he's responsible to both adults and his peers alike and for these reasons Theo is an excellent choice for the Britney lamb Kelly cogsdale character counts award Thea who did you bring with you tonight my mom my dad my sister and two of my grandparents wonderful can you guys please stand up there you are to thank you all so much for for uh being such a great role model and teaching Theo to to uh be just a great Ro be kind and nice to his his fellow classmates um and uh let's give Theo another round of applause congratulations thank you and at this time I'd like to ask Ava Mill to please join me
027at the podium Ava is the daughter of alexie Cooper and Victor Mill Ava shows tremendous character each day in her words and her actions she puts forth her best effort in all things she is an incredible listener and she focuses even through the distractions around her when interacting with her peers she is gentle patient kind and encouraging she is trustworthy and dependable to adults and her peers without a doubt she is a positive influence on all of her classmates for these reasons Ava is an excellent choice for the Britney lamb Kelly cogsdale character counts award do you want to introduce your parents or you want me to it okay who are you bring with you tonight okay uh so can a a Ava Ava right I want to call say Eva Ava Ava stepdad can
028you please stand he brought her tonight so thank this thank you so much for uh all the all the um effort and training I want to say training that's not really the right word the role model that you all have been so that Ava can be uh a great role model to her students and thank you so much PLS is extremely special to me because that's where my children went and I know um that it the the students at all of our schools are special but plain students are really really special so thank you for being a role model to to to all of our students congratulations let's have another round of applause for congratulations is Caitlyn Burkey here this evening okay in addition to being a super busy mom and a great uh volunteer
029at Plains uh Caitlyn berky is also a phenomenal daughter and she celebrating uh her mother's birthday with her this evening and so she couldn't be here with us however um we do feel at PLS that when it comes to parent volunteers we feel we have an embarrassment of riches and in recognizing those people however we do have one volunteer who has done so much to coordinate the efforts of other outstanding parent volunteers and that is Caitlyn berky Caitlyn is a positive energetic and fun PES mom who has gone the extra mile in serving the students and the staff at Plains Elementary School as one of our teachers has said Caitlyn is a true gift to the Plains Community and she's one of the coolest moms in Rockingham County she has put so much time and
030effort into ex expanding our school's PTO welcoming all PLS families as members thanks to Caitlyn's leadership our current PTO has had boots on the ground in exploring new fundraising Partnerships and raising more than $20,000 towards our school's swing set initiative in their very first year together more than the previous 5 years combined they have raised funds which have been used to support amazing opportunities for our students and to help boost the morale and show appreciation for our hardwork pl's staff however as those closest to her would be quick to tell you Caitlyn is also extremely humble and she would be quick to acknowledge the contributions of everyone who works alongside her Caitlyn burky's infectious smile and radiant personality motivates and inspires others to make things happen in spite of her busy personal schedule in raising
031five phenomenal children Caitlyn has made plain's Elementary School a personal priority this evening it is my pleasure to recognize Caitlyn burky Plains Elementary School's volunteer of the [Applause] year and in full disclosure I think I gave somebody the wrong uh clein's Dairy Bar uh they're all the same okay so I'll go ahead and give this to you to give to to Ashley thank you and that concludes our um character counts and volunteer awards for the night uh we're going to move on to our Inspire Awards and our first Inspire award is prevented presented by Ashley bergoin presenting to uh Heather Kirkland from uh lynville Edom okay do me to take this off I'll go first okay hopefully I hold this far enough away my name is Ashley bergoin and tonight I'm here with Adrienne bergoin
032my daughter who is a very proud second grader at lynville Edom elementary school and I had something prepared to say but on the way here she told me she wanted to speak so I I will read my nomination but I'll let Adrien talk first the microphone I'm well I nominate somebody mom mom mom can you please hold my crown bit close to my mouth still so that I can hear me still drum roll Mrs Kirkland who I nominated did you want to say anything about Mrs Kirkland well I did want to say a few things thank you for get me back the microphone but what I like to say well Miss Kirkland is a good person she goes good hugs she's always good hug and um and she's and I she's always there yeah and
033she's always that was too close oopsie she's always there to help everybody let me talk well well and also she helps people their emotions she does the girl lunch girl lch that's hilarious well I well I will nominate I nominated that's the person I nominated and I was surprise surprise Mrs [Applause] Kirkland it was surprise okay Adrian and I got together and wrote this um that I was nominating Mrs Kirkland because she is the definition of going above and beyond the Call of Duty I have had the best experience with the staff at lynville Edom elementary school and I wish I could nominate all of them Mrs Kirkland has helped ease Adrian's transition to second grade when she was in first grade she facilitated a Sit along so she could see what her future classroom
034was going to be like after Summer she was incredibly nervous about returning to school and Mrs Kirkland allowed Adrian to come to school prior to back to school night to kind of do a miniature walk through her new school day Mrs Kirkland has called emailed and communicated with me every step of the way she is an amazing amazing person and I cannot be more grateful for her there are few teachers from my time in school that made a lasting impact on me and I know that Mrs Kirkland is going to be one of those people for Adrienne Adrianne did want to add when we wrote the Inspire word that she's kind to people a really good hugger and she helps people with their emotions and Mrs Kirkland should win right and here's all your stuff
035you have for her there you go and she brought her own gift congratulations Miss Kirkland and uh thank you guys for for presenting that was adorable um next we have Darlene Perez presenting to Danny Grog um from Broadway High School hello I'm Darlene Perez this is my son Jaden Perez and my nephew Christopher alvaranga for the past two years my son excuse me has participated in playing football at Broadway High School excuse me I've attended numerous meetings and he has made everyone in a room feel like we are a family he pours his heart out for all the players on and off the field he has a huge heart he is an amazing role model for these children and I honestly believe he deserves this so much I've never encountered a teacher coach father friend
036to be as amazing as him I'm glad my son Jaden and my nephew Christopher both have the opportunity to not only play for him but also learn from him thank you for your time apprciate thank you Miss Perez and congratulations Mr Grog um our final presenter will be Jerry Maron presenting to Dana Stover from Lacy spring and as they make their way forward um I I we do this all the time so I sometimes forget to tell you guys what's going on um the Inspire awards are nominations of Rockingham County public uh Schools Employees by the public so um anyone can make a nomination but typically during this segment of the Schoolboard meeting you're going to want to have your tissues handy because you get to hear some really amazing Stories like Miss Perez just
037shared with us so thank you all for sharing that and thank you to everyone who nominates and I will turn the floor over to you now thank you I nominated the head custodian at Lacy Springs Elementary School she's very inspirational to all students I've had two children complete Lacy and I still have a first grader there there that attends my CH my children have spoken of how great she keeps the school clean allowing them to help her in the past for example I know that at one point my child was having a bad day Miss Dana took her and spent a little time with her calmed her down and explained how things get better just to take a deep breath not only has she helped teach children about keeping their home their second home clean
038but teaching teaches them life lessons as well these children are like sponges they they absorb everything it only takes that one person to stay humble and ask them how how are they today how are you doing to brighten their day that is Dana I am a firm believer that Miss Dana generally cares for every student especially my two children one high school senior and the other in seventh grade still about still talk about Remember When Miss Dana said this and she did that I am truly blessed as a mother to know that there are staff members willing to go out of their way and make sure the schools are always clean from the top to bottom and knowing that they go out of their way and make the children feel loved thank you thank you
