2023 03 27 - RCPS School Board Meeting

001Good evening. I'd like to call this meeting this uh March 27th meeting of the Iraham County School Board to order. Uh thank you all for being here tonight. Uh we have a pretty full agenda and it looks like a pretty full house. Thank you all for coming. Uh we're going to try to move along as quickly as possible. First item, the first thing we need to do is approve an agenda though. Do I have a motion to approve the agenda? I move the agenda. Thank you, Mr. F. Do I have a second? Second. Thank you, Mr. Cross. Is there any discussion? Hearing none. All those in favor of the agenda as presented, please say I. I. Motion carries unanimously. Uh next, please uh remove your hats and rise for the uh pledge of allegiance. I

002aliance to the flag of the United States of America and to the stands nation. Thank you. You may be seated. And please join me in a moment of silence. Thank you. Next item on the agenda, um, we're going to go to school recognitions. The Britney Lamb Kelly Cogdale Character Counts Award and I believe uh, Miss Jackie Baker, there you are. Good evening and welcome everybody. Welcome Chairman Lure, Dr. Shikel, members of the board, and also to the full house that we have. I know that we're competing with a Virginia Tech basketball game later, so I wasn't expecting so many visitors. Um, I also am glad to see a lot of former students. I know you're here for a government class and not because you miss middle school, but it's good to see you all. Um,

003I would like to begin our portion of this evening by um, number one expressing gratitude to um, my staff. You may not be able to tell based on how wonderful our auditorium looks, but we had a musical here this weekend. So, yesterday afternoon, this was a full set. Um, so many thanks to the families, the crew members, and our staff members who were able to strike that set for us quickly so that we could uh make our auditorium ready for tonight. Um, I would also like to thank my two assistant principles, Mr. Brad Sailor and Mr. Willene. Um, you will hear from them in just a moment. Um, but basically, they have not only helped prepare for tonight, but they help make this place run smoothly every single day. I could not do my job

004without them, and I just want to make sure I'm saying that publicly. I try to say it regularly, but it's also important to say it publicly. So, I will go ahead and hand it to them so they can tell you about some of our awesome students. Good evening. If I I have the uh pleasure of introducing our first Kelly Cogdale character counts uh student of the month award. If Miss Laura Harris could come down and join me. And if Laura's parents can stand as well, that would be fabulous. You're about to hear what an awesome student Miss Laura Harris is. But we cannot have awesome students without awesome parents at home. So, thank you for all you do uh for your daughter on the home front. Um I'm going to read real quick just a

005couple words that your teachers have shared about you. Says, Laura Harris is a great student. She always does what is expected of her. And when it comes to classwork, she is very, very thorough and manages to connect all of our concepts that we have learned. During interactions with peers, she is mindful of our diverse population. And when interacting with adults, she's incredibly respectful. Laura Harris is recognized by her teachers because she is hardworking, intelligent, and an overall great student. During the school day, Laura always goes above and beyond what she is expected to do and helps uplift others to their full potential, both by modeling excellence and encouraging others to be their best selves. Her larger than life heart shines through in everything that she does. Her empathy and ability to connect to the life

006experience of others really helps her create beautiful complex characters and her theater pursuits and to move audiences with her voice in choir. When it comes to academics, Laura's work ethic is impeccable. She delights teachers with her ability to make cross-curricular connections and apply her knowledge to real world experiences. Anyone who crosses paths with Laura can't help but feel deeply respected and cared for by her. So, our uh one of our uh character counts award winners for this month is Miss Laura Harris. Wait a second. Lori, you the board school board wants to to give you a certificate of recognition and also a certificate to Klein's dairy bar and also there's a nice little American bell flag here for you as well. But I want to say thank you for displaying such character in our schools.

007Uh there are many things that uh we look at at policies or different things that are going on. And a lot of things in our schools could be fixed just by displaying good character. And one of those characters of the of our pillars is caring. And um you'll you'll never know just how much just caring for others will get you by in life. And so I want to give you this tonight and say thank you from as your schoolboard member saying thank you for all that you that you've done inside these schools. Thank you so much. Thank you, mom and dad. Um, our second character council award winner is Matteo Musa and these are Matteo's parents. Um, we were talking earlier before uh we did this presentation about normally when middle schoolers get off the

008bus, we greet them, good morning, you know, how are you? And most middle schoolers give us a like if if we get eye contact at all. But Matteo is one that says good morning every day to every adult who says something to him and just shows the kind of character that he has. Uh these are the things that your teacher said about you Matteo. Uh Matteo Musa is a natural leader in the classroom and around the school. Once he understands material, he is quick to help those around him reach that same level of understanding. He brings a positive attitude to the classroom which improves the learning experience for everyone. His energy and enthusiasm is contagious, inspiring those around him to find joy in learning. Matteo is also highly involved in our technology department. He is

009a student athlete on the spots with tennis team and he is an active member in our technology student association TSA. He is also a TSA officer and so in his office role and his student in general, uh, Matteo was thoughtful, courteous and always ready to help with any task. He leads most often by the strong example he sets and invests himself fully in his work. And they concluded with how bright, curious, and trustworthy that you are. So, thank you Mattea for being a great great role model for your for your peers. First off, mom and dad, what a great name. Mateo, that's that's a great name. And thank you for being what one thing I heard is a leader here at this school. So, thank you for being a leader. Thank you for showing character

010here at Monavido. And I'm I'm sure that it will go on to Spotswood as you go on and hopefully I get a chance to come up there and see you play some tennis. Here you go. Thank you, parents. It is my honor this evening to recognize our volunteer of the year, Mrs. Jessica Ashby. And I am going to ask her to come forward also so I can brag a little bit on her. Uh when it was time for us um as an admin team to talk about who we wanted to highlight this evening, without a doubt, we all selected Mrs. Ashby. Jessica serves as our PTSA hospitality chairperson, which essentially means she's in charge of coordinating special things to recognize and show appreciation to the Monov video staff, which she does amazingly well. For instance,

011she hasorked within our parent community and through local businesses to obtain a variety of gift cards that are awarded to staff members through a drawing at the end of each week. Jessica also orchestrates meals and treats for our staff on a regular basis. Not only does she coordinate these efforts to make these meals happen, um she also plays an active role in cooking when necessary. She once single-handedly cooked somewhere in the neighborhood of 15 pounds of ground beef. Or did I underestimate? It was way more. So, basically, she provided a taco bar to our entire staff um for a workday treat. So, I can only imagine what your kitchen looked like and smelled like through that process. Um, what is most impressive about Jessica is her ability to get things done quickly and efficiently. I've

012not seen a challenge that she has not been able to rise and meet. If I asked her tonight to move a mountain by tomorrow morning, she would find a way to make it happen in order to help others. We appreciate her flexibility, dedication, and creativity to serve our school community. Thank you, Jessica. Miss Ashby, we couldn't uh do what we do here in Rocky County Public Schools without our volunteers. So, thank you so much for all that you have invested your time and money and sweat to serve our uh our staff here. And we want to offer you this certificate as well. a small token of our appreciation of recognition to say thank you for all that you do. Thank you. [Applause] All right. We also have a brief presentation for you all this evening

013um which highlights the grade level teaming that we are currently doing in our sixth and seventh grade. Teaming is essentially a core group of teachers from the four major content areas of math, science, social studies, and language arts sharing the same group of students. So, they do conferences together, they do field trips together, they do special activities. Uh, teaming has historically been known as a best practice in middle schools and at the heart of middle school philosophy because it fosters relationships with students and their families. We appreciate the commitment that the school board and the central office gave us last spring so we could implement teaming across the middle schools in Rockingham County. Here at Monavido, that meant hiring two new teachers so that we had the staffing to form three grade level teams in

014the sixth and seventh grade. We have seen so many benefits which you will hear more about momentarily in our presentation. So that we are also going to try to find a way to do teaming in eighth grade next year. So I would like to thank Mr. Sailor for compiling this video where you will see firsthand um some testimonials and some things that our teams are actively doing. [Music] Um, so a lot of the benefits of teaming means that we get to share all of the same kids, which means I know exactly who I can go talk to when I'm having or seeing an issue in the classroom with a certain student and we can work together to see if that's behavior we're seeing in multiple classrooms or if it's just something that might have to

015do with my room in particular. Um, it makes it really easy for us when we come and have student studies on a student. we all can um speak together about a certain student issues we're seeing and things that we think we might be able to help them with going forward. We're able to build really great relationships with our students and the students are able to build really great relationships with each other as well since they share the same teachers. Uh teaming has also made it possible for us to plan crosscurricular activities for our students as well as give us the flexibility to make little changes in our time schedule to put on little events for kids. Um recently we had a big pi day celebration that was a lot of fun for the kids and

016we had pi day for the whole day and at the end of the day we got to get together and have a big celebration. uh teaming this year has made it so that I feel like I know the kids really well and I can communicate with my own colleagues about how they're doing and we can really stay with the kids and get to know um them as a whole person instead of just in my classroom. Two, I think the benefits of teaming is we've been able to really intimately get to know the kids much better because now you know history, science, everything aligned. I know what every kid's assignments are and they know we all have that commonality. Taking that into consideration, we can also do units together. Math and history, we're doing a cross

017country tour together where they're stopping at sites along what we talk about. English has transformed their room. They did World War II right along with us. They did World War II poetry, Holocaust readings. It's just been we fully immersed the kids. And it's so exciting because the kids come to us and they're like, "Mr. Good, do you know we did World War II in English class today?" like we're surprised by it, but it's been really good because they're getting it from all angles and it's very fluid to them. Plus, we can give them a lot more support. What I like about being on a team is that you can uh compete with each other and see your disadvantages and your advantages better. What I like about being on a team is how everyone works together

018and how you can make a bunch of friends on whatever team you have and then all the teachers are really nice and they help you a lot. It's just generally really nice to be on a team because the teachers just help a lot by myself uh with all teachers, all of our four teachers in our one group working all together into one thing instead of like the whole seventh grade like all of the teachers and the teachers like take different assignments and they um pair them together so that you're all like you're you have to like work with something and then you can bring that into another [Applause] Thank you very much for that presentation. That that I'm excited to see that that that looks like it's really going to be great for students. So,

019thank you all for for for presenting that to us tonight. Um, now we're going to move on to Inspire Awards. And first we have Aaron Hurst presenting to Holly Fur, a second grade teacher at Cub Run. I am so pleased to be able to present this award to Mrs. Fur. Both of my daughters have had Mrs. Fur for second grade and both have commented that she is the best teacher ever. As I have watched Mrs. Fur interacting with kids in her classroom during visits and on field trips, I've been impressed by her positivity and authenticity. She genuinely sees the value in each child and brings out the best in her classroom without a feeling of forced charisma. It's as if she's interacting with and guiding her own children in learning and living life. I was

020impressed with how she handled the pandemic situation, keeping things laid-back and positive, and allowing my daughter Eliza to take pictures of her handwritten work to put on Seesaw when she was frustrated with the online formats. Two years later, when Eliza saw Mrs. Fur over the summer, they gave each other a big hug like old friends. Another thing that struck me this year was Mrs. Fur's genuine optimism about the letter system for reading. I had my own concerns initially, but she was able to explain things to me as a parent and discuss it honestly, expressing both the adjustments and timing of things in the classroom while keeping an overall positivity and enthusiasm for the program as a whole. One last note, her interaction with parents is outstanding. In the beginning of the year, she makes parents

021feel included with parent involvement surveys throughout the year. She makes excellent use of the communicator folder with weekly updates and flexible homework, always thanking parents for sharing our children with her. She also uses Seesaw and email to keep parents informed with timely responses to questions, but not overwhelming with unnecessary info. When my daughter Lydia left school early with an injury, we were able to use Seessaw messages just enough to reassure the other students that Lydia was okay and for Lydia to hear that the students were thinking of her. Mrs. Fur knows how to foster a feeling of family and friendship within her classroom. She's truly encouraging lifelong learning and good citizenship. Holly Fur will definitely stand out in our memories as an outstanding teacher and person. And Mrs. Fur, I thank you so much for

