001test okay want to explain you why for okay at this time I'd like to call the January 9th 23 Rockingham County school board meeting to order welcome to you all I hope and trust that everyone had a blessed Christmas and a joyous New Year and we're pleased to have you with us this evening the first item of business is we do need to approve tonight's agenda and I will entertain a motion in that regard I move we approve the agenda as presented thank you Mrs lore is there a second second thank you thank you Mr folk any questions comments or suggested additions hearing none all in favor of approval of the agenda as presented please say I I I any opposed and that is 5 at this time I ask if you please those who
002are able to stand join me in the Pledge of Allegiance Pledge aliance to the flag of the United States of America the stands indivisible now we would ask that you would please join us for a moment of silence thank you next on our agenda is our annual ual re organization and begins with the election of the chair for 2023 24 and I would like to nominate Vice chore Vice chair Jackie lore to be chair for next year do I hear a second thank you Mr folk any other nominations hearing none all those in favor of approval of Jackie lorz chair please say I I I any opposed that's 0 congratulations ma'am congratulations Miss low and while you take your seats I do want to uh make sure that uh Mr Breeden receives recognition for his
003um outstanding leadership and service to the students and staff of Rockingham County Public Schools and um in appreciation of that we do have a present for you so if I can bring that over to you congratulations and thank you for everything you've done I'd like to re reiterate that thank you uh former chairman uh Mr Breeden um and thank you to all of you all for trusting me with the leadership role for the coming year I hope that we can all work together to do just amazingly great things for kids in Rockingham County so thank you we now need to elect a vice chair I will entertain nominations for vice chair I would like to nominate Charlotte mcin thank you Mr folk do I hear a second great thank you Mr Cross we have a
004nomination that's been properly made and seconded are there any other nominations hearing none we'll move on um is there any further discussion I just want to I want to personally thank you uh Charlotte and Miss L for all the work that you have done with the superintendent uh firm search uh it was very well done um you you gave out information on time and and uh you explained things and you also went into some detail that not all the board members such as myself knew and I really appreciate that and and your leadership and uh selecting The Firm that went on and I just want the public to know just how great of a transition that was with both of you guys being leadership so I look forward to this year under both of you
005guys' guidance on the school board so thank you great thank you and and the search is not over yet there's there's lots of great information to come in just a moment um is there any further discussion hearing none we'll vote all those in favor of Dr mcquilkin as Vice chair please say I I all those opposed same sign great motion carries uh 5 z um congratulations Dr Mulin now yeah now we'll move on to appoint a clerk and Deputy clerk do I have a motion uh have a recommendation the superintendent makes a recommendation okay so I do recommend to appoint uh Caitlyn guson as Clerk and Doug aler as Deputy Clerk of the school board for the 2023 calendar year wonderful do I hear a motion for in that matter I move that we follow
006the superintendent's recommendation for Clerk and Deputy clerk thank you Mr faul do I have a second second thank you Dr mcquilkin is there any discussion I do want to double check I have a feeling we're good but I want to make sure uh Caitlyn and Dr alifer are you guys good with this very good thank you um any further discussion hearing none we'll vote all those in favor please say I I oppose same sign great motion carries 5 z uh now we'll move on to select a superintendent designate Dr Shel do you have a recommendation and I do recommend to appoint Doug alterer as the superintendent's design to attend meetings of the school board in the absence or inability of the superintendent to attend great thank you do I hear a motion as such I
007move that we accept the superintendent's recommendation to appoint Dr Doug alifer as the superintendent's design thank you Mr Breeden do I have a second second thank you Mr Fulk is there any discussion again I'm gonna ask Doug very good thank you uh Dr alifer agrees to this position so um all those is there any further discussion okay all those in favor please say I oppose same sign great 5- Zer again thank you now we have reason to establish a regular meeting schedule uh Dr Shel um the board has approved um this meeting schedule previously on August 22nd but as as is customary when the board is reorganized um we will establish that schedule as the regular schedule for the 2023 um um calendar year and I do recommend uh to approve the calendar as it
008was previously approved on August 22nd 2022 wonderful thank you do I have a motion so moved thank you Mr Faulk second second thank you Dr mcelin uh is there any discussion about the upcoming schedule we will proceed to vote all those in favor please say I I all those opposed same sign motion carries 5 z um Now we move on to committee appointments Dr Shel do you have a recommendation the recommendation that you have in front of you is um the same recommendation from um last year from 2022 and so certainly uh this wasn't uh you know any effort to coordinate with individual board members ahead of time this is a duplicate of uh the Committees that the individual board members have served on so Mr Cross served on the shanadoo valley special education Regional
009program uh Mr Fulon the extension Leadership Council uh Dr mcquilkin on the mass nuton Governor School Board um Miss L served uh on the MTC Foundation board Miss L and Mr Breeden were the liaison committee to the Board of Supervisors and Dr mcquin also served as a Rockingham Educational Foundation ex officio member and so my recommendation would be to continue those but certainly again there may be a desire on individual board members part or or by the board um in its entirety to make some changes to that thank you um do we have a motion or do we I actually have some concerns about well not concern concerns I would just like to revisit it and maybe take some time as a board to to look at the Committees and restructure them um so I