039and M over thank you so much for all you do for our schools that concludes our Inspire Awards and our Awards and recognitions for the night uh we will now move into public comments um I will remind actually let's take just a moment to let uh some well you guys move out quietly and I'll just quickly go over the rules for public comment uh please keep keep your comments to 3 minutes at 30 seconds a timer will a a chime will sound and um at the end of three minutes the microphone will be cut off and I may gabble you um please uh we we've just spent all this time talking about character counts please make sure that your comments reflect the character counts um and also please address the board as a whole not
040to individual board members also please please do let's not have any emotional outbursts from the audience our first Speaker tonight is Nancy Basset you knew you were first that's true I did know I was first I got here early so chair lore Schoolboard members Dr shifflet of course I'm Nancy Basset president of the Rockham County Education Association and tonight I'd like to address Dr shifflet as much as we Educators know that the PLC professional learning is so important for all of our Educators I just wanted to take a moment to thank you for today where you rearranged everything gave our Educators time to step back and breathe and have a teacher work day I've had many many comments today saying how wonderful it was that you support us so exceptionally well and I've heard nothing
041but good comments about how you're handling everything that we're going through I just wanted to take a moment and thank you for everything thank you thank you our next speaker will be Sarah horse good evening my name is Sarah Hurst and I'm addressing you tonight as a very upset mother what you all did two weeks ago on September 25th 2023 concerning Governor yin's model policies was beyond disappointing it was negligent and you have now opened yourself up to lawsuits you refus to pass the essence of the document the parts that you refuse to adopt are d g and H and you did that despite your attorney and our Virginia attorney general miara saying that it was safe and legal to do so tonight I'm going to focus on model policy G which addresses student participation
042in sex specific school activities and events and use of school facilities this policy had you passed it would have protected all of our children and would require our students to use the restroom and locker rooms that correspond with their biological sex except to the extent that federal law allows for transgender students however if a transgender student is using a facility not determined by their biological sex the policy requires or would required that parents and students be given the right to opt out of using those shared facilities and be given an alternative option because of your duplicity two days after your vote Rockingham County had an incident involving locker rooms at an athletic event that resulted in a transgender student from another division using the girls locker rooms while our girls were in the locker room
043changing how is this acceptable our girls were rightfully upset about their lack of privacy and respect they were not notified that this would be happening and they were not given an alternative location to change in from a very young age we teach our children about their bodies and their right to dignity and privacy many of us women and our daughters prefer a female doctor we we teach our sons and daughters not to change clothes in the same room this is logical what is not logical is taking away that protection and respect from our children when they are in your school this very incident turned parent fears into reality what are we waiting for what three members of this board did at the 25th of September meeting was a political maneuver to help one of your
044colleagues with her campaign you attempted to create a way to save her from having to vote no on Yan's model policies because only a Democrat would do that and a Democrat is not going to win in Rockingham County this year thank you thank you our next speaker will be uh Michael stimple thank you Dr shifflet chair lure and board members I am here today to talk about the importance of character um we had a bunch of students who showed exemplary character and character and does indeed count and I believe as rcps does that character counts the six pillars of character within the character counts program are trustworthiness respect responsibility fairness caring and citizenship these are all important character traits that we should all seek to model unfortunately we have a board member who has consistently
045shown a lack of character when publicly interacting with board members and the superintendent the board member has a history of T talking at a turn interrupting others and continuing to speak when they were asked to stop they have publicly called the previous superintendent a liar last meeting they interrupted the chair at least six times at least three three of those times were after they had been asked to stop I mean if any child did that in a classro room they' be taken to the principal's office character counts if only if character truly counts in rcps our public officials should also reflect the six pillars of character part of the root C root of this problem is this group this board member cares more about partisan politics than taking proper care of students in Rockingham County
046and it shows they cite the popularity of the governor as reasons to support a particular policy instead of thinking what is best for our students they make statements during board meetings about supporting about Schoolboard candidates they like rcps deserves public officials who are dedicated to our St students and not a partisan political agenda like the speaker before me you know was made clear that that is exactly what the current board member and that that person will that kind of agenda character counts thank you our next speaker will be Scott McAn okay my name is Scott mcclelen and I live in District 3 I would like to call attention to a parental right that we as public school Community all share and that's the parental right to a competent and ethical School Board we parents deserve
047a school board who prioritizes education through supporting the needs of students and teachers over a school board who chases after invisible boogey men like CRT and marxis indoctrination since the 2021 election our school board has devolved from working together to address practical and tough issues to a surprising level of infighting with much of that contention coming from my district I've noticed that when there presents a standstill or when more time is needed to fully understand an issue District 3 threatens the rest of the board with the election cycle we are now in if only districts three had more power than District three I I'm sorry if only District 3 had more power then District 3 could get what it wants which is what for the last two years we've seen seen District 3 prioritize religious
048prejudices and the thirst for political power over everything else that matters to our children and us as their parents as a school board member is it righteous to use one's position as a means to further Empower oneself at the expense of others children especially LGBT children or is it righteous to serve the school Community with kindness and understanding for voters this November is it best to elect three more candidates whose faith has also succumb to political idolatry is it best to allow candidates who come from the same kind of messed up families as the rest of us to assert their compromised religious morals onto our school system by limiting our children's access to knowledge and their need for self-expression as we inch closer to the November election we are now seeing candidates in District 5
049silen Des centers and anyone who questions their policies for example a well- endorsed candidate posted something racially contentious on their social media page and and then deleted and blocked a black person who respectfully took issue with their assertions issues have also been raised about this same candidate's trust trustworthiness relating to potentially susp suspicious work ethics but those voices have been deleted and blocked by the by the both the District 5 candidate and the district 3's board member the three District uh candidates endorsed by my school board member promis to improve our school system but if parents want to know the real threat that Christian nationalism poses to our CH our children's education our Public School System how our tax dollars are spent please take a look at what's happening in rural Oklahoma schools whose State
050superintendent is his State superintendent is neck deep in lawsuits thank you much our next speaker will be Drake Garrison so I was asked by some of you guys to come back here and offer alternative punishments uh than the ones you have now for the substance abuse policy so my name is Drake Garrison I am the senior class president at Broadway High School and I'm here to talk about alternative punishments for the policy on substances in school instead of the 10day suspension and 90 days of poor School standing for the first offense I recommend keeping the instruction time on substance abuse course I recommend that you have a 10 days of detention so they are not out of school and given more free time than they already have next I recommend instead of putting them in