022just continuing to be a shining positive light on all the kids in your classroom. Thank you all so much. Um, Miss Fur, thank you for all you do for our students. I it it and I should have explain. Let me call up the next one and then I will explain. Um, Isabella Arrio, student presenting to uh, Ruth Beck, eighth grade civics teacher at Wilbur Pence. You guys, and while you guys come up, I'll explain. I because for for the group I I remembered what the inspire awards were but I didn't realize I didn't think about everybody that's new here tonight. So our inspire awards are basically there anybody can nominate a teacher or and or anybody within the school system really and um then they can come to the schoolboard meeting and recognize and read

023their their um submission as why they believe that this person deserves recognition. So, I will now turn it over to you, Isabella. Um, my name is Bella Arjo. I'm an eighth grade student at Wil Pence Middle School. Um, Miss Beck is my eighth grade teacher. Um, is my eighth grade civics teacher. So far this year, she has been a fun and outgoing teacher to be around. She's patient and kind with her students, including me. She's a great sense of humor, but is also serious when she needs to be. When someone's having a rough day or is acting off, she takes the time to talk to them when she gets a chance. She never put a student down for who they are, what they like, or believe in. I aspire to be like her when I'm

024older. I think she deserves this award with all the hard work she puts into this job. I'm so grateful to have her as a teacher. Thank you very much, Isabella. That was a wonderful job. And thank you, Miss Beck, for all you do for our students. We will now hear from Shelley Newman uh presenting to Keely Hinkle, a first grade teacher at John Whan. And as you guys are listening to these stories, if you have one that you'd like to share with us, all you have to do is contact Caitlyn Gil Gilkerson, our um clerk. Hello everyone. I'm Shelley Newman. This is Keely Hinkle. Miss Hinkle is beyond deserving of the Inspire Award. She's a wonderful teacher of academics, but why she is so deserving of the Inspire Award is because what she incorporates into

025the classroom is activities that build up the children's confidence and also teach the importance of being a good citizen. Examples of this in the classroom are your affirmation station, students bringing in items from home to share about their family, and the uh first grade hot chocolate sales that you all did to uh raise money to get food items for the needy. She also takes so much time to write feedback notes on classroom assignments that are sent home. Uh for example, she writes things like, "I love these detailed drawings. You are such a hard worker." or let's slow down next time and make your letters a little bit more neat. Miss Hankle also supports her children outside of the classroom by attending their birthday parties and their sporting events and knowing that my daughter is learning

026standard activities and academics such as reading, writing, math, etc. but also the importance of caring about others by a teacher who I know shows her own love and support for her classroom children every day is all I could really want as a parent. So, thank you. And I also wanted to share this is just a really good example of Miss Hinkle. So, they made these uh placemats for Thanksgiving of what they were thankful for. And Miss Hinkle hand wrote on this this note to Nora and I'll just read some of it. It was so sweet. Made me cry. Obviously, I'm a cry, but She says, um, "Dear Nora, I am so thankful for your kind heart and beautiful soul. I am thankful for your silly personality and your creative mind. I am thankful for your

027generosity. I am so thankful that you love to explore everything and you are truly one of a kind. I hope you never change. Always be true to yourself and know that you are amazing. I am thankful that you are my student and I love seeing you every day. Love, Miss Hinkle." So, as a parent, I feel like that's all we could really ask for in a teacher. So, thank you, Miss. And this is Nora. Thank you very much, Miss Newman and Nora, was it? Thank you for coming tonight, Nora, and Miss Hinkle. Thank you for all of all you do for our students. and uh that advice, slow down and make your letters neater. I think a lot of us could benefit from that. So, thank you very much. That concludes our Inspire Awards for

028this evening. We will now move on to the VSBA art competition winners. Miss Becky Ford will be presenting. Good evening to Dr. Shikel and members of the board. Tonight is my honor to present the following 12 students to you. In a blind competition, their work was voted as the top four in their division, elementary, middle school, and high school from our entire county. You can see the award-winning pieces out in the hallway outside of the auditorium. So, I hope everybody gets a chance to stop and see those and acknowledge those students amazing work. The first place works from each category, elementary, middle school, and high school. We'll be going with Dr. Shifflet in three weeks to our regional competition of the Virginia School Board Association. And so we're so proud to send our Rockingham County

029work on to the state level. I will be calling the students up in reverse order from f fourth place to first place beginning with elementary school. Students, as you hear your name called, please come up. You're going to get your certificate. You're going to go up these stairs on this side without tripping on the cord and stand on the stage until everybody's up there so I can take a picture. Got it. All right. So, for our elementary winners, we have Leanne Lance from Plains Elementary School, Jesse Ary from Lacy Spring Elementary School, Trey Hama Rasheed from the Gakisville Elementary School, and Rayley Bennett from Peak View Elementary School. [Applause] For our middle school competitors, we have Ellis Stright from Wilbur Pence Middle School, Amarisa Rainford from JFrank Hillyard Middle School, Valentina Velasco Bautista from JFrank

030Hillyard Middle School, and Diana Zudelin from Monteido Middle School. [Applause] For our high school compet competitors, we've got Abigail Dib from East Rockingham High School, Nia Dove from East Rockingham High School, Sarah Erin from Turner Ashby High School, and Zoe Earl from Broadway High School. And as you might notice, we're missing a couple due to sporting events and musicals and choir competitions, but we are so proud of all of these students, and so we hope that you get a chance to see their work. All right, kids. We're going to take a picture of you in three, two, one. for the parents and teachers. And one more thing I ought to do is uh if you are a teacher, an art teacher of these students, would you please stand and be recognized for your all your

031hard work? All right, kids. You are good to come back down this way without tripping on the cord. And while I'm up here, I'm going to take the time to acknowledge another group of people. So, thank you for having us here. Um, it is my pleasure to bring the fine arts to the schoolboard meetings. The next 15 students that you're going to see have placed at the highest echelons of music in secondary elementary or in secondary education with choir students audition at their regional event. Our region goes from Alageney County and uh the south to Highland and Ba County up in the north Paige and Lou County. Out of 20 potential spots for students to make this ensemble, Rockingham County took 11 of those spots which was just fantastic. uh it speaks to the level

032of education that our students are getting. The band competition is a little bit different. They don't do it by region. Instead, it's every student who is eligible, every student who places at the top of their region goes to JMU all on one day. And about a thousand students have a blind competition to see if they go and we have three band and orchestra students who have that. Our final recognition is a middle school student, which I don't believe we've ever had a middle school student do this before, but they made the middle school ACDA uh honor choir, which is the state level of middle school choir. So, we are just so excited to recognize these wonderful, wonderful musicians for their band and choir and orchestra accomplishments. We've got Emily Elliot from Broadway High School, Seth

033Emer from Broadway High School, Darren Mahoney from Broadway High School, Kylie Sherk from Broadway High School, Avery TW from Broadway High School, Andre Garcia from East Rockingham High School. Aiden Cahill from Spotswood High School. Reese Mills from Spotswood High School. Helen Padet from Spotswood High School. Macy I from Turner Ashby High School, Emily Makavoy from Turner Ashby High School, and these are all our choir students from the band and orchestra division. We've got Eddie McIll from Spotswood High School, Micah Wingfield from Spotswood High School, and Aaron Yo from Spotswood High School. Our wonderful middle school participant could not be here tonight. She has another engagement, but Camden Kyle from Wilbur Pence Middle School is our Virginia ACDA middle school. And if you are a teacher of one of these band or choir students, would you

034please stand up and be recognized? Music teachers. All right. And if you guys would hang tight, we're going to take a picture for your parents. Let me get out of Thank you all for your support of fine arts in Rockingham County. We appreciate it. [Applause] Congratulations to all of you. We're so very proud of you. Just amazing accomplishments. Uh we're now going that concludes our recognition recognitions and presentations. We're going to move on to our public comment period. Actually, we're gonna give folks just a beat to go ahead and slip out if you'd like to. But congratulations to all of you. Thank you so much for coming tonight. We're so very, very proud of you all. Wow. Okay, we're going to start preparing for our public uh comment portion of our meeting. I do want

035to take this moment to remind everybody uh if you are signed up for public comment, please make sure that you pick up a um uh rules sheet to make sure that you're and familiarize yourself with uh our guidelines before you speak. Um, we will have a three minute timer and there will be a chime at 30 seconds to help you kind of know when you need to start wrapping up. Um, all comments need to be directed to the board as a a whole, not individual board members. And we do uh require that you follow our pillars of character in all of your comments. Okay. Our first speaker tonight is Na Nancy Basset. Chairman Lure, school board members, Dr. Shyel, at the last schoolboard meeting, Mr. Cross presented a proposal for a dual immersion program for

036elementary students. And while that would be worthwhile, the county also has some other needs that the education association feels needs to be addressed. Some of our students are coming to us having had very little schooling due to the differences in the culture from where they're coming from. Some of them are not really understanding English. And we're sending some of these level one and level two students out into core classes, which would be science, social studies, and math with one class of intensive English, and expecting them to succeed. Could we please consider having a full day intensive e an e program where they can get the help that they truly deserve and then they can go out and succeed when they are tr truly ready to be in cork classes. Thank you. Thank you. Our next

037speaker will be Zach Nicholson. Uh, good evening board members. Uh, Dr. Shel. I'm Zach Nicholson. I'm here today to discuss some content that's in our books at our middle schools and high schools. And some of you may know the bill to protect students and parents by allowing them to opt their child out of access to questionable books passed in the House but died in the Virginia Senate. The issue of content raised its head here when the Sherman Alexi novel was challenged last year. Ironically, excerpts were first censored from public meeting for being inappropriate and little to no action was done regarding policy. Like to see that change. As a board and community, we do not need to wait on Richmond or upcoming local election results here to enact sound policy regarding RCPS. As I stated

038back last year in February, uh I do not want a book ban. But if we are to keep these books, we need more responsibility and transparency. What I'd like to see is a policy that is similar to a rating system that we have in place for other media like TV and movies where parents and students are informed on content of what's in the book and then parents can decide what's right for their child and opt out of access to that book or others like it. I'm no lawyer, but in Virginia, as I understand it now, if a teacher uses a book or materials that have questionable content for an assignment, parents are notified. But if a student wants to check out the same material for recreational reading, not assignment related, parents are not notified. Same

039content, same book. What I find astonishing is students cannot search or access the same content that's in some of these books using their Chromebooks or iPads. But for our books, this content is accessible uh because of some loophole in the law. That makes zero sense to me. Content is content no matter what media platform it comes from. I have researched what books are where using the Go Fillet search and RCPS teachers and staff that I've spoken with who will remain anonymous have assured me the GoFit search is accurate in determining what books are where in RCPS. So again, I will not read excerpts here I have here tonight. I do not want to be inappropriate, but I really wish the board would afford me the same luxury for my child as I have to for

040the meetings here. If you recall last year, I asked Dr. Shyel if I could file a media complaint form. He told me I could not because my child wasn't at Elton Middle School where the book was located. Well, my how time flies. My oldest son will attend sixth grade at Elton Middle this fall. So, since no one on this board wants to address content that's in these books or give parents an option to opt out by crafting new policy, my question then board members and Dr. Cycle becomes when can I file multiple complaint forms? as soon as my son is registered first day of school. When? Or perhaps I can send an email and submit in writing to the appropriate RCPS administrators and file that my child cannot have access to the ever growing list

041of books of vulgar profanity and vivid sex scenes that are available at RCPS school libraries. Can I trust RCPS staff to honor my request? Maybe so, but I'd feel much better if it was policy. This is not a right-wing talking point. This is not about our past. This is about my son and the students here. I'm tired of poking you guys and and asking you guys to do something about this. So, you guys can contact me after this or email me or whatever, but I appreciate your dialogue in this matter. Thank you. Thank you. Our next speaker will be Mike Stimple. Hello, Dr. Sha Board. Um, a couple days ago I was excited to see that a member of the school board had attended the annual conference for the Virginia Council of the Social Studies,

042a professional organization for educators. Then in a subsequent social media post, they mentioned their disappointment in the keynote speaker because he, among other things, took God's name in vain. In this case, he said a cuss word. What does it mean to take God's name in vain? It simply means to misuse the name of God. It's like when a politician invokes the name of God in a public prayer for votes rather than an earnest attempt at connecting with God. It's like when Attorney General, then Attorney General Jeff Sessions back in 2018 used Romans chapter 13 to justify separating children from their parents. That is missing using misusing God's name to justify injustice. That is what I think about when I hear the phrase using God's name in vain. Another comment that the board member took issue

043as quoted on their social media page was this. If you don't want to teach the truth, get out. If you teach if you don't teach the truth, then you're committing educational malpractice. I wholeheartedly agree with that statement. I see truthtelling and ensuring that our children get a true and thorough account of history through the public school curriculum as a justice issue. For those who claim Christianity is their faith, justice is a regular theme seen throughout the text of the Bible. That is why it concerns me when a schoolboard member displays open opposition to telling the truth about history. Some seem to prefer a mythical American/ Virginia rather than a real one. Which brings me to my next concern, David Barton. That was the name suggested by the school board member for a keynote speaker for

044the Virginia Council of the Social Studies. David Barton is a pseudo historian who had a book rejected by a Christian publisher because of its falsehoods. In a video of David Barton posted by the school board member, Barton makes easily deunked claims such as a black man was responsible for permanent slavery in America and white slavery was common. Instead of promoting people who tell falsehoods, let's advocate for a true and thorough account of history in our public school curriculum. Thank you. Thank you. That concludes our um public comments for the evening. We'll now move on to uh board member comments and we're going to start with um Mr. Is there anybody else in the audience who attended this building? I was part of the last so many great memories here. I trying to think as I

045as I sort of wind down my service as a school board member try to thank those in RCPS and present had a tremendous impact on my life in a positive way and I think so many people have worked in this building Carleta, Brian Daniel, so so many people Tom Burgess who had such a tremendous impact on me and I'll be forever grateful to them. I also would like to thank tonight all of our directors of the different disciplines who have been so helpful and supportive to me. Not to try to single out one, but I've known him the longest I think and that's Bo Dick. I've never met a finer human being and the impact that he had on both my sons was just they talk about it today as him being inspires. They both

046talk about how he was one of their favorite teachers and so he's not here tonight but thank you Mr. Dickson for fine person you are and the great work that you do so probably thank you Mr. Breeden Dr. Mr. McQuilin. Thank you, Chairman. I'd like to begin by talking about the Farm Bureau Women's Committee sponsored legislative dinner that happened a couple weeks ago and which I attended. And I want to thank them for the delicious meal and the great discussion that they had about legislation in the in the Commonwealth of Virginia and the local representatives with the local representatives who were there. To continue, I went reading again to Riverbend Elementary. Such fun. I know, Miss Lawyer, you're going to do that tomorrow, too, right? Hopefully. Uh, next I attended the Rockingham County Public Community

047Dialogue, which just happened this past Thursday evening. And the highlight to me was the fact that there were 11th grade students who had presented to us previously on February 13th in attendance. And they each sat at a table and discussed pros and cons and answered questions and talked about the school system. and you could see how engaged and dedicated they are in Rockingham County schools and the education that they're getting and how they want it to be better just as we all wanted to be better and to continue to move forward. And lastly, I'd like to give an update on the superintendent search. This Friday, March 31st, is the last day for applicants to apply for this position, our superintendent's position. Shortly after that, we will be holding a meeting with Kevin Kner and Wayne

048Harris and they will share with us the applicants and we look forward to that and and once that is happened then we'll be moving on to the interview process. So that's where we are in the superintendent search. Thank you Miss Lur. Thank you Dr. McQuen. Mr. Cross I'm sorry. I I just wanted to follow up with uh Mr. Breeden's comments. I'm thankful to be back here at Monovid as well. This is where I attended uh middle school. I didn't attend high school here, but it was middle school and um it was one of my favorite uh times in my um Rockingham County Public School experience being here at Monavidia Middle School and the teachers uh that I had like Mr. Nadi uh who became in my eighth grade uh year. He was our uh civics

049teacher as well as the assistant principal. And we would get him off on subjects of talking about all his baseball games that he attended throughout the nation. And him and his wife went to every uh major league uh baseball stadium when they were when they were before I guess right after he retired or near his retirement. But um and Donna Matias um she's also a teacher now at Folks Run and she's got quite a few years in. But uh Donna Matias was just an awesome seventh grade English teacher and I appreciate uh everything that she's done. I've reached out to her quite a few times throughout the years and just told her thank you for uh being such an excellent teacher. Um so my video is is is a great school. Thank you. Um the

050second thing I want to say tonight is congratulations to the teachers uh Mrs. Fur and Miss Becca and Miss Hinkle um for all that they uh do in our schools and every teacher and what you do to promote the things that we we heard tonight as patience and kindness and caring and building confidence and community support and teachers going to ball games and birthday parties. It's pretty amazing when you hear these things that teachers are doing that because they have lives just as well as we do. And to take time out to go to someone's game like that or go to a birthday party really shows the character and how much they love uh their job and the kids that are in their classroom. So, uh thank you uh to those to all our teachers,

051but especially tonight, thanks for uh those that I mentioned that received uh their reward uh tonight. Um, I also had a chance to go down the river river bin elementary school and read last week. I am I read to the uh fourth and fifth graders. I did warn them before I read that I read on a third grade level. So I I did need some help. I'm just joking. It was it was good though. I I've enjoyed reading more once I got out of school. Didn't like reading when I was in school, but I enjoy reading a lot now. And I enjoyed reading to the kids down at Riverbin. Had a good time down there as well. And last Friday, I did attend the uh Virginia um let me get this right. Uh the Virginia

052Council for the Social Studies Conference in Richmond. And um I want to say congratulations to Luke Roadcap who was assistant principal at Elton Middle School uh last year. I think maybe the year before. I I don't know whether he did two years or just one, but he did such an amazing job. He's went to one of his breakout sessions and he talked about um creating a passion for social studies for our for our kids and he did a great job. Uh he did come up to me and warn me about a few things but it wasn't nothing bad but he did a great job presenting and it was great to see one of our very own from Rockingham County Public Schools presenting there uh in Richmond. Um I did um I was disappointed as you

053heard from one of the speakers tonight public comment that I was disappointed when I did go to um the second keynote speaker that was down there and really did feel like the speaker was very unprofessional. Uh I worked in law enforcement for 12 years and have been to quite a few um professional development trainings, heard quite a few keynote speakers from around from around the country and if you know well if you work in law enforcement or first responders a lot of times we can have potty mouth. Um and so but one thing that the speakers, the keynote speakers when they got up there to speak, even though they were more than likely they may have said things um to one another in certain ways, but when they got in public, they didn't they didn't

054speak like they would have to just someone uh face to face or a friend or something like that. They knew there was a standard. And I was I was very um I was upset that the standard of professionalism, especially in education, wasn't followed with this keynote speaker. And he did say um God's name in vain. And I can't I can't believe that that anyone would use GD in a public speaking event, especially for education. But not only did he use GD and you can we can have a I do agree with some of the speakers tonight of of taking God's name in vain. more than just saying GD, but some of the things in which he said, but there were other things that he spoke of that was very inappropriate, really inappropriate. And I I

055want to name a few things that that I heard him say. He said, "If you want to indoctrinate our students, send them to me. I will indoctrinate them. White people, parents running around here, dumb A's, wouldn't even have public schools if it wasn't for black people. We can stand up to these foolish parents. If you don't want to teach the truth, get out. If you don't teach the truth, then you are com you are committing educational malpractice. Ron Ronda Santz doesn't know his GD history. And in fact, he went through all the conservative leaders with Donald Trump to our governor Glenn Yncan and also Ronda Santz uh demonizing him as well. You can get around teaching the 16, this is this was a big one. You can get around teaching the 1619 project. So he

056was he was telling our Virginia educators, you can get around breaking the law. you can get around teaching divisive curriculum inside of our schools and this is what you need to do and if you don't do it then you're not for the for for the cause and you need to get you need to get out that's a wrong message to send educators and he said you can get around teaching the 1619 project by quoting the USA Today documents you got to figure out how to do it but do you have to do it and he was speaking about the curriculum that been has been deemed inherently divisive in Virginia and there was a lot of things in which the speaker said that I just was unbelievable. And I spoke with one educator down there and

057and this is why people like me are in public education sitting on school boards and hopefully there are a lot more of me coming on the boards around our country. Well, one educator said there while I was there, he said, "This this is a cancer in my profession. I've been working in this profession for many years." And he said, "I don't know if this is redeemable inside of our profession." He said, "I don't know. You can't you can't make laws just to ban this stuff because it changes something else. And that's one thing the speaker talked about, you know, that that the the right was able to name CRT and and come up with a definition for it before they could get to it. But I was I was very shocked by the professional by

058the not the professional the the unprofessionalism that was presented to teachers. And during his speech, there was quite a few. I wish honestly um I wish I would have walked out sooner, but I wanted to take notes and see exactly what all he was saying during his speech. There were quite a few educators that did walk out and I and they walked out not because they wanted to never come back because of what he said and the racist comments that he made. Racism goes both ways. And I wasn't happy at all that we sent our educators down there to listen to keynote speakers like that that got thousands of dollars from Virginia taxpayers to be able to present that kind of information. So I'm as a schoolboard member, I'm going to go to these conferences

059as much as I can because I want to see what our educators are being taught when they're at these at these events. And I had a good time. I had a good time with Mr. road cap when in his session and I just wanted to brag on him tonight of how great a job that he did. But um I think that's proper governance when it comes to schoolboard governance being able to see the stuff and not just hear secondhand information. So uh that's all I got tonight, Mr. Chairman. Thank you. Thank you. Uh Mr. When I walked into the school this evening and was presented by the wonderful wonderful artwork, the visual artwork that's on display in the lobby, it it brought back thoughts of when Mr. Breeden and I first came on the board

060in January of 1996. The first meeting was right in the the the heat of budget discussion and a lot of the presenters who presented to the board and spoke to the board that evening were asking for more investment by Rockingham County Public Schools in the art programs and especially with the focus on getting art teachers in elementary schools and it just we have come a long way. We've always had good art programs in the high schools and some good art programs in the middle schools, but uh elementary schools, it was pretty much up to the classroom teachers to deal with art. And uh I think again it just it standing there looking at those pictures this evening and then listening to the awards this evening just it makes my heart feel good. We've come a

061long way. Um, all boards since then have really pushed to to get the arts before the children because art is the arts, the performing arts and the visual arts are what adds the richness to life throughout your life and a lot of children if not exposed to art in school they wouldn't get it. So, we're doing a good job and I just want to thank you and that's my highlight. Thank you. Great. Thank you, Mr. folk. And I'm gonna I'm gonna kind of jump off of everybody's comments tonight. Um, thank you guys for the the walk down memory lane with this building. It it's definitely an an institution in our community. And when I think about my childhood and coming here, I remember I wanted to throw up every time I came because I was

062doing 4 presentations. I learned my public speaking. I honed my public speaking skills here in this school. And there's I I am so in awe of our students who performed and are on the state level because it's scary. It's scary when you're a middle school student to get up in front of people and talk. Um and and those contests were held in the school for me. So um and then Mr. Faulk, you're absolutely right. Um the the arts are super important. Um, I believe every child needs a reason to get up out of bed and come to school every day. And if it's the arts, if it's CTE, like we're getting ready to get a a presentation about, if it's their English teacher, if it's because their teacher told them, I'm thankful for you. Um,

063these are the reasons our kids come to school, and it's because of our staff and and our hearts. So, thank you to everyone who's working super hard in Rockingham Countyy's public schools to make meaningful uh relationships and meaningful experiences for our children. And I'm looking forward to seeing some of those. I'm reading this week. We have another musical coming up this week. So, there's lots of great things going on. So, please get out uh and um experience your local public school. And now I'm going to turn it over to Dr. Shel. Thank you, Chair Lure. Uh, first Jackie, uh, Brad and Will, thank you for hosting us. Um, it's always great to be at Mounto Middle School. My kids went here, so this is part of home um, for me too. And, um, you know,

064Dr. McCullen had talked about the respectful community dialogue. Uh, that was the culmination of a year and a half of work. Um there were a lot of people there for the first time and um it was an amazing um process and event where um anyone could um you know sign up to attend the event and um it was recognized nationally. So uh NPR had a national uh nationally broadcast segment on this process on all things considered. So certainly the recognition that an attempt to get to a point where uh even when we disagree we can do so respectfully uh that that's being recognized is a good thing and and the students uh just like you know we talked about when we had our teacher of the year celebration or when we had the inspire awards