051poor School standing that they are required to complete at least 20 hours of community service in two months and if not completed then put them into poor School standing the first offense should not should avoid the use of poor School standing so kids opportunities to stay busy with things like sports and clubs are not taken away sports and clubs being taken away can damage a kids mental health along with this it can destroy a kid's chance to go to college or earn scholarships for any subsequent defenses I recommend keeping the same punishments that you already have and I appreciate you guys listening to me and thank you so much have a nice day thank you Drake and Drake can you email that to us as well because I was trying to keep up but I
052did not oh you did a great job thank you um and Randy Simpson is our last speaker thank you for your time I'm here this evening to speak as a parent and as a taxpayer we're nearing the end of a Schoolboard election cycle marked with hostility and Discord allegations of marxist conspiracies blaming Librarians for child abuse demanding book bans candidates claiming to control the weather with campaign signs and downright unil behaviors we would not tolerate from our kids reasonable people who have been paying attention to this political theater around the Schoolboard election are wondering how we got here when did the train jump the tracks from making sure our kids are getting an education to Veiled threats and disinformation like many Schoolboard districts across the country Rockingham count is being manipulated by outside special interests
053a religious fascist group called the city Elders is backing several candidates with one candidate in particular proud to endorse their profoundly anti-democratic messages in between promises to take our schools Back to Basics were also told things like freedom from religions not guaranteed Rockingham County is enemy territory and separation of church and state is an idea created by Satan these are direct quotes by the way available on social media this is a sample of what groups like this and their carefully chosen candidates intend for our country one one Schoolboard District at a time division of government and Society along lines that favor those who share their beliefs while disenfranchising the rest of us of our constitutional rights this is the face of so-called Dominion theology or the belief that government ought to operate as an arm
054of the church and make no mistake they don't mean your church they don't mean you according to the elders anyone who believes that religion and government ought to be separate is an agent of Satan you can look at their website for confirmation of everything that I'm saying they don't hide it as a voting representative of the County's quote unquote enemy population I'd like to point out the irony of launching a campaign based on Dominion theology in Virginia of all places in 1786 Thomas Jefferson wrote the Virginia statutes statutes for Religious Freedom which became a template for the First Amendment I'm going to read a couple quick selections item one God hath created the Mind free all attempts to influence it by punishment or burdens or by civil incapacitations tend to only beget H hypocrisy and
055meanness and are a departure from the plan of the Holy author of our religion who chose not to propagate by coercion item two no man shall be compelled to frequent or support any religious worship place or Ministry whatsoever or shall be enforced restrained molested or burdened to do so Mr Jefferson's words remind us that Virginia and the US have the freedom to choose how they practice the religion no one whether they're a Schoolboard member and a attorney general a state representative or even the governor gets to plan and decide that for us thank you thank you and that concludes our public comments for the evening we will now move on to board member comments and we're going to start with Mr Cross thank you I appreciate the uh opportunity to share tonight thank you for
056everybody that showed up tonight and uh all of our presenters and even those who came and spoke uh for public comments thank you so much for being part of the process um first I want to say thank you to uh principal Dan Sanders uh for preparing everything here at the school today I really appreciate you're doing a great job in your first year as a head principal here and uh so thank you for everything that you're doing also Jennifer Madison assistant principal here at Bradway high school and Jennifer Nick and Paige Smith thank you guys so much for uh everything that you do here at Bradway high school and making this a great uh place for our children to attend school also want to thank uh Deputy Robinson the SRO here at um Bradway high
057school thank you Mr Robinson for everything that you do I get to see a lot of um cool things happening in the community with you and and always hear good positive things about you as SRO here at the at the um high school so thank you and that's all I have tonight again uh like Mr crw said thanks everybody coming out the presenters for the Inspire Awards Kelly cogdal Awards and public comments um tonight I'd like to highlight uh some unique educational opportunities that our kids get outside of the classroom uh there's a partnership with ches Peake Bay Foundation and our science department where they're able to take float trips on the South Fork of the shann andoa um we my Farm's been working with chese Bay Foundation for 20 years part of this program
058so last week we had two groups from Turner Ashby high school and then this this week we've got a couple others coming and it's it's always fun to see eight you know 8 to 20 kids out on the river getting ready to check out River ecology soil Health River Health and and they're able to do it outside of the classroom uh in their in their community in their County and then also the the mixture of some of those classes um it's a a course mixed with a bio course so it's combining two different subjects to to learn about something the same so I think that's super cool and I wanted to highlight that thank you thank you Dr moken thank you chair Laur I'd like to begin my highlights this evening with the Student Art
059show that happened the day after our last Schoolboard meeting and it's at the County office building our our school county office building and this there are many many wonderful uh paintings and artwork on the walls and I encourage everybody here to come and look at them they'll be up for an entire school year and please walk around our our halls and take a look at all the wonderful work our students are doing my second one is the uni unified basketball has begun for the 2023 school year 2023 24 it started uh last what Tuesday or Wednesday at Spotswood High School with ta playing Spotswood and if anybody I welcome everybody to come to the very next uh unified basketball game in the evening and that's going to be at Turner Ashby uh two days from
060now on Wednesday October the 11th I think you'll en enjoy it and my last highlight has to do with the bands the school the school bands that we all see at the football games are also performing in competitions and I know that ta uh went to the Hermitage classic in Richmond for an area competition on Saturday September 30th and did extraord ordinarily well they brought home five trophies and I think um Miss lur chair lur is going to talk about the band competition that just took place on Saturday at JMU but that's for you miss Laura thank you what a nice segue yes I was able to attend the uh portions of the parade of Champions which is basically an entire day long I mean I think it started at like 8:00 in the morning
061and went until 10 I think think final awards were at 10:30 at night um and bands just performed every was it 15 minutes um all that time uh except in the middle of the day they took a break and the um marching marching fighting Dukes is that marching Royal Dukes the marching Royal Dukes performed and man that's worth the price of admission uh 510 band members all playing their instruments right at you it's it's like you feel it in your bones and it is an awesome experience and just to see being an outsider seeing the same kind of camaraderie on the field that we see from our football teams or our sporting events or I even see it in the a um Community with FFA events just kids excelling at what they're passionate about is
062awesome um I always love to see things that that kids are passionate about and the reason that kids come to school and uh parade of Champions showcased it magnificently for our band students and it was a wonderful event and then um I know that Broadway as soon as they finished competing jumped on the bus and ran over to Charlottesville to do another competition and BR um Turner Ashby decided to maybe not make that trip over because they had homecoming that night so uh ta had homecoming game PR parade of Champions and then the homecoming dance and then some of them even came back to listen to Awards so um it was just quite quite a weekend for our students and I I really enjoyed um just being able to witness all of that uh and