065you know they the students talk about uh wanting to be um cared about as human beings and um that's that certainly came through strongly about mental health and about number number of other things. My other highlight um is that I'm glad our social studies teachers had a chance to go to Richmond uh to the conference for the Virginia Council uh of the Social Studies. Um it was an opportunity for our teachers um to bring their skills and their information um to a statewide audience. Um our teachers are uh very much you know as um history teachers able to uh decide you know what um activities, what inquiries uh what information um focus works uh with their students in Rockingham. They bring back new ideas that they uh learn from others. uh they're very discerning when

066it comes to uh making decisions about what what is good for students in Rockingham County. And um Luke Roadcap certainly is one of the educators um who is a great social studies teacher. I will also say um that the fourth grade teachers, we had a a team of fourth grade teachers there, uh they certainly would have appreciated um a visit as well. Their work is actually also nationally recognized and uh is actually on the cover of this month's social studies and the young learner. Um so they're doing a work you know an inquiry um around Barbara John's. So again, um we've had uh conversations about this. You've had presentations on this and so these opportunities are great for our teachers. Um and again, they make uh we expect them to and they are very good

067at making sound professional judgment uh when it comes to uh bringing information back that works well in Rocky County schools. So certainly a highlight for me. Thank you. Thank you, Dr. Shel. And I'm gonna ask put you on the spot again. Sorry. Is there any way that we can get a copy of that publication so we can read the article? Is there a link? I'll have to check whether it's available um online. I would assume so, but uh I'll see if I can. Thank you very much. That concludes our um board member comments for the evening. We're now going to move into our action items and um the first item in our action item agenda is the approval of the minutes. Do I have a motion to approve the minutes? Thank you, Mr. Breeden. Do

068I have a second? Second. Thank you, Dr. McQuelen. Is there any discussion regarding the minutes? If not, we'll vote on approving the minutes as presented, the March 13th minutes as presented. All those in favor, please say I. I. All those opposed, same sign. Motion carries unanimously. Um, next on the agenda, we have our committee appointments. Um, board members, I we've had discussions one-on-one on this, but let's just go over it. Um, or do you want to do it because it does say the superintendent's recommendation? Yeah, my recommendation is based on my conversation with uh Chair Lure. And so, according to the information she has uh provided to me, um, I recommend the following committee appointments. Again, this was postponed back in January to the uh meeting tonight. Uh, Mr. Cross for the extension leadership council,

069Mr. Folk for the Shannidor Valley Special Education Regional Program Board, Dr. McCorin for Massanutton Governor School Board, Miss Lure for the MTC Foundation board, uh Miss Lure and Mr. Breeden for the liaison committee with uh the board of supervisors, and Dr. McQuilin um on the Rockingham Educational Foundation board, Exopicio. Thank you, Dr. I recommend approval of those committee appointments. Thank you, Dr. Shel. Do we have a motion? Thank you, Mr. Faulk. Do I have a second? Second. Thank you, Dr. McCen. Is there any discussion? I can provide you with a name, somebody to talk to there, and they should also reach out to you as well when they schedule meeting. Thank you. Any further discussion? Hearing none, all those in favor of the uh supporting the superintendent's recommendation for the 2023 uh committee appointments, please

070say I. I. All those opposed, same sign. Hearing none. Uh motion carries unanimously. Uh field trips. Dr. Shel, board members, I have a number of field trips for your approval tonight. Spotswood High School. The DECA IDCD conference April 21st through the 26th. Two students to Orlando, Florida. TSA state convention May 4th through the 7th. Uh six students to Hampton, Virginia. And then JF Frank Hillyard Middle School. FFA 4H horse center March 31st through April 1st. Nine students to Lexington, Virginia. And the FFA state convention June 20th through the 23rd. 10 students to Virginia Tech in Blackburg, Virginia. and I recommend approval of those field trips. Thank you, Dr. Shel. Do I have a motion? Thank you, Mr. Cross. Is there a second? Thank you, Mr. Faulk. Is there any discussion regarding these field trips? Hearing

071none, we'll proceed to vote on the field trips as presented. All those in favor, please say I. I. Opposed. Same sign. Motion carries unanimously. That concludes our action items for the evening. We'll now move on into ourformational items and begin with the superintendent's budget recommendations. Can you get Chair Lure, members of the board, members of the public. Um, as is our annual custom this time of the year, uh, I'm presenting the superintendent's uh, budget recommendation for the next school year. Um, we had a conversation about this last time and about the difficulty that we're facing in terms of having a good understanding of what state revenue we may expect. And I don't expect you to read through all this but there are basically all these steps uh that the budget process takes and uh normally

072at this time of the year especially in the second year of the bianium uh we would be you know having uh conversations uh where at least the conference committee negotiations would be underway um to finalize the budget and um we simply um are not where we usually are. So right now the um general assembly basically sent a stop gap measure to the governor that the governor then approved but that's for um fiscal year 23. So the year that's ending on June 30th and for next year uh we're basically still in the dark. um other than the fact that we're in the second year of the bianium. And so there were lots and lots of amendments to the fiscal year 23 budget. But um at this point uh we don't quite know yet what the budget

073for next year is actually going to be because it's highly likely that there will be some adjustments uh to what was passed a year ago. So there were millions of dollars in adjustments um for the current year and then at this point there simply hasn't been a meeting. Um the conference committee members were supposed to at least begin negotiations um next week and in two weeks. Uh but that's also now been put on hold. So um there was an article uh published on Friday um where even the negotiations were paused uh as a result of um economic news. And so even though the state has a, you know, they have $4.5 billion dollars to um do something with or to just hold it back, um the governor wants, you know, billion dollar tax cut. The

074Senate wants more money for education. And so the difference again even between the House and Senate budgets um was more than $5 million for uh Rockham County. And so again, we're kind of on hold. And there are some uh legislators who have said, you know, there may not be a state budget until June. So as a result uh we have to uh make sure that we use a conservative number and make um good decisions you know with what we know is at least that um that base level of funding that we would have. As always we look at our goals and values. You know we want to um have our budget reflect what we're trying to accomplish. That includes you know providing uh support to students. You heard that earlier. you know, whether that's for

075EL students, whether that's for students who struggle um with mental and behavioral um health issues, uh we want to make sure that we have the support in place uh where it is needed. So, not every student needs the most intensive supports, but when they do need it, uh it should be available. Uh we do want to get better, right? When we said this last year, um when we know better, we do better. Um, and we continue to investigate, you know, better ways to, uh, provide education to our students. Uh, with a national teacher shortage, teacher recruitment and retention is critical. I just looked at data the other day. Um, since 2008, um, how many school divisions in Virginia have lost uh, dozens of teachers. Uh, we're still in a good position. So, um, we've been

076able to retain teachers, we've been able to bring on, uh, really good educators, and we want to continue that because our students, uh, deserve it, right? So, um, pay scales, uh, pay when we to look at inflation, um, as I said last time, you know, if you went just by the cost of living, um, salaries today are about 10% lower than they were in 2008, and inflation is pretty high. Okay. So again, we have to at least make an effort to um increase pay uh where we can and then there's also some scales that are simply out of whack when we compare them to surrounding school divisions. And as always uh this is a collaboration of course with um the county leadership um you know the board of supervisors and the county administrator and county

077finance director. Uh you know they work with us closely. It's a process that works differently here because of those relationships where we don't make each other look bad in public where there's a lot of conversation around what schools need and and what um the county can afford. And then of course I'd be remiss if I didn't say and none of this would happen uh without Cheryl Mast who works tirelessly um all winter long and uh just makes sure that we that we are in a good position and responsibly uh spend money. Right. So, um, thank you to Cheryl, um, absolutely for everything, uh, you continue to do to put us on sound financial footing. Again, when we talk about our, um, our values, our goals, we've talked about this many times, relationships, community, purposeful learning,

078scholarship. Uh we want to make sure that our students uh don't just get content knowledge that they can memorize, but that they are equipped with all the tools they need to be successful um in their life in the 21st century. and and again that they can work with others across cultural boundaries that they can communicate in all kinds of different ways whether that's face-to-face conversation which is obviously oftentimes something we need to now focus on um but also you know uh solid um and ethical uh digital communication critical thinking creativity citizenship these are all key pieces of what we do and um it is important for our teachers that they have the resources uh to really again improve improve our students ability. Um in the five Cs when we talk about tiered systems of support

079uh this is you know every year this chart has changed. We started this years ago and uh it looked very very different but it was always based on a best practice research on bringing everyone in the field to the table to allow our psychologists, our BCBAs, our behavior specialists, um our social workers, our teachers, administrators to be at the table when we talk about how we want to build out our support system. And you'll see that reflected um a little bit in the budget, but it is all about, you know, that support system that helps teachers deal with some of the um issues that they face on a daily basis so they can focus on their core tasks. So, for example, compared to last year, what you see now is um in each middle school

080a restorative practices specialist again to talk about um how we can get students all students to be successful and to help them uh when they struggle whether it's with mental health or with behaviors, right? We have still you see two elements there that are still in white. So, the strong starts programs again that's really really tough to build out and we um focus on making two that we have are really successful before we can consider an expansion. And so that's not in this year's budget. Uh letters when we talk about uh implementation of new programs based on best practice. One of the hardest things we've ever asked teachers uh to implement because they just came out of a pandemic and then we said literacy cannot wait and we had the evidence. We had run a

081small pilot project at Wayland and so we said we need to do this and but when you ask teachers to really uh do something that is so different for them the supports have to be there. So last year's budget, you know, included um money for coaches to help teachers, but also, and you'll see a reflection of this in the budget, we made sure that there were additional assistance in our elementary schools so that teachers had some time that they could work with the other teachers on data analysis, on on planning, on learning about this. And and it is um you know, we were simply ahead of what is now the law. So, Virginia Literacy Act now makes the science of reading um basically the mandatory approach. And so, we're in good shape there. Um but

082again, that will continue to um involve lots and lots of effort because every year you have new first year teachers who haven't been educated on this. So, we need to provide that and then the following year they're in second year while others are again in first year until really all universities catch up to this. just um in terms of what we've done and we had a small pilot um in 2020 2021 and then we started with volume one and then um during the current school year all returning teachers in K through uh five were trained in the second volume of letters and new teachers then were trained in volume one and that's going to continue because that's what often happens you do your two years of training but then what about the teachers that haven't

083been trained that come in so there has to be ongoing development for that come in and has to be customized because some schools may not have anyone who's not been trained, others may have multiple teachers. When we look at just the initial data, there's so much information about the impact of it um across the different grade levels. This is one of the simpler ones, but it makes the point uh fall 2020 before we implemented we had 30% of our K to2 students below benchmark in the fall on PALS. Um fall 2021 is when we started with the program. It had increased uh to 40%. Uh partly pandemic related um of course and after one year of implementation where we gave grace to teachers you know to progress uh not at the same uh pace as

084those who were just running with it. Um and so partial implementation in addition to PAL's not even being aligned with letters um we now have uh we had full benchmark data that was better than prior to the pandemic. So um early results are really really encouraging and again this was difficult but um our teachers showed you know they that they can do this and and they've been tremendously successful but of course it's an ongoing process. Uh you know we want to make sure that the support continues to be there. We talked about this last year, too. Our learning 2025 initiative. Um, we are one of 160 or so national demonstration districts out of 10,000 school divisions. Uh, we have resources from learning 2025 built connections. Um, we actually changed uh the cohort that we are

085part of to what's called the workforce redesign cohort. So as we have the national teacher shortage um we wanted to make sure that you know we work with people um who have ideas on how you can maybe restructure the learning environment even if you face an environment where you have fewer teachers available. We'd love to have you know uh the same number or higher number of teachers but we have to think about how maybe especially when we're project uh when we support project based environments how that can be done a little bit differently and that's also part of the JMU lab school project. So we uh the decision about um starting the first lab school there have been a number of planning grants. Uh most of the planning grant projects actually looked to JMU to

086see how uh JMU is trying to implement this this with Rockingham. Uh we're still uh waiting the were at a meeting with um some of the old guard at DOE I would say in the policy department uh who were throwing roadblocks and um there are some delays just in the decision-making process. I got a very nice call from um Governor Ynan Secretary of Education Amy Gada um who is fully supportive of this process and so we'll see where it goes. uh obviously there are some timelines in place but we also want to you know look in that direction anyway so to make sure that we have the opportunity to have more crosscurric uh crosscurricular projects uh that are project based so when we talk about how the budget actually shapes out well first in terms

087of uh retention and recruitment um we are planning to give a 5% raise when it comes to all the salary scales so hourly is always different. You know, they're adjusted at times when we can and usually in much bigger um jumps, but when we talk about our salary scales, a 5% increase across the board. It's very much in line u with what we're seeing in in all the surrounding divisions, um I believe Harrisonenberg's proposal was 5%, Augusta County was 5%. It's what we see and the reason is that that second year of the bienium budget uh included state funds for a 5% raise. So it is at that level that we can get state funds. Um but again given the uncertainty we certainly have some ideas of what to do if we do get more

088money as we actually expect. But the cost for that alone is 5.5 million um teacher assistant and behavior assistant scales. We did a comparison with uh surrounding uh school divisions. And so that's a significant adjustment that will cost us about a million dollars. Um but we want to make sure uh that we provide that right so even if there's no additional money from the state we can afford this and those teacher assistants and behavior assistants they uh work so hard and we definitely you know we look good in comparison uh when we look at the surrounding school divisions we're not at the top of the list usually um but we are competitive and it's a great environment in Rocky County to work u but in some again as we have done over the years for

089example with clerical staff and with bus drivers and with others. We adjust these as we can. And so for teacher assistants, that's about a million dollars. Um hourly substitute rate from 12 to$13. That's going to come anyway with minimum wage. And then a substitute pay increase. So what we want to um try again is uh to focus on substitutes we already have and to have a process where we can encourage them to substitute more often. And so there's an incentive uh program that we are proposing where after certain thresholds are reached. So uh if you substitute this many days there's a bonus payment and then again different threshold. So um rather than and we will continue of course to try to find more people who want to sub. But again that's tricky. But then another

090avenue is to encourage encourage those who are subbing to sub more often. construction, a $290,000 increase. These are, you know, not really uh things we just can't do, right? We can't say no, we're not paying the regional fees for the regional program for our special education students. And we have a project with um Blige Community College for career coaches. And so there's an additional cost there. Academic support. Um over the years, we've moved a lot of um items that generally we asked families to pay for. So for example, you know, we had class fees where um you know, students would pay you class dues um that they would pay and ultimately that would pay for graduation. We had some other fees that we eliminated. Um we said that now that all four of the high

091schools will have graduation um at JMU. Again, this isn't something we want to say to families, hey, over the years you just have to pay for that because that's really what happened. And so we're eliminating uh those dues uh for the families and we are adding that to our budget to pay for the um graduations at JMU. Uh transportation and maintenance um increases that are large largely driven by simply unavoidable cost increases, right? Whether that's fuel, whether that's parts, um those are in there as well. We expect um health insurance increase of approximately $1.3 million. Okay. So, that that's an additional expense. Personnel almost $2 million. You see the one at the top, 49 assistants. So, when we implemented letters, um we made 49 assistants full-time. They were part-time assistants and we made them full-time.

092Um our schools have begged us to make sure that they can keep those assistants. um how you know in different um support positions you know all the there's certainly some flexibility for each school but we also have expectations so that they don't turn into just basically subs that are available every day right and u previously we funded that was one of the few things we funded with esser that was ongoing funds where we used one-time um pandemic funds for an ongoing expense and so we moved that into the regular budget because esser money is running out and then you see you And again, this support system and um support for students with needs, special education teachers and assistants, a reading teacher, a TLC assistants and teachers, title one assistants, a slight increase um in fine

093arts uh personnel to make sure that we um have equitable uh services to our students, behavior support, uh speech pathologist, three teachers. So you can see almost all of these positions are for specific needs whether that's for reading support whether that's for EL students um or whether that's for special education students and then um help for the teachers in terms of the assistance that are available. the one um central office position. Uh we talked about this last time. It it we have to make a decision now um because it affects other positions that we're posting. And so because accreditation uh takes truency numbers into account which you know in some ways we can't really control in the end unless we go and you know just basically bring kids to school. uh you know, we have

094the buses to go, but if the kids don't get on the bus and they're not in school, it is held against us. Um and so uh that's an issue that many many school divisions um across the state, you know, are facing now. And because of the accountability piece, we need to make sure we put some additional effort in there. But again, that's not um a position that will require full funding for a supervisor position because some of the money comes from restructuring some other positions. um where we can shuffle some responsibilities around. And then we still have some enrollment positions that's always based on, you know, where we need a teacher based on class sizes. For example, um for a while, um our class sizes, you know, we had class sizes that would go above

095our limits and an assistant, for example, may end up in that classroom. Over the last few years, we've brought all our elementary classrooms below the threshold that exist um for class sizes. again, you need to find the teachers for that and that's why recruiting and retaining good educators is critical. Uh, but we're certainly um, you know, doing a good job there. And so when we see some of our schools, you'll see some redistricting conversation um, here in the next month or so as well because it you know when you have a school that has 28 students in each grade level and now you have to split it, you end up with a school that has, you know, 14 in each class because you're not going to send 28 into a classroom. Then you have some

096schools that simply have these small class sizes. And so with redistricting, if you move some additional students into that school, that class size goes closer maybe to where we want it to be in terms of uh staffing and it alleviates class size pressures in another school. So we can, you know, again release some pressure on class sizes also by uh redistricting um responsibly, right? When we have these areas where class sizes are really, really small. admin interns. That's a small expense to make our admin interns 11 months. They do work in the summer at this point, but they're on a teacher um scale. So, they're 10-month on a 10-month scale, but work 11. So, they should be paid for that. MTC is an increase of about 290,000. And so, for a total of 172,55,317, that's

097an increase of about 7.6 million over last year. Again remembering that the 5% raise alone is five and a half of that. So again these aren't huge increases and that is driven by again inflation and um salary increases when we talk about revenue. So non-resident tuition and Medicaid reimbursements we're seeing a slight increase um in our for next year 763,000 state revenue. Again that's the big unknown. Um but what we're budgeting with is what we received from the state as an expected distribution based on the second year of the bienium with some adjustments for ADM numbers. Um so the increase there would be $5.9 million in state revenue federal revenue $1.35 million less largely driven because ESSER is going away. So, those one-time funds are coming out of the budget and a few other things

098and then a slight increase in title one funding. Um, to balance the budget, it requires a local share of education of 73,866,510, which is an increase of $3 million. And so for this again, we've had conversations with county um with the county administrator, finance director to make sure that we have an understanding of um you know, where the local share could come in. And again, the budget is exactly the same you saw earlier um in terms of expenses. You know, revenue has to match expenses. Um two others, capital project fund. Um, you know, it's a little bit unusual to see cash reserves of $15.5 million. Um, we have projects at Broadway High School, at Elton Elementary School, and at um and then also this will later be followed up by McGisville, but Lynville Edom Elementary

099septic system. Uh, I know it seems decades ago, but we're still working on uh that project. So, $500,000 set aside for the new septic to Lindalum can remain open. Um, and all of that is funded with cash reserves. And so, um, I do want to point that out, right? When people say, um, you know, we're not responsible with the money we have. No, we were actually able to set aside, uh, 15 and a half million dollars to expand, um, Broadway High School and to some other things um, with money we saved. Right? So, it's onetime money. So, that's why, you know, we can't just say, "Oh, let's put that into salaries because it's onetime money." Um but we we made every effort again uh Cheryl was instrumental in that to make sure that we are

100fiscally responsible and don't ask county taxpayers for this money. Cafeteria fund um balance it has to be balanced. It's self-funding. Um there's a federal regulations require that when you charge less than what the federal reimbursement is that um they require an adjustment um of the of the cost. And so our student breakfast will go up from a$125 to $150. Student lunch from 240 to 250. And there are some adjustments in that compensation and benefits line uh for cafeteria staff. So cafeteria managers, cafeteria workers. So that's a balanced fund here. What that means for the board of supervisors, again, uh total local request that I will forward to Mr. King uh later this week and then uh talk to the board of supervisors in a presentation um in April. of 73,866,510 and this is again uh

101for fiscal year 22. Um when we look at even with state funding having increased um when we adjust this for inflation um the state share not only has state funding per pupil for Rocky County decreased by 8.1% adjusted for inflation. So the state is doing extremely well financially. We're not back on a per pupil basis where we were in 2008, right, with state funding. And as you can see at the bottom, uh the local share was um 56.6% in 2008, uh was 37.3% in 2008 2009 and is now 41.3%. So, um, what the state didn't provide, our locality has been, uh, very generous to Rakium County schools, and it again is because of the relationship that's been built for, um, more than a decade, right? So, these are relationships that go way back. Next steps

102on Wednesday, uh, the board will meet at central office at four o'clock um for a vote on the budget request. I will present to the board of supervisors on April 12th. It's a little bit later than uh usual, but there are, you know, we we do have time. I can make the request before my presentation. Um and so we've coordinated that with county staff. And then again, the state budget may not be finalized until June, but we want to make it clear that um our goal if the conference committee meets and if additional state funds are available anywhere if we look at the two budgets, you know, either nothing or $5 million more. If the if there's a compromise and for example the support cap is lifted, could be $3 million more. Um, if this

103is what happens, our effort would be to improve the pay raise from 5% to 7%. And so if we get $2.2 million more, that's where that would go. If it is more than that amount, then additional um projects, you know, would be possible, right? So, um, we want to make sure that that's clear because we did put the money in to keep assistance full-time. We can't wait with that decision until June. We have the pay increase for assistance now. Um and everyone's getting 5% at least. But we're committed um with at least in this recommendation that there's an understanding there's not a vote on this at this point, but that if additional funds from the state come that the first uh process would be to get that pay raise to 7% and uh only then

104to consider uh other spending items after that. If you have any questions, I'll gladly try to answer those or ask Cheryl, too. Members, do you have any questions? Right. So, um just it's pretty much the same process as last year. Um as you know, Mr. across the uh state has uh grant availability and so um if the board uh wants to add additional SRO's as as I had said you know it might be a good idea to invite Sheriff Hutcherson um to uh again speak to the board maybe in May and to talk about um his experience his view of uh the additional SRO's that we've added. Uh, so we've added four and it's important to remember the grant money does run out. So at some point then to retain those there has to be

105an increase in in local money to make that happen. Um, and um any conversation to be had with the sheriff um about additional SRO's uh could come at that point. And so it will very likely uh be possible if that is the board's desire uh that Sheriff Hutcherson can um again look at grand funding grant funding from the state to have at least those first two years of any additional SRO's paid for with state safety grants. Last year that happened the grants became available I believe in July and then Sheriff Hutcherson um applied for those and that's how the four SRO positions that we added were added and So if that again is available certainly um my comment would simply be uh that rather than um paying for that locally in this budget um when

106state money is available that does not um burden local taxpayers at this point u might be it's not sorry well it's not a burden on local taxpayers for public safety for their children in schools um and you're right we have we only have 10 SRO's for uh 23 schools in Rock County so I asked for four because before we got the four, which the board didn't want the four, but we did get the four after the massacre that happened down in Texas. And we added four to cover all of our our uh middle schools. And thank you to Deputy uh Good, who's the SRO now here at Monido Middle School. Uh he's doing a great job. So, um, but now we finally have in Rockham County, we finally have all four middle schools covered with

107an SRO before the SRO would cover the high school, its middle school, and all its feeder schools, elementary schools that go up into there. And so, uh, even today in, um, in Tennessee, I believe it was, with another school shooting and another year coming to pass and approving another budget here in Rockham County, we're not seeing the value of SRO's in our schools. And if we did, because I say that if we did see the value of SRO in our schools, we would start making sure that we weren't looking for state funds to cover them up front. we would make we would look at our budget and we begin to say if they're that important, let's make sure they get into our budget and let's vote on that. And so, uh, now all of our