063that and then Inspire Awards and character count Awards uh life doesn't get much better than that so it's it's been a great week so thank you all for supporting Rockingham County Public Schools and now I'm going to send it over to Dr Dr shifflet thank you uh first of all uh Miss Basset thank you for your kind words um I'm sure you haven't talked to the right people yet so you just keep uh talking to some folks you'll encounter some different opinions I'm sure and Drake thank you um for your comments tonight uh so often we get people who maybe have complaints or concerns and they don't bring us a solution but Drake offered a possible solution I'm not saying we're going to adopt it that's what we're going to do do but he says
064hey here's something we don't really like could you consider this and and that's thank you for that I appreciate that a few other things I'd like to highlight um in September the 1st of September I made a challenge to all of our students um to come to school every day in September and we finally got sort of a tabulation on that and about 30% of our students uh prek 12 attended every day in September so this week I'm going to be working with Caitlyn to make some videos that we'll send out to the school and all of those students at each school who had perfect attendance we're going to put their name in a raffle and we're going to take lunch to them uh the week after next as a way to say thank you
065for showing up every day in September uh so we're looking forward to that also I want to highlight two Saturdays ago uh my wife Katie and I attended the dinner theater at Spotswood High School and they did the murderous Mansion of Mr Uno and the students were absolutely terrific it was I was just very entertained for a couple of hours and I'm always amazed at what our students can do right I mean just unbelievable uh and then last week I had an opportunity I was invited to go to lynville Edom and they were having a flag ceremony and the American Legion Post came out and was showing the students how to um with dignity and honor um destroy American flag right they had some old Flags they were going to burn and retire thank you
066Dr mcquin couldn't find the word and so the kids had great questions and you know it's a ceremony that they probably won't get to see too many times in their life it's the first time I'm you know so many years old and it's the first time I had actually you know been able to participate and see that and then lastly last week I was invited to South River to go to their a day and that was a great um opportunity for our kids to just be outside have opportunities for as you know as you were talking earlier Jack other you know learning experiences and so miss Dunsmore the school counselor there puts that on and you know and also a big shout out to the Community Partners who come in and give up a day
067at the office or whatever they're working on to come in and spend it with our with our children because it's not just Rockingham County Teachers presenting it's folks from the bank it's folks from the co-op it's a farmer next door who brings in his tractor and so we appreciate the community supporting our schools and in such a in such a fashion so thank you thank you we will now move on to our um action items the first item on our action agenda is the minutes members do I have a uh motion to accept the minutes so move thank you Mr Cross do I have a second second thank you Mr Dixon is there any discussion hearing none we'll vote on accepting the minutes um as presented all those in favor please say I I oppose
068same sign motion carries unanimously next item on the agenda are bills and mileage Dr shifflet chair lore and members of the board I recommend approval of the September 2023 bills as presented thank you Dr shifflet members to have a motion I move to follow superintendent's recommendation to approve September bills as presented thank you Mr Cross do I have a second second thank you Dr mooken is there any discussion hearing none all those in favor of accepting the uh bills and mileage as presented please say I I post same sign motion carries unanimously uh and finally uh field trips Dr shifflet uh chair Lord and board members I have several field trips for your consideration uh Broadway High School TSA Leadership Academy November the 17th to the 19th 20238 students Hartfield Virginia Turner ashy High School
069FCCLA National Conference November the 9th through the 12th 20123 four students Birmingham Alabama and mass nut Technical Center FFA a produ production October 20th to the 22nd 2023 for students Purdue University Lafayette Indiana FFA a production October 27th through 1 23rd 31st 2023 for students Washington Courthouse Ohio and then uh the National FFA convention October 31st and November 4th nine students Indianapolis and I do recommend approval of these field trips thank you Dr shifflet members have a motion I move that we approve the the field chips as presented by Dr sh thank you Dr mooken do I have a second second thank you Mr Dixon is there any discussion yeah I got I got a question Dr chifflet when uh we have students going to Alabama and Ohio and Indianapolis uh does a school division
070help out on some of that cost for some of the students who are competing at National events we do try to help them and then usually the school does numerous fundraisers to support those calls so to try to lift the burden from the student the parents as much as possible any further questions good question all those in favor of um approving the field trips as presented please say I I oppose same sign motion carries unanimously thank you all very much we will now move on to uh information items uh Dr shifflet I believe you have an update on your first days thank you um chairl and members of the board um when I first was appointed as superintendent I developed a plan for my first 100 days and just as a point of reference I
071did not count Saturdays and Sundays although as you just heard I worked on a Saturday here a few weeks ago but that's not really work going to a performance so in November around November the 22nd to be exact would be 100 days but I wanted to give a quick update uh just about sort of kind of what I've been up to um my first 100 days were dedicated to student safety achievement and and engagement uh governance and Schoolboard relations school and community relations and establishing our Focus for the 203 24 school year and Beyond uh and part of my actions what I was planning to do and what I've been doing is listening right I wanted to listen uh and I'm still listening uh trying to build relationships uh ones that are already in existence
072and making new forging new relationships to assess where we are and to plan and I highlighted some activities and I'm just going to kind of go through quickly what some of these are so I wanted to meet with all the School principles to talk about their particular school safety and and achievement data and we check the box we did that um spent a probably an hour with each principal and just had some questions and answers and talked about their schools I met with all the curriculum supervisors and Department directors to review again safety and achievement data in regards to their area and we've taken care of that that uh worked with an external agency to conduct a needs assessment for me to make sure that I wasn't missing something right just you know people saying
073what they wanted me to hear but I wanted to get a true um sort of an anonymous approach um conducted a uh two-day retreat with our executive cabinet to build our relationships and strengthen our team and I think we have a really great team with Dr alterer Mrs abery Mr Moyers and uh Dr painer and one of the things came out of that is we met and talked and said how can we be better is our daily huddles so every afternoon at 3:30 we hop on a Google meet and we talk about things that have come up and how can we address this and and and make this right uh that's been very beneficial uh looking at our professional development plans uh that support our teachers administrators parros and then also looking at our assessments
074and where are we with our assessments and what are we trying to do moving forward um as far as governance uh you are very aware that we met July 12th with Dr Wayne Harris to talk about our working relationship and then we had a full day work session on the 19th and we continue to work on our working agreement that's based on the six pillars of character and what that does that look like and and how you know how do we work collaboratively together uh to be better and then school and community relations uh meeting with elected officials both at County and state government I've been uh afforded the opportunity to uh meet with delegate uh ran and delegate will and talk with them and speak to them about concerns from Rockingham County Public Schools
075and they were very attentive and willing to listen uh met with numerous community and Business Leaders and I again I don't want to mention them all here but I've been trying to be involved and when I go to these places and these groups sometimes they ask me to present and I said well I'll share a few things but I'm here to listen right I I want to hear what you you have to say about Rockingham County Public Schools and where we need to go and what the future looks like for our students I've met uh with a parent advisor or teacher advisory uh students and classified are yet to come uh numerous nonprofit groups such as Big Brothers Big Sisters just one example every Monday I meet with a the regional superintendent meeting uh every