108elementary schools aren't covered. I asked for four because then that that that way we could get an SRO that would le at least at this time cover a elementary school and float between those schools. or if one of the SRO's were also out at the middle school or high school, they could also uh float in them because they take days off, they're in court, they're in training. A lot of times they're not there at the schools. And so if we could add four more, one to each school district, it would help them out because the middle school SRO's and the high school SRO are still sharing the elementary responsibility as well. And so that's why I asked for the four SRO's. And I I would hope uh from the board that we would find a

109way to get them into this year's school budget. Um and yeah, I'd like to see us as a school board uh get that worked into our school budget. Last year's SRO's weren't added because of the massacre in Texas. Um during the budget conversation in February and March, we had already talked about um potential additions of SRO's, but that it would be fiscally more responsible to use state funds for it. And that's exactly how it played out. So rather than saying we're asking local taxpayers to fund those, uh we have money that does not cost our local taxpayers um the additional money for at least two years and is funded with state funds at that point. And um again that's the same conversation this year. I'm not talking about it whether SRO's are burden to local

110taxpayers in terms of should we have SRO or should we not have have SRO's but um again the conversation is about who should pay for it if state money is available. So if state money is available and local money is available, should we take the state funds that aren't then solely coming from Rockium County taxpayers just like we did last year? So state grant money uh being available, the safety grants will likely again be available this year. So the sheriff can apply and for two years any additional SRO that the board wants to have uh could be funded that way. And so the burden simply meaning that whether we pay it we ask our local taxpayers to pay for all of it for two years or to say hey for two years the state's going

111to pay for it. Um obviously you pay state taxes but if we don't take the money someone else will. Um it's simply a conversation around um not spending local money when we don't have to. Uh the decision isn't whether or not to have SRO. The decision is whether to use state funds um as they become available or to use local funds. When does that grant run out? The four that we added this year, when will we have to add those? I believe it's at least for two years and then we'll have to wait and see. That it's not clear that that those funds then expire there. Certainly, again, the general assembly can make uh decisions. Governor Yncan had indicated last year that he would um support having an SRO in every school. Um if that

112becomes a state requirement, it would be unlikely that there would be no money because it is almost like SOQ positions um where the state requires you to have certain positions and the state at least would pay likely the state share of it. So we'd have to wait and see. Um there was no legislation that passed this general assembly session that made that uh mandatory, but again next year is another big budget year. And so um it's certainly possible that that comes. So the current one runs out um in two years, but again could be extended. That's certainly possible. So if it runs out, whomever is in your position will come to the board and ask for funds to extend that. That would be the only way unless state funds become available or the grant is

113extended. That would be the only way to maintain those SRO's. Uh just like you know the SRO's we had prior to the additional four um to add local funds to pay for the school resource officers. It's similar to um having ESR funds for the 49 assistants, right? So at $600,000 or whatever the exact amount is to have 49 assistants go from parttime to full-time, right? Those were one-time funds. So there or two-year funds, whatever it is, uh but when that runs out, you know, if you spend too much money um where onetime funds are used for ongoing expenses, you know, you face what the school divisions call this fiscal cliff. So all of a sudden you need to spend that the money that you got from another uh level if you want to keep those

114positions you got to find it locally and that's why we were very careful uh with how much so money we spent this is similar so um if the board were to add you know 20 SRO's and just say well we'll get state money right now you have to two years down the road find enough local funds to pay for 20 um paying for four is a different conversation So again as the state budget develops u it is something that the board will have to consider right so they're free in that sense for two years right but there has to be that has to be on the horizon at some point then uh that money has to be added in terms of local funds again unless something changes uh we'll know more in a year or

115two you know whether that becomes a requirement you know it could be that the requirement is a school security officer and that there are funds for that, but that your SRO's count towards that. So, there's so many different ways that this could play out. Um, but there certainly has to be awareness of it there. And again, Miss Lore, this comes down to a board decision of what we want to put in our budget. This is a board's decision, not superintendent, the board's decision. If we see that adding four new SRO is important, then as a board, then we agree on that and we make sure they're in our budget. And right now, but the four that we currently have absolutely will have to go into our budget. Absolutely. Every and and and unless there's their

116fun. Absolutely. It's and until we we take this matter serious, it's it's a problem. Parents want to see an SRO in their schools. You talk to parents, they want to see an SRO in their elementary schools. They want to see them in there for their safety. They worry about their kids when they go to school for these school shootings that we see all across the nation. You got to go all the way back to 1950 till you find a child that's died in the school fire in North America. Not just America, but in North America. And why is that? The reason is if because we we figured out, hey, we got to stop making schools like matchboxes and stop building them out of wood because when they catch on fire, a lot of kids die.

117And so now you look in the schools, they're made with concrete, they're made with brick. You got to have anything that hangs on the wall has to be uh fire retardant. And so it's almost impossible to burn a new school down. And that's why we haven't had a child die in North America till all the way back in 1950. Now, I'm not saying that an SRO in every school is going to end that, but it sure does uh make your chances of a school shooting at your school. It makes that that number go way down. And so to to see a a sheriff deputy car at every school, to know that there's an SRO in there that's going to have a weapon, if you bring in a a weapon in there to try to harm

118our staff and our kids, it makes the public feel a whole lot safer and it makes the parents feel a whole lot safer. And it is our responsibility as a school board uh to do that. And I'm not asking for um 13 this year in the budget. I'm just asking for four more and to continue doing this until we get all of our schools covered and not have to wait for grant funding from the state to make this a priority for our schools in Rockingham County. And it's on our shoulders as a school board uh to make that happen or not happen. So, I'm just asking tonight that the board would really consider I know this hasn't been a a popular topic throughout the years because until last year there's only been three SRO's has

119been added to our school system in 20 plus years and I'm I am trying to consider it uh and we did add four the past year and what's the cost? What was the cost of the four? And I'm expecting next year somebody to come and say now we have to put that in our budget. Absolutely. So yeah, what's the cost? We're putting we're adding uh three point we're adding three plus million dollars to our budget this year and we're the superintendent recommendation for personnel is on this page here. And so yes, it's going to cost us to add SRO's to our schools. Do you know what the number is that? How much it's going to cost? How much does four cost? Well, is you're looking at at least for the SRO in in of itself,

120you're looking at an average of 45,000 just for his average salary. And then you're looking at also costs for him to for his insurance. You're looking at also what it costs to to to clothe him and put him in a in a car. So there's funding there also. I believe that comes from the county as well that kind of that kind of offsets a little bit of that if I'm not Is that right? Do this does the county do they pass some money that in in their budget to help like with cars and things like that for the for the housing of a deputy? Okay. So, we're just looking at is it Yeah, it's about 75 28,000 75 to 80,000. All right. So, so where do we get the 300,000? Well, we're we're we're adding

121four music teachers, it looks like. Um, is that 210,000 or is that I'm sorry, that's a three ELLL teacher. Sorry. So you I mean what I'm saying uh chairman lure is that when we see that it's something that we want as a board then we'll put that in our budget. We'll make sure that's covered because there's things that we want we see that we need for the school this year for our for our budget and we're putting that in. So but my point is this book what was the $16 million this year of stuff we want. I don't want to cut any of it, but we do have to make some really tough decisions. And the the SRO is what we need, not just what we want, but what do we need for public safety

122for to make sure our kids are safe. One of the things that came out of the the student uh what I thought was very interesting when they came to the schoolboard meeting last back in Broadway, JF Frank, when they came, two of the top things they said was they were concerned with student safety. And so this the students formed they had a for the females they had a self-defense class out at East Rockham High School. And then um the second thing was uh they talked about how much the SRO's made them feel safe while they're at school. And so this is a topic this is something that's on our kids minds being at school in our generation. And this also I'm sure will add to the the the mental health as well as them feeling

123safe inside of our schools. And so And it's not just a want. In my opinion, it's a need. It's better to be proactive instead of reactive. And um I I that's what I would hope that the board would want to see that they they're necessary uh components within our schools. And and I don't disagree with you, but and and it does bring me to my question. The part where we figure out what the bottom of the last slide. Can you go back? additional projects only once the 7% raise is possible. One of the projects that I really liked that didn't make the list was doors and key card doors, right? And that was $500,000 to upgrade all I mean shoot. I guess that's a bad choice of words. Darn it. Um uh the uh the

124exterior doors, we want to fix those so that they're keyed. I mean that they're not keyed that we have badge access so that we can limit people but that that didn't make the budget either. But how do we decide which additional projects are going to go if we get any money? And is there any hope left for that key card um budget item? I think that's a matter for board discussion um as as we know what additional funds are available, you know. as an SRO, I know that there are a lot of keys that are inside of our community of of coaches and and people in the community just have a key. And so I thought that was a great idea too for security reasons to have uh all of our exterior doors covered uh

125where we could do away with the with the keys getting into our schools. So that's another thing that's again these are things that the the school board has to look at and say what's important for us to be in the budget and then we we present that and say we we look at superintendent we're like we want this in the budget. So again this is a school board decision on what goes in the budget and I would I would like that idea to be in there. I'd definitely like to have my four SRO's in there as well. So, thank you. Um, it should not go without restating the significance of being able to renovate a high school out of money that's been saved. I I can't remember that ever happening. Um that that we've been

126able to take on a project like that uh as a one-time project. And so kudos to to the staff and the leadership team for the way that you have u handled that responsibility and to be able to look at that is just is just absolutely incredible. And um my what I would like to ask um of my colleague is if we're talking about those two projects, $500,000 and $300,000. Um, and I'm not asking you to do it right now, but if I I'd like to I'd like to know what you think where that $800,000 should come from out this. And I'm not I'm not saying you don't know. I'm not saying Well, and that's Okay. Right. Right. Right. Yeah. Yeah. And I'm and I'm asking if and and you can share it with me personally

127if you want. I'm not trying to put you on the spot. I'm just asking what would you see in here that would constitute that $800,000. Yeah. I mean that's and that's that's kind that's the importance of the school board of all of us like five of us because we really um even having more two-on- two meetings to talk face to face and and say what's important to us in this schoolboard budget and a lot of that you know they've done a great job and staff you guys have done a great job but a lot of it really don't get our our our input put with us talking back and forth and that's what I've seen by coming on the board is that we don't have enough input back and forth with one another. So I

128would say in the future or even now I mean we're not approving the budget tonight but maybe we could go we could go uh meet and have more twoon twos with each other and say what's really important to make sure we get into uh this budget and then look at it and say okay what would you take out like you're saying like what would you take out of this because this becomes now a priority over these wish list items that have come. So it's a good question. I think the way we fix that is we come together more as a board and we have more two-on- two meetings and talk about the budget and because it's a big budget, right? I mean, this is a big responsibility that we do as a school board members

129is approve this this budget for our community. And so, but that's a good question, Mr. Breeden. And I think maybe uh maybe we could come together and have more ask the board for more two-on- two meetings before we approve this budget and and look at what if we as a board if we say, man, we really believe that the doors are an issue. We'd like to fix that because there's a lot of keys in our community the people that have uh keys and if if the SRO's are important for SRO position important what do we have to cut to get there every every year I would say that the budget that I vote for uh represents a partial list of my priorities right I mean it is not all inclusive of my priorities and because

130they're not in there does not mean they are not priorities that they don't fall on that list of things that are important to me. Um, so, um, you know, I I I I just, you know, education is our is our number one business. And I I used to always quote, uh, Franklin Roosevelt at the beginning of of budget season, where he said, "The true measure of our success is not whether we give more to those who already have plenty, but whether we give enough to those who have too little." And uh I think we have to continue to look at assistance to help with kids learn to read. I think we need to be looking at at uh all of these things including safety. And so all I would all I would ask u is

131that is that in instead of us talking in general terms u tell me specifically where where that 800,000 would come from. And I and that's a good question. I think I think we can get there if we meet more on two on two meetings. I look forward I look forward to hearing from you on that. Absolutely. I think the other the other thing here on my list, Mr. Breen, right here, if you look was the 5% like I think you said the last being too. We want to see the 7%. Not the 5%. So this goes also to the 7% raise for our teachers. Is fact, what's in our budget? Because you just said education is very important, right? I want to see their pay be increased. what's in our budget that we can take

132out and not add to but how can we add to their salary because we want to be a destination division continue as a destination destination division and teach the teachers are willing to leave the city to come to the county because of the discipline issues that they're facing in the city and there are good teachers I think we're going to pick up even this time that I've talked to that are that wanting to come over to the county but one of their biggest concerns is they make a lot more money in the city than what they do in the county. And so I agree with you. I that 7% is very important for me to get in there as well. So we need to have more two-on- two meetings I believe as a board to