076Monday morning at 8:30 we on a Google meet talking to each other about what's what's happening I participated in Rockingham County Fair pretty Faithfully I was there at three different nights serving lemonade hot dogs and snow cones so that's a little bit um I visited every school in Rockingham County and I'm on my second go around uh attended rcps athletic competitions uh I've been to I think I got to get to a Turner asrey varsity game I've been to all the JV games I've watched all the Middle School volleyball games I got to get to a brad Broadway volleyball game so I have a list of these things I've been to the cross country meet um so I have a list of things going to the band competition which is the next Fine Arts event
077on Saturday uh did the dinner theater uh and then communicating so I've tried to communicate you probably hopefully have seen the videos I've put out to parents but you know the first five before the first five days of school I put out videos and I continue to use those to uh to to communicate what we're doing and what we're trying to accomplish uh and then thinking about um when we had our Retreat this summer talking to our principles about you know getting back to our our calling and our purpose of public schools and what we're trying to accomplish in Rockingham County and addressing some of the concerns like attendance that came up quite uh frequently in my conversations uh Comm communicating our priorities with teachers families as well uh and again part of those videos
078was part of that and then the last piece um to start this process of a 5-year strategic plan and so um as part of my first 100 days I wanted to begin working on the plan with no intentions of finishing it we just wanted to get started and um even the external audit made the same recommendation you're right in wanting to do this so I explored several options with organizations and firms that are known for their work in Assisting School divisions with this process uh I did not seek an RFP because I wasn't planning to spend that much money but I wanted to have someone to come in and work with us and so I selected Cambridge services to facilitate our work in creating a uh a 5-year strategic plan so why Cambridge well several
079of their Consultants are familiar with us one of them is Dr castner and so he works with Cambridge and he is familiar with rocking County Public Schools we're familiar with him they also have some excellent references I talked to school divisions who have used them in the past and try to figure out what you know how they operated what they did um they offer a very thorough process which will take over seven months to complete so although we may begin the the work in November it will be into next you know May June before it's finalized and comes to the board for a vote uh and they involved numerous stakeholders which was a very high priority for me probably my number one priority a couple of firms um they weren't doing that as much and
080I said this is what it has to be and they're and they're very affordable as far as price goes they were actually one of the cheapest organizations I talk with although I didn't want to make that the number one uh reason so uh at the next uh school board meeting uh Dr Caston will be here to talk with you folks about the process and again what that looks like is very structured and getting folks to the table soliciting as much feedback as we can to determine where we go for the next five years and um you can continue to follow my work on um the in terms of visits and and talking to organizations so it's it's there for people to see so just trying to be fully transparent as as to what we're doing
081and how the first 100 days are going so any questions or comments regarding that I I tell this story quite often but during the superintendent interview process I remember you coming in on the second time we we interviewed you and and I'm you gave us your first 100 day entry plan I said that's the best entry plan I've seen in the day and you said that's a best one you're going to see all day so um I I appreciate what you're doing I've had other Communications with um other board members from other counties that have seen your videos and uh they've informed me they're going to steal you away from Rockingham County and I I told him that's not going to happen so U but I've gotten a lot of compliments from the videos that
082you sent out out U just being very transparent with the uh Community uh and so thank you for the hard work that you've you know many people may not just know how bad that uh Dr shiet woned this job I mean he turned down other positions other jobs uh and I feel like I won uh the lottery uh when we got you as superintendent so thank you for what you're doing and I look forward to working with you over the next couple years thank you thank you keeps kind off thank you um you ready to roll into the redistricting proposal now yes now that you've had 100 days now the hard stuff starts right give myself a little time right so so redistricting proposal so I'll I'll try to say the word proposal as many
083times as I can during the presentation because it's just that it's a proposal um and it's probably I I would say maybe one of the more difficult things that the school board has to contemplate and do it's it's not something that you look forward to doing uh but it's part of I think our due diligence and I'm going to talk about that so um Schoolboard policy does state that the school board uh determines the attendance areas for each school and if there needs to be a change the superintendent will make a a recommendation so uh so I'm just coming tonight with a proposal with a recommendation and then we'll have some time to to talk about that and and what does that look like so the first question may be why do we need to
084redistrict our students um some may consider this a necessary evil right it's nothing that you know families uh like their schools right you you heard tonight as we're doing you know the character counts and the volunteers right you hear the volunteers are putting hours into their child's school and so they're connected and and we value that it's important to us but un fortunately we can't pick schools up and move them to where the population has grown I mean that would be a much easier solution for us but it's just impossible and so to the maximum extent possible we want to try to use as much available space in our schools so that we are not placing a burden on our taxpayers to build additional schools so we're seeing you know some overcrowding that's beginning to
085creep into Cub Run mod video Spotswood and so instead of asking uh taxpayers to pay higher taxes to build another Elementary School let's try to use what space we have within reason right so we don't have to make that request until maybe 5 years or 10 years or 15 years down the road so we want to you utilize uh as much of our space as possible to accommodate not only what we have but also where do we anticipate growth um also this is an opportunity to to increase enrollment in our smaller schools uh that will consistently allow for more than one teacher at each grade level uh helps with balancing classes in these schools we find ourselves in a predicament with some of our smaller schools like aine lynville uh folks run where maybe there's
086only 25 students in a class right and so that's a tough decision do we hire another teacher and then we have a class of 12 and 13 which is probably too small or do we keep a class of 25 which is probably too large right so can we increase the enrollments and get them to a place where maybe it can be a little bit more consistent uh with their enrollment it's not fluctuating we don't have teachers moving from grade level to grade level and it also gives principles an opportunity to sometimes Shuffle students around and sometimes you may find uh you know two young men who really enjoy each other's company and when they're together they can have a good time and sometimes s it's nice to be able to put them with different teachers
087and so that would give us a little flexibility some things we considered as we talked about this redistricting uh as much as possible not uh we tried not to move students from their High School attendance area Okay as much as possible however this uh plan this proposal does include some students but not all changing high schools and I'm going to talk about the details as we go through the presentation I relied heavily on our transportation department for guidance uh because we want to make sure the uh proposed bus routes are efficient and effective we really didn't want two buses going down the same Highway picking up school students taking them to different schools and as far as attendance area not Elementary versus secondary but you know St buses picking up for you know Riverbend and
088Elton Elementary School how can we make sure we're very very thoughtful about that uh try to make sure we're not significantly uh significantly changing the amount of travel time for students in many cases travel time has been decreased and then um we also reviewed current and upcoming developments within our County and including our towns so trying to get a pulse on what we can expect to come in the in the development uh the timeline you've seen this before uh Dr shyo in May presented uh to the school board just sort of a preliminary proposal and um we had shared that we would come back here tonight to do an update based on current enrollment data uh and the public will have opportunity to provide comments regarding the proposed plan uh at October 23rd meeting at
089uh the County Administration Building uh the 13th at Spotswood High School and the 22nd at the County Administration Building uh with the proposed plan to vote November 27th again that may change based on what else the school board would like us to examine and to think about um along with this idea of timeline I think I think considering the potential growth and development within the Rockingham County we may need to revisit this a little more frequently I think the last time we talked about redistricting may have been 2019 uh when we redistricted some students from The Grotto South River School to Elton Middle School East Rockingham High School um and so we just me to keep a pulse on this and watch numbers watch enrollment in the May proposal there was a suggestion that we
090shift some students from Peak viiew to CB run however the current recommendation that I'm offering does not include this uh however right we may need to see how quickly growth in uh UDA occurs we may have to come back next year another year but one of the things as we were looking at this and I want to thank Justin Moyers because he spent a lot of time helping me with this looking at numbers and Chris hours with Transportation as we were looking at numbers and looking at growth we were afraid if we move kids out of Cub Run then mov the large parti into Cub Run we really would probably put them back at where they are now I mean not quite and their current attendance area is in an area where there's the most
091projected growth right so we wanted to be thoughtful about that uh and again these are these are predictions if you will so just want to give you a sense of kind of why we why we're doing this and kind of how our what our approach was so our current enrollment and capacity numbers I'm just going to run through these quickly uh Broadway High School you see there's an asterisk there that uh would include when the addition is complete so right now they don't they cannot hold nearly 1300 students but after the addition they would be able to their enrollments 911 they have capacity of 382 students East Rockingham 444 Spotswood 77 Turner H Turner Ashby 242 so if you see that bottom right hand corner with we have capacity in our high schools for 1100
092students so we have some room for growth um at the middle schools Elon Middle School is the tightest one we have they only have two open seats um but I again Justin and I looked at some projections and if we take all of our current elementary schools and we move them forward in three or four years from now they're actually going to have 40 or 50 empty seats provided there's not significant growth in those areas and we know they're building houses and GR and macville so we'll have to watch that and we have some plans maybe with the Capal Improvement um um plan to address some of that uh Jay Frank has uh almost 300 seats manav videoo 99 and Wilbur Pence over 300 so again you see at the middle school we have some
093some some availability and when we talk about capacity we're meaning how many students we can fit into the building comfortably not Staffing right we're just making an assumption that we would hire the teachers and staff to make it happen elementary schools C run a capacity of 800 and it's at 765 not much capacity there but here's something I want to just caution this board about um although you could maybe put 800 students in that building that cafeteria is the same size as the cafeteria at Peak View and Mountain View and Riverbend that has 600 students it's hard to feed all of those kids at one setting within a reasonable time frame for lunch so we have to be mindful of that uh Elton elementary school has 331 folks run 153 John C 95 John wha
094148 uh Lacy spring 166 lindville Eden 39 mville 160 uh Mountain View 137 ottobine 121 Peak views 50 so there is a school as I mentioned earlier we have to keep an eye on and just you know they still have some room but when will they hit that at Max Capacity uh Plains 139 Pleasant Valley 129 and then Riverbend 238 and South River 111 so Elementary total is 925 so again all of those seats so to speak are not maybe sometimes where we need them to be based on the population so it can be a little bit deceptive you can't just maybe assume well we got plenty of room over here well it's not where we need the room so we have to keep that in mind so the proposed recommendation we would um move
095169 students from Cub Run to Lacy spring we would move 70 students from manav videoo to jrank Hillyard and 108 students from Broadway I mean excuse me from Spotswood to Broadway then um and that and that's the area that does involve high school that's a high school shift as well the other shifts are all elementary only meaning those students would go to a different Elementary school but they would still attend the um middle school and high school that they're currently in so that would not be a change so from Lacy spring to lynville Edom there would be 27 students from Lacy spring to Plains there would be 30 students from Plains to Fox Run 31 from John C Meers to folks run 37 and from Mountain View to udbine 81 and from John John whan
096to ottobine 28 again this is a recommendation uh but if the board says hey we like this or we want to move with this here's what capacity would look like it's at Broadway you would still have room for 274 more students even if you put those hund I think what was 108 in here spots would then increase to 185 J Frank would still remain at 225 mon aidia would increase to 169 Cub would have 204 they'd be right about 600 still our largest Elementary School um folks run would still have capacity for 85 students uh just not sure where we would find how we would draw lines to to to capture those seats it'd be really hard uh John C Meers would have 132 whan would have 176 Lacy spring 54 Le would become pretty
097tight with nine but right now there's not a lot of development in that part of the community uh Mountain View 218 uh Plains 140 so that's what it would ultimately look like and so I'm going to kind of walk through what the scenarios are in each situation so if you can see the boundry uh in that picture that's where that's where we are redistricting that group those families those students it's north of Harrisonburg north 11 uh that's the 169 from Cub Run to Lacy um talk about closer bus rides that'll be significantly shorter for those those students uh the 70 from monov videoo and the students from Spotswood these are the roads that are impacted I'm not going to read all of those to you but those are the roads this is all in the
098presentation it's there for the public to see uh these are the roads that were um the lines have been redrawn and that will have a would have a change in in in placement so that's scenario one scenario two because we're taking students um into Lacy spring we're going to take some students out of lacy spring and so this is out a little bit um on Beyond crotzer road and these highways uh these roads here would be impacted so these are students going from Lacy spring to Linville Edom uh to make sure we have sufficient room and then scenario three some more students leaving Lacy spring going to PLS this is out um these highways out towards 10th Legion Road um out that way closer to so the furthers removed from Lacy spring getting into the
099Plains Elementary School scenario four some students going from PLS to folks run uh we have had some conversations with the uh management um in Timberville about looking at some expansion and growth so we want to be thoughtful about making sure they have room for growth uh so taking some students out um from North Mountain Road um and taking some of those students towards folks run and then scenario five taking some students from John C Meyers to folks run uh thinking about um like down turle toown Road and some of those students instead of coming into John C Meyers would go towards uh folks run and again these students would all still attend J Frank Hillard Middle School they would all attend Broadway high school and then um scenario six taking some students from Mountain View
100to udbine Elementary School uh out sort of 33 West that way taking some of those students out from Clover Hill uh into into aine and then scenario seven is pulling some students from John Wayland to autobind uh out through uh some of those roads like Silver Creek Road out through uh dry Hollow Road and pulling some of those students so there is the recommendation as far as what particular Parts would be changed redistricted so our next steps is we plan to send a letter home to All Families who uh would be impacted by The Proposal right send them a letter just to say this week we are considering redistricting if the proposed plan would be accepted your home is in that neighborhood right so that way people aren't trying to guess do I live on
101that part of the road or am I over here or this side that side they would know specifically yes I'm impacted no I'm not uh so we'll we'll be um sharing that with them and then obviously we have opportunities for uh you know the public to give comment uh obviously welcome suggestions if there's another way to look at this or to view it or to you know see what else we can do uh but trying to think about again alleviating some pressure there that we're seeing in that growth development area uh outside of Harrisonburg and then making room for growth right we see Ryan Holmes building in in in cers Valley we see outside of oel Springs they have a home so we've got to be thoughtful about as these students come how can we