133look at these as a board and then go back to the superintendent and say this is what we want to see. This is the vision and direction that we want to see the division go in. So hopefully we can have more of those two on two needs. Thanks for bringing that up. Yeah, I have lobbied for years uh with our legislators to have a point of origin sales tax as compared to a point of sale sales tax. The city has much more areas of revenues of sales tax than the county. And a lot of that uh you know and the technolog is there. When you walk into Walmart, if they ask you your zip code and I say 22827, they know where that's coming from. And it ought to be based on point of origin

134versus point of sale. Um, but again, as I talked about at the last meeting, we are primarily a people business. And that 7% raise, I agree, as I said the last time, people constitute 75 80% of our budget if if not if not more. So unless we're going to cut out maintenance and transportation u which could also go to safety issues uh or people or people and people mean teachers, custodians, cafeteria workers, teachers, um bus drivers on down the line. We we've we've got to find somewhere to find that money. So again, I won't belabor the point, but I look forward to that conversation. Thank you. Any additional questions? Okay, I'm sorry. I've got to ask it again because I don't remember the answer. So, the additional projects, will we meet and vote on that

135moving forward or how does that process work in this crazy budget year? We would have to because there would have to be a budget amendment. So again, um we are operating on this recommended budget at this point. If the board makes changes to it, you know, that would be a different request um unless the number to the locality just remains the same anyway. Um by April 1st that you need to let the county administrator know what our request from the locality is. Um can we have an extension on that if needed? Well, I mean, my presentation that's not really needed because your priorities don't the county doesn't vote on what we spent the money on. The county votes on large categories. So, um the $3 million increase from the county um is something I would

136request from Mr. King and then um certainly there'll be a budget presentation on April 12th um to the board of supervisors. If there is if there is a discrepancy uh with the board, can you go back and ask the board of supervisors for an extension saying that as of now this is it, but but the board is having that more comments and we need some a little bit more time. Well, I'm not sure that the locality is willing to, you know, pay more than $3 million because their revenue increase is uh we're already eating up the vast majority of that. So, there'sn't there's another couple million to be had in the conversation. Well, then you can go back and you can say that we're not the board is not in favor of where the $3

137million is going to and we need an extension. It's not the board of supervis you don't have to ask the board of supervisors to spend it on certain categories. The board of supervisors does not say, "Oh, here is money for um SRO's." I I know that I'm saying can you go back to the board and ask for an extension that the board an extension for what? For for what you need to know. They need to know how much money. But that number is likely not going to change. What you have to change is your priorities. It it might change. You're saying that you're going to ask for more money from the board of supervisors? Um that's not that's not that's not something that's that that's not on the table. I would say that's that would

138be it's not it's it's your recommendation but it's not something that my my uh request to the um to the county administrator has to come by April 1. I'll ask for here's here's what I would say to you again. If you have a commitment from three of the five board supervisors uh to do more than $3 million uh bring it on. I mean, that's I think I think we need to be able to as a board tell them what we need as a division, right? Yeah. And and and I can tell you and I can tell you that I've had that conversation personally. I would I would hope that other members of the school board have as well with their board of supervisor representative. Uh I've spoken with um at least three. Well, one's your

139brother, so I mean that's not hard for you to talk to. Well, but his he has the equal vote to the others. So So it it would be remiss of me and and by the way, I don't know if that was meant to be a No, it's not meant to do anything. That's not a But what I would say Excuse me. Excuse me. It's a compliment. Excuse me. Before my brother was on the board of supervisors, I met with his predecessor. Okay. That's my fidic That's my fidiciary duty. A compliment. That's my fidiciary duty. I am going to take just a moment to remind um our board members that we do have two student matters to get to tonight and I believe at this point the students are waiting. Um so I think maybe we

140can put a cork in or a pin in this discussion. I just want to make sure Mr. Breeden knows that was not a dig. That was a compliment of his brother because I like his brother. Uh any further questions for the superintendent? Oh golly, we're not even done with the agenda yet. Okay. Thank you, Dr. Shikel. Just as a reminder, um the vote on the budget is scheduled for Wednesday at four o'clock. That's right. Okay. Do you want to move into um uh policy revisions? That's you too to do those as well. So um two uh budget revisions um for information only tonight. Um, one involves um our policy regarding uh medications at school. Um, our nurses had asked early in the school year uh whether we could provide some Narcan training for them. Mr.

141Cross also asked later um whether we could potentially do that. Uh we worked on uh securing potential training dates. Um and I said back then uh training would likely happen in May. So the nurses uh would have to get trained um on how to administer it properly, store it. And so um we also then worked with um with Ashley Health on securing a trainer for this event. And then uh what is required though is a policy change. So you'll see um in the medications policy the ability uh for nurses or the requirement for nurses to be trained. We looked at a number of school divisions uh to see um how they approach it. Some um basically require there to be a note in a in someone's personnel file before they could administer it. Of course,

142when you think about the reality of how an emergency an opioid emergency plays out, uh there certainly isn't the time to say, "Oh, let's make sure they they have the proper paperwork in their file." um others required multiple people to be trained. So at this point the policy requires uh nurses to be trained and um again we would provide that training and then uh VDH would make the Narcan available. Um so that's one policy. The other one um is a policy regarding uh so it's JCR uh regarding non uh resident student attendance. So there's some changes that really um needed to be made. One to clarify some of the statements. So some of the actual headings in the existing policy uh weren't really um intuitive. So there was a category called elementary students and then

143it talked about elementary students and also middle and high school students. So we clarified that. Um we also um there's an element of the policy that if a non-resident um student before a non-resident student can attend if that student has an IP or 504 plan the resident division would have to guarantee that they would cover all the IEP related costs and that part of the policy even applied to full-time employees and so you know it's not really something that we want to say to our own employees yes your child can come to school unless they have a disability. Then they have to go to the other school division and there no school division has ever agreed to pay for all the services in another school district. So it's simply a non-starter and so uh we

144wanted to clarify that that for employees that does not apply. And then the other part um is that we actually would like to extend that benefit to uh uh to part-time employees on an employee uh an employment agreement. So it doesn't apply to for example if you work a few hours you know then your kids can come here but we wanted to expand that from full-time employees also to part-time employees um with an employment agreement. Uh there are some pieces and again that took some of the rewriting that we want to keep in place. So for example um non-resident students when we allow them to attend even with tuition payment um there are requirements that you know the student um has consistent and punctual attendance. So if then all of a sudden because the family

145has to transport the student to school if all of a sudden we run into these truency issues then that's a different conversation. If there's significant behavior issues and then that becomes a conversation. So um those elements remain in place. The previous version of the policy uh simply states that um for full-time employees, they don't have to pay tuition for nobody. There's no uh exemption to tuition for anybody else. Uh but this simply expands that part um to again part-time employees on a contract and um the special ed provision doesn't apply and there's no tuition payment for that. But all the other provisions also still apply with the exception of a paperwork change. So, it's simply for employees and that's how it's always been handled. There's a letter to the superintendent annually rather than the full

146non-resident tuition application because again that's more for people who pay tuition. I believe we have 60 um students who pay tuition um who are non-residents and then we have you know a significantly higher number of staff members who bring their kids. It's um I thinkund some 112 something like that. And so, uh, again, those are for information only. Uh, please feel free to contact me with any questions. Um, and then we'll bring those for action next time. Thank you very much. Uh, do we have questions? No. Okay, we're going to move on. Uh, Mr. Fitzgerald, can you please provide us with a CTE update? Okay. It's never It's never a good thing to be at the end of the agenda. I want you to know that. But hey, I I want to bring you just

147u some news about CTE and a quick CTE update. And I do promise it'll be quick. Um I feel very fortunate and I'm very blessed to work with 46 of the coolest teachers in in the nation. And I believe that I would put our CTE teachers up against any group of CTE teachers, CTE teachers anywhere in the nation and maybe even in the world. Uh and if you've been around to look at our programs, I think you could see why. Uh the reason we're able to have those teachers is because of you, your support. And you know, I look at uh oh gosh, I've been doing this for almost 40 years, right? And I look over those 40 years and I think about the support that Rockingham County has given to career and technical education

148and man it's there. I mean I talk about the 46 teachers that's not even counting anything at MTC which again is another crown jewel in our system. So I just wanted to say that and I thank you personally thank you for it. Uh Greg if you'll click on to the next one there. Um our CTE programs uh make it real. I had that in the first slide. And what we try to do in all of our programs is to take content, integrate it with what kids are learning in the academic subjects and give them like a marketable skill that they can use later on in life. Uh we have five different programs in the high school. Uh you can see them on the on the board there. Agriculture, business, family, consumer science, marketing, and teched.

149All of those are at the high school level. And then at the middle school level, we have those four with the exception of marketing. Marketing is a kind of an offshoot of business and again we don't offer that until high school. Trade and industrial education of course is at MTC infused with a couple of those other programs. Greg, uh there's three components to every career and technical education program and I just want to remind you about this because sometimes we forget about those three components. The first one of course everybody knows is classroom and laboratory instruction. That's where we take theory in the classroom. We add it into the lab a laboratory where we get real life experiences. Those experiences are all competencybased. They are based on state competencies and then the curriculum is also

150based on business and industry standards. So for every CTE class, there's actually a committee that gets together at the state level that includes teachers, some parents, and business and industry, and they review those periodically to make sure that those competencies are relevant. Uh then for our local programs, we also have the CTE advisory committee countywide that we share with Harrisonenberg and Mass and Tech Center. You guys approved the committee earlier this year. They meet and they review any of the competencies that they they want to. Um they have a chance to look at curriculum on an individual basis and ask lots of questions. They also are responsible for approving our funding as you are with the Perkins uh funds through the through the federal government uh under the direction of the state government. Now we

151also have experiential learning and that's where CTE is really set apart from other courses. Um, we have some sort of experiential learning in every one of our classes. That could be school-based hands-on experience like in a greenhouse or in a lab, a culinary arts lab, those types of things. Or they could be supervised home projects, and we see that a lot in our egg programs, supervised agricultural experiences. And we have work-based learning. Now, this is cool because when you think about work-based learning, because of you, which you've done over the past couple years, we've added two work-based learning facilitators in the county. And I'm very proud to announce that as of yesterday, uh, no, excuse me, Friday, they have 521 students that they're supervising. That's a lot, and that's quite a task. And, uh, down

152the road, we'll probably be looking for more work-based learning facilitators, but right now, those guys are doing a wonderful job. And that's Phil Jud and Eric Baylor. Now, the other thing too that really is part of um part of CTE that sometimes we forget is leadership training. Folks, I can tell you if you have not been to a CTSO or a career and technical student organization meeting, you ought to go. Uh they're very formalized, they're very polite, they get the job done, and they do it in the right way. Extremely professional. Uh, I'm proud to say that I have attended many of those on the on the local, state, and national level. And guys, I'm telling you, you would be amazed at what those kids can do. This p October, I had a chance to

153go out with Dr. Shel to the FFA convention. 70,000 students in the Lucas Oil Stadium. 70,000. And Miss Lur too, forgot about that. 70,000. And when the gavl falls, they're all quiet. They don't heckle. They don't say anything to each other. uh that's not part of the business. It is awesome. And again, I think that's something that uh that's really a strength of career and technical student organizations. And then also every CTE program also involves some sort of service learning. Uh there's just so many to name. It could be a trash pickup along roads. It could be a river pickup. It can be supplying u food banks. All those things are part of the leadership development. Now, I'll tell you this because there's a reason that this becomes really important, Greg. Um, it becomes important

154because when we start thinking about CTE in the future, we're going to have to look at something called the career uh the the career readiness index or CCRI, I guess it is. You'll see it in a second where all this stuff plays into effect. It's going to be part of standards uh of accreditation beginning next year. And it's something I think we're well ahead of the ball game on. Um, our CTE teachers responsibilities are to run those CTESOs. They have to follow state competencies and industry credentials. We're in a really good position right now. I think if you look at the state of CTE in Rockingham County, we are far ahead of a lot of counties and the idea that our credentials are real in a lot of cases and they're things that uh students