102rearrange things to accommodate that as much as possible and again we're not going to fill up every seat at folks run or autoby it's not going to happen but how do we use as much of our space as possible be creative uh and again without traveling students you know long distances let's be reasonable and and what does that look like uh so that we can be good stewards of our taxpayers money uh and make good decisions and and I it's hard right cuz that burden falls on us and it's tough right to have to do that uh what questions do you have for me just about the plan or what we're wanting to do are you going to make this PDF or the presentation available on the agenda uh yes yes it this presentation will
103be on the agenda for the public to see and then we'll put it up on our website so folks can see it there as well so they don't have to find it or look for it as much and then again the families who it impacts they should be looking for a letter from us this week right we'll send it to the you know with the student it'll come home in the backpack Express I guess maybe we'll try to email some but we want to make sure we're clear because there's some schools when they we didn't mention right we didn't mention some some schools so you're at Turner Ashby we didn't mention Turner Ashby so you don't have to worry but the schools that we mentioned tonight if you're there and and you're going to be
104impacted we'll send you that letter because we want to make sure people are clear about what we're proposing and we will be talking about this for the next uh three school board meetings right and voting on at the second board meeting in November correct yeah yeah we have three more board meetings before the and again it depends on what information you receive what else you want me to explore right I mean right we don't want to rush it at the same time you know if we think about we just use if we go with this proposal taking out 169 from Cub Run to Lacy right that may be an impact on personnel and so we need to be thoughtful about what does that look like and we want to do that sooner rather than later
105because we get into February we're starting to talk about we're really deep into budget and do we end up finding that we need a a teacher or two to to make all this work out uh because it trust me I think you take these 11,000 students so to speak and kind of shake them up move them around the numbers will just not work out perfectly right there there'll be some outliers where we'll have to make some adjustments so yeah but we'll we'll try to work through the process and see see what feedback we receive um yeah I really appreciate you thinking about Cub Run as well because they are um pretty overcrowded out there when you go into Cub Run you look and just see how big that school is and how many students are
106there so to take that many students out and to give them another 100 back it just wouldn't they wouldn't feel the difference I don't think uh so thanks for seeing that yeah and that means a lot I know to the to the principal to the schools uh to our teachers and there's a you go to cabon it's a big school really big school yeah now it is and again as as I looked at the numbers and again thanks to Justin for all his help putting these projections together and working with with me on this and explaining it to me numerous times and then we I said oh my goodness well we take these kids out and put more in we're man they're not really even going to think we had a redistricting proposal right it's
107going to feel the same and then we looked at growth and they're projected right now to have the most growth right for you know as far as development and building so it didn't it just didn't seem like the right thing to do at the time but again looking at some of the developments we're going to have to just be on our toes and do the best we can um the one thing I'm confident of is that that uh pick one of the 15 elementary schools and your kids are going to get a good education all right um we have great principles and leaders and teachers and so I I feel confident I that we're sending someone to a bad place not there's just no way um and I think people know that as well it's
108just the connections that they already have with their current schools and I respect that right um I I understand that uh just seeing this tonight for in this presentation um are the scenarios all independent or are they dependent on how much you know we go with one we're now affecting seven or we some of these would be uh dependent right so if we let's say we decide that we're not going to take any students out of lacy spring but we're going to take all 169 from Cub Run we have a problem right so it's a little bit of Shifting and adjustment uh and again there's some there's some intentionality here to to get some more students in folks run and udbine right I mean that's in lynville Edom right and and I I've talked to
109those three principles and they've said we need more students right because of some of those scenarios I described earlier right you got one third grade teacher and will they will there be enough students next year to justify two fourth grade teachers maybe not and then there's lot a lot of in you know lot of you fluctuations and so they would valow you to have more students so just to be transparent to the public I thank you Dr Shi and your team that we met with uh Miss lore and myself and uh two Board of Supervisors and Stephen King and the Planning Commission over at the county admin building last week and um y'all are we we're we are concerned with growth in our community and where those numbers are going to put us here in
110the future so thank y'all for it was good to be at the table with County admin with the Planning Commission with rcps and just really communicating and looking at the numbers that we could have in the next few years because we could be right back up in there at Cub Run where we're at right now yeah so for your hard work I'm going to ask Justin here publicly now that one of the upcoming meetings if he would share a little bit of that presentation for all the board members in the community to see thank you I thought Dylan nicely did a tremendous job explaining that to us the other day and um it's it's not necessarily a perfect system but it's it gives us some idea and um maybe Justin can share that and just
111what we're trying to do so as a developments being proposed or coming about we have some way of trying to at least make a guess an EST an educated guess of what it may how it may impact the schools and uh yeah that was a great meeting and you know uh we're on the same team right with the Board of Supervisors we're you know working together and so it's important for us to sit at the table and talk through these things so yeah that was a wonderful opportunity I think uh um you know Mr King reached out to us Mr Armstrong and said let's meet and talk and I said absolutely it's great so yep thank you anything else questions comments concerns thank you very much thank you and we do encourage everyone to uh
112to watch those backpacks for sure and um look for that that correspondence and also get involved uh let us know your thoughts on all of that um especially if there if you see something we don't we definitely would need to hear that next on the agenda is Dr aliver with some policy revisions for us here we go chair L members of the board Dr shifflet um I'm pinch hitting for Becky tanell tonight she wasn't able to be here um there's just one uh policy for your information this evening uh it is policy gcdc teaching experience allowable credit uh and there's just one adjustment in there um there had been a provision in the policy about how we accounted for um experience of teachers who had been at came to MTC with um more or over
11320 years of experience and how we were uh providing credit for them uh we are making an proposing an adjustment to essentially treat their experience like uh any other employee Any teacher so um that is just one couple words that are struck through basically changing that provision so um again you can review that if you have any questions you can reach out to uh Becky tanell or myself um and then it'll be back for Action at the next meeting thank you members any questions thank you Dr alifer Dr shifflet so at our last board meeting um the board had authorized me to develop proposed policy revisions that incorporate reference to the sections of the model policies as well as any other suggested policy revisions to the current and applicable existing Rockingham County Schoolboard policies uh
114and then with the idea that the board would undertake uh continued review and consideration of model policies d g and H so uh my um work was to reference policy a b c e and f and so I have for you tonight for information um a number of policies and I'm just going to highlight just a little bit if I if I may uh policies AC a d IJ are consistent with or more commensurate with or I should say more more comprehensive than uh the model policies in regards to section a section A of the model policy okay and then I got a stack of papers here so it's all right and then um gfha GBA JFC JFC GCL and GB a JF ha relate to section B okay then I just want to let