155can take with them after high school and they can make some money with. So, that's pretty neat. I do want to mention to you too about extended contracts. You know, you provide extended contracts for agricultural teachers, marketing teachers, and teched teachers. We have supplements for business uh teachers and family and consumer science teachers, most of them to uh conduct CTEO activities and this is important. And again, I hope that you guys will continue to provide those. I think it's essential uh to maintain what we have in CTE. Greg. Now, what's new again is we're doing more and more focus on work-based learning. We're trying to develop more and more uh business and industry partnerships. I want to invite you to an event on April 19th. We're calling it Career Kickstart. It's going to be at

156the Atlantic Union Center on the campus of JMU. Uh it's a joint project with Harrisonenburg and MTC. Right now, as of last week, we had 107, I believe it is, business and industry, different business and industry representatives coming to actually work with our juniors and seniors and to even perhaps interview kids who might be seniors looking for a job. They'll also talk a lot about potentials for uh internship and credit to be earned and pay to be earned while they're still a student. maybe for the juniors. Um, students can get credit for those experiences and we've really upped the number of credits in the past two years that students are earning for outside of school work. They can get a credit for supervised agricultural experiences, a credit for apprenticeships, uh, credit for internships and even

157for mentorships. They have credit and again that requires 280 hours of work outside of school in most cases, although some school-based enterprises can count, too. So that's kind of cool. So let's go to the next one. Uh this is what I was talking about a minute ago. The CCCRI, Career, College, and Civics Readiness Indicator. Um that basically is a it's found or we get the index from an unduplicated count of students that are involved in those experiences up there. Um, I had Cheryl Eastep run our CCCRI kind of this year just to see where we would be if this was a year that we had accreditation standards based on that and uh we scored very well. We're we're well above where we need to be to reach that accountability. So, I feel really well about

158that. Um, anyway, that's just a really quick update. Next school board meeting, I'm going to bring to you the Perkins plan for information so you can look at it, see where we're spending all of our money. But I just wanted you to to take a look and kind of think a little in depth about where we are with CTE. We have a lot of really neat places. I think we're going uh as you know, we added the real estate course next year. Our aerospace classes have take literally taken off and we have lots of students there. We're even having students go about two weeks uh to take FAA 107 licensing test which that allows them to fly the bigger drones. So that's CTE in a nutshell. That's the state of the union. I think it's

159good. Do you guys have any questions at all about that? Oh yeah. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Faulk. So um last month was CTE month and we always like to try to do something for our CTE teachers. I really believe the CTE teachers are the coolest teachers ever and you're the coolest school board ever. So, you guys have some uh some folders I hope that you'll use and carry with pride. So, thank you very much. Any questions about my presentation tonight? Mr. Fitzgerald, thank you so much for just see having an awesome CTE program. We what you stated is the truth. We have one of the best CT programs in the state of Virginia and people like yourself, Marshall Price, Kevin Hutton out there that's put so much work and time in even before Marshall

160being out there. But uh it's amazing what you guys have created and uh you leave a a good legacy for the next uh CTE supervisor to be able to come in and oversee this. So, thank you for all your work in Rockham County Public Schools. Thank you for caring and loving uh this program as much as you do and it shows by by the standard we have set in Rockham County uh for CTE. So thank you so much for what you've done. I appreciate Thank you, Mr. Cross. Appreciate that. [Applause] Thank you, Mr. Fitzgerald. and we're still waiting on you resending your letter of retirement. Just saying. Um, okay, school board members, that concludes our um information items for the evening. We're going to move on to other business and we have under that school

161board questions and comments. Uh, I'm Let's see. I'm going to start with Mr. Breeden. Thank you, Miss Lure. Um, I'll be brief because I know we have parents waiting who have concerns at home they need to address. Uh the budget process started in January. Uh I have had conversations with three of the four board members in that time. Um so just as a matter of public record, there's been a lot of time to discuss it. Dr. Shel, when when our people order uh recreational reading material, I would assume that there is more often than not a a statement from the National Librarians Association or some such organization that says that this material is recommended for grades A to C. Uh, if I'm correct on that, could you perhaps if you feel it appropriate to talk

162with Miss Tate about whether when we order new books or new materials if that rating could be posted on the inside lapel of of the of the material, which would which would give a parent who's looking at their kids material u some guideline as to as to what that organization and I realize there's going to be disagreement as to what organization that should be, but that sounds like a good one. Yeah, it doesn't exist um for all books. There may be a broader category. So, it may just say, you know, young adults or whatever the category is. And so, they're they're much broader than uh so they're not by years. It doesn't say, you know, like you have on TV and movies, you know, PG-13, PG um even those are categories, right? That are pretty

163broad. So, um there are some websites that um certainly there are recommendations uh that that are maybe you know for which grade levels a book uh may be appropriate as that's ordered but it doesn't necessarily come with a with a sticker. No, I realize that common sense media is a website that we've also made um you know parents aware of. um parents can certainly for example parents have access um to looking at what their child has checked out of the library, right? So there's not they don't just have to see it um in the book bag. Um that information is available. Um and but again, Common Sense Media doesn't review every book, but that's one site uh that we have found helpful. Um so for example in a book challenge that we recently had the

164committee looked at three different sites and and common sense media was one of the more conservative ones and so um there is much much more information um in in that uh on that website. uh then you can really put in a rating because what often matters too um just as it is you know with a movie rating um whether or not it is appropriate for someone depends on you know is it because of um for example sexual content or is it because of violence or is it because of both or is it you know so it depends on which theme it is and so uh some families you know if someone says well it's appropriate for age 15 uh that may be because of the violence in the book and some parents that's not going

165to bother them. So you you really do have to have a little bit of context. I think with movie ratings that's often provided right on TV it says what the elements are right why did it uh why did it earn a rating of mature audiences only or whatever it may be um and so um I think that's again communication that that I have talked to Miss Tate about you know to make sure that families are aware of those websites you know to say okay common sense media because they provide so much more detail they talk about you know what the themes are in the book uh who it might be appropriate for what might be upsetting to someone and and why it's earned the rating that it has. And it's a fairly conservative um version

166of these uh websites, you know, that that um provide information. So, uh on Amazon, of course, it's a little bit different because that's more userdriven. But I would say again, I think if parents want to have good information, um I think checking the book on common sense media is a really good avenue because it provides a tremendous amount of information. It's well researched. Um we have a number of people, you know, who use it and and um I use it too when when I look at why a book may be right. But to put a just a sticker Yeah. some Right. And and again, maybe maybe it's just something that explains this is this this is the website. This is the Common Sense Media website. Or you can contact such and such if you have

167a question about about this. I get that it's hard to be but I I'm just trying to and so that's also I think something that um again that's what I talked to mate about you know whether um in communication with parents right there's there's additional information if you want to know what your child is checking out in the library here's how you can do that and here are some suggested websites you can access um to check what information is available so it's not um you know that information is available and I think there's really useful information available and parents who want to look at what their child is reading and what the themes may be. I think there are multiple um good options and and that's certainly something that we do want to communicate with

168families. Absolutely. Thank you, sir. Thank you. Um Dr. McQuilin, I'd just like to end the evening by thanking Miss Baker for her hospitality this evening. I know we said it earlier, but we very much appreciate I know it was a huge job getting everything down and we We appreciate you're hosting us this evening. Thank you, Mr. Cross. Yeah, I'd like to first of all just ask Dr. Shyel if he would get back with the parent that spoke tonight with the concerns with the books. Um, and he had a few questions tonight of when he could file different paperwork if necessary. So, if you could just get back with I think it was Mr. Nicholson that that had that in public comment. So, if you could get back with him just on that or someone within

169the division, uh, that would be great. Sure. And then second, Miss Lure, I would like for the board to at least uh have conversation over this topic uh concerning uh our books in our libraries and uh possibly even looking at a a rating system. I know it's a big ugly pimple that no one wants to talk about or wants to address, but we have rating systems for everything. A kid can't go to a movie if it's got violence or sexual content in the movie. And um I think it's a little bit unfair to say, you know, here's a website you can go to if you're concerned about what books your child is reading when in actuality a lot of kids have wanted at that age um they're they're going to hide things from parents as

170well. So, it would be nice for the parent to be able to say, "Hey, I approve this rating for my child um uh for any books coming out of the library." And at least I know that would be a major undertaking and I know everything's work. We we don't want to stay late at schoolboard meetings as well, but I think it's our due diligence because of a lot of the material that's in certain books in our libraries that are just frankly just inappropriate. And when you read books even at the high school le level like Mr. inferior and you read the sexual content in the description and what it goes into in that it's it's shocking and it's I don't care if you're 18 years old. I mean, that is straight up pornographic in the

171library. So, I do think we need to at least go to a rating system and and hopefully we could sit down as a school board before next school year starts, have these conversations, and maybe come up with something that we could do. So if you could put that on the agenda, I would appreciate it. Note to add it to the retreat um items that we want to discuss in training as we move forward. Thank you. Anything else? Okay, Mr. Faulk. Thank you. Uh I too am going to pass. Uh Dr. Shel, um yeah, just quick comment. Right. For movies, it's the Motion Picture Association of America that provides the ratings. uh you would have absolutely no uh consistency um if individual librarians are doing um that not every library has the same book and in

172terms of students hiding the books that they check out from the library. Um we do inform parents how they can check uh which books their students are checking out. It doesn't just mean you have to find the book or ask your child for it. You can actually check the library um system and see uh which book your child has checked out. So for parents that are interested, they certainly have access to that information. I appreciate that. At the same time, I would say Dr. Cycle that if you go to see a movie, they're not going to call home and say, "Well, you knew the movie was out in the theater, so it's your responsibility as a parent to make sure your child didn't come to movies." They asked for an ID uh before you go

173to see a a a R-rated film. So I think the burden falls back on the schools and not just completely on the parents to go back and say, and it's your due diligence to find out what your child is reading in the library. So again, I I definitely want to look forward to conversations with the school board at our meeting and have this conversation. Yeah. The difference with movies is there's a national organization that provides it. So um if the National Librarians Association actually provided a rating for books, uh that would be a different conversation because then you can assure uh ensure that uh the same book in different libraries gets the same rating. So that's one of the right and again this comes down to schoolboard governance. So absolutely it comes down to not

174a national rating system or what's good for the national rating but what's good for our community and what's good for our kids. So who would determine then how a book is rated in county. Okay good question. We could have a community dialogue with parents and we could also have elected officials talk and find out what that looks like. Same way we've done the superintendent search. We've got community dialogue with parents. We've got community dialogue with teachers. We've got community dialogue with stakeholders. We could do the same thing with the books. And you would do that for every book that a library orders. I think that we No, I think you would set a standard as if does this have sexual content in it? Does it have profanity in it? What does it have in it

175like that? And so same way as movies. So if it has sexual content in it like the Mr. Fury, that's going to be on an R-rated system there. Okay. I know it's a little bit complicated, but it it doesn't it's not complicated. It's just um that you there's no such category as oh it has sexual content. It depends on what that content is. Obviously, we need to talk about this more. So, I'll put it on I'll put it on the agenda for the retreat. We come to sixth grade, you can find out what that is. So, and for anybody watching, if you see us flailing our hands or shaking our heads, it's because there's a fly up here. There's a fly pestering at least three of us for sure. So that must mean that we

176stink and it's time to go. So, uh, we board members, we have reason to move into close session. Do I have a, um, motion? Uh, I move that the board enter a closed meeting to discuss and consider the following pursuant to the provisions of Virginia Code section 2.2-3711 A1. personnel, specific public officers, appointees or employees for the purpose of considering such individuals assignment, appointment, promotion, performance, demotion, salaries, disciplining, or resignation. and A2, one or more particular students specifically related to discipline and requests regarding compulsory stool school attendance based on religious beliefs that would involve disclosure of information contained in a scholastic record record concerning a student. Thank you, Dr. McQuen. Do I have a second? Thank you, Mr. Faulk. Is there any discussion? Hearing none, we'll vote. All those in favor to go into close

177session, please say I. I. All those opposed? Motion carries. We are Thank you all for coming. Oh, I did forget. It looks like all the students left anyway. But thank you all for coming. Um, please safe travels home and have a good night.