115you know how these are they're referen they're all reference you'll see at the bottom I want but I want to let you know where they how they corresponded and then uh joa uh and Jo correspond with c e now I did not uh address F not because I was being negligent but there was some expression that maybe we should review our dress code it is gender gender neutral right so there wasn't a problem with that in the model policies it's gender neutral but just maybe we should just address the dress code right maybe in general so these are for your information uh and then we still need to um process and work through uh D which is identification of students uh G uh sex specific activities and facilities in h Athletics so for your information
116thank you um so in regards to that board members if you guys can please send me dates that work with you all so that we can get together and discuss uh policies for G D GNH H uh at your earliest convenience I would appreciate it are there any other questions just to be clear we're two weeks from the last time we discussed this and the model policy came out July 18th of this year and we're still looking for dates to meet to go over DG andh which is really the meat of the policy that you guys rejected at the last school board meeting so when do you think uh Mr chair will we be going um to be taken care of DG and H to make sure that we're in compliance with that in the
117model policy what do you project that um I've asked repeatedly for you to send me dates for things and uh haven't gotten dates from you so as soon as you can send me some dates I'm happy to put up to to schedule a meeting for us all to meet to be clear to the public that comment have you ever made uh sent me a date for this for DG andh have you ever asked me for a date until tonight I've asked you to provide me with dates repeatedly yes for d g& for what you just accused me of tonight yes you you did yes okay please share that with me so I can share that as well with the public because that is a lie thank you for your input if you can please get
118me dates I would appreciate it board members any further any further um comments great next on the agenda is the financial oh as actually financial review you guys have that in your packets um so please review that at your convenience we're moving on to other business board member questions and comments Mr Cross we're going to start with you I yeah I I really do want to say tonight this is a fact that I'm Jesus said to be angry but sin not right and so when when there's disagreement there should be disagreement and decisions that are made being made for over 11,000 children you know if all we're doing is rubber stamp and what the superintendent wants to do then this board is not um not needed and so tonight um as we as we again
119as you said tonight that that you've sent me information to ask for dates when we can meet on DG andh that's not true and so you make me look like a liar before the public and that's not true at all and so I'd like for you to produce to the public tonight when you sent me those dates for us to meet on policies DG andh because that is just simply not true Miss lore I'm at the very beginning of the school year this year I'm I sat down because I have a a 8-year-old daughter that I care the world about and I sat there because of our church school only had a few kids going back um there this coming year and I I thought very hard whether I was going to send my daughter
120back to public school and I really had a a hard issue with just contemplating whether I was going to send my daughter back and to see what happened in our public schools on Wednesday two days after that that you guys rejected the model policy this is not politics for me I I I was angry I was very angry that we could have stopped a male from going into a girl's locker room and from these girls having to be traumatized that they don't have a private place to change when they're at school or at a school event so this isn't politics with me if you think it is then you got another thing coming it's not politics and the problem is is that we live in a generation where where we live in a cancel culture
121where people are afraid to say anything and I get that because if say anything now you're a homophobe now you're trans you hate trans kids but you know what I'll be that person that people can hate because I'll be their voice to make sure they're not being violated of their civil of their rights to be at a private place to change in and I was upset when I spoke with parents who were afraid to send their kids back the following two days later to a meet because their children were anxious that there was going to be a boy in the locker room so this isn't politics for me we need to address DG and H get this taken care of stop playing politics and address these issues that are very serious and they are touching
122our children in Rockingham County so that's my comments for tonight you may think I'm a I'm a big bully or a big Ogre I really don't care what you think of me but it's these kids that I care about and that's why came on this board is because I care about them and I love them and I will be their voice when everyone else will be is being criticized and not want to say anything I will speak up for them so what I'm asking you guys to do is to vote on DG andh get something into place I know you don't want to adopt it well we need to get something into place to protect our kids going forward and also that our staff knows how to deal with these situations when it when something
123happens that's the big deal here is that they know where we stand because we're the board we make the policies here for the Rockham County Public Schools and so our employees need to know hey what do we do when this happens because sure enough they don't want to violate no violate no one's rights and so they need to have some policy to stand on and they need the board to act and to move we've had plenty enough time to act on this and we are dragging our feet to address these issues so I'm asking the board very kindly tonight I know I got very passionate but I'm asking the board very kindly tonight let's address DG andh we should have already done that it's been two weeks since we've not we've we've rejected it with
124there's been no talk no emails from from any of from the board sent out to me of communicating on when we can meet except tonight but yet I was accused of not sending you dates back when we can meet on DG andh so I would like also a public apology when when you feel it's necessary to say Mr Cross I'm sorry that I lied because that's not part of our pillars of character and that's all I've got to say Thank you Mr Dixon Dr moken yes Mr Cross on August 29th at 7:24 p.m. I sent you an email asking you to please send me some dates that you're available to meet after I receive your dates I will work on a time to with the full board to meet and agree on these goals to
125work on these goals you replied back and I'm not going to read it because it's not very nice um and then I replied back on August 30th at 2:39 p.m. in order to ensure the success of creating meaningful policy for Rockingham County Public Schools I believe we need to have a work session to discuss the pillars of character for Effective board communication before we can work on integrating the model policies into our policy manual can you please provide me with dates you are available for a work session to include a legal update recording regarding the model policies on August 30th at um 3:18 p.m. you replied back I am not attending your work session I will attend the legal session please let me know what time it will begin and I let you know what
126time we had that legal session um I've repeatedly asked you for dates so I'm sorry for DG and H our d& not part of the model policies miss gilon when was when was our last board meeting we're not getting into a back and forth on this is September 25 so September 25th was our board meeting when when Mr folk had our attorney draft up a motion which you also you and Miss mookin was a part of to accept the five out of the eight but reject DG andh and so there's been again there's been no communication from you as you said that you have communicated to me and I haven't responded back to you concerning DG andh and I'm I I'm I do not appreciate you telling the public tonight that I have not responded
127back to you on that on those policies because that is not true Dr shifflet do you have any F any questions I'm good board members we have reason to enter close session do I have a m motion 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 A1 Personnel specific public officers appointees or or employees for the purpose of considering such individuals assignment appointment promotion performance demotion salaries disciplining or resignation and A2 one or more particular students specifically relating to requests regarding compulsory School attendance based on religious beliefs that would involve disclosure of information contained in a Scholastic record concerning a student thank you Dr mcin do I have a second second thank you thank you Mr Cross is there any
128discussion hearing none all those in favor of going into Clos session please say I I I oose same sign thank you all oh wait I have just a little bit of discussion um do we have any students in the house yay thank you guys for coming um uh I hope you found it enjoyable I hope you learned something tonight everyone please have a safe trip home and we look forward to seeing you guys in the future meeting we are now in close session thank you