010would absolutely uh entertain a motion to table this definitely until uh this spring when we have a chance to to to meet as a board and decide if these are the Committees we want to continue with do I have a a motion to table I second that motion okay okay so so I'll I I'll I'll take I'll move to table definitely to Spring of 2023 and uh Mr Cross has seconded uh all those in favor of table is there any discussion on this issue I would current the current appointments until the time that the changes are made because for example uh February 22nd is a meeting of the mass nuton Regional Governor School Board so uh you certainly want to have someone in place for that so if and I don't have the the motion
011from last year in front of me if we table this will the or are you are you saying that that if we table it will it automatically just roll over until we do committee assignments or that's do we need to add that's what I have in mind okay okay so we're all in agreement that we'll I guess I actually the motion is to table it until spring of 2023 and continue with our current committee assignments until this isssue is Revisited is there any further discussion do you have a date in mind in the spring no just once we can all get together and talk about it I don't have a specific date okay do we want a specific date second meeting in uh March that sounds good okay do we need to amend the motion
012as such or we just all gonna uh I move that we amend the motion to um specify the date as the second meeting regular school board meeting in March to when we resolve this great thank you and uh so we have a motion to amend the main motion to add the specific date of the second meeting in March I need a second great thank you Dr mcquilkin we have a second uh is there any discussion on the amendment hearing none we'll vote on the amendment all those in favor please say I I I motion carries uh oh I'm sorry all those opposed same sign great motion carries 01 the mo the main motion has been amended to add the date uh of the second Schoolboard meeting in March so is there any further discussion on
013the main motion hearing none we'll vote on the main motion to table the committee assignments until the second meeting in March um and our current uh committee assignments will remain in in in effect until we vote on these new committee assignments is any further discussion okay all those in favor please say I I I all those opposed same sign motion carries 5 Z we will table this item until the second meeting in March oh we didn't waste enough time uh we have a we have reason to have a public hearing but we um yeah we uh advertised that the public hearing would be at 7:15 so what do we want to take a quick recess do we wanna do we do y'all want to listen to me talk for a minute do we what if
014we switch what if we do public comments the general public comments can we skip to the general public comments and come back to the public hearing does that work for everybody okay so we're going to skip to our public comments um and on the roster in front of me I have Diana Harmon that has signed up to speak that is fine we're going to circle back to the public hearing because I don't want to have the public hearing I don't want to close the public hearing before 7:15 as it's advertised time was 7:15 so if anybody walks in that door in the next two minutes bear with me I'm not good at this oh you take your time now there will we have a three minute let me just go over the the um the
015ground rules for public comments uh you have three minutes I will try to give you a gavel at 30 when you have 30 seconds left um and please uh don't be nervous but please be kind okay thank you my my daughter had to move her and her husband with her four kids and they have some health problems they moved just a little bit out of Rockingham County and didn't know it they've always went to Rockingham County Schools I've got letters from the doctors one's a got autism another one's being tested now and they've always went to Pleasant Valley and the other son has anxiety real bad and he goes to Rockingham County and they can't afford the $4,000 from to go to school so I'm here to see if y'all can help me and I
016have letters from the doctors y'all can call them so that they can stay in school because they get off the bus at my house and I live in Mount Crawford I am in Rockingham County they just recently moved out of Rockingham County but it was because they had to they didn't have a choice they could only find a house that quick so is there any way y'all can would consider it generally we don't do a back and forth for public comments uh you come and you state your uh but I believe that would be something that would be directed towards Dr Shel and Dr Shel can reach out and talk to you about it tomorrow um so we've already had um an exchange about this via email and I'll certainly take your documentation just for
017the boards information so admission of non-resident students is govern in policy jcr and um the board a few years back changed the annual tuition I believe it was $3,000 a year per student prior to that to $11,000 but included um statement in the policy that states there shall be no exceptions to the payment of tuition um and also there is um language in the policy that states that um a for a student with um an IP that the resident division would have to guarantee payment of all related costs so the request in this case would require a board policy change so that's the request it's um it's come to to me and and I communicated uh what our policy currently is and that because the policy states that there shall be no exceptions that the
018only way uh forward would be a policy change by the school board but I will gladly again I'll take your documentation and then it's the boards absolutely the board's discretion whether to entertain a policy change it would be devastating the doctors that they think thank you thank you very much our next speaker will be Sandy mser hi school board members and parents uh I would hope that by this point you all have researched as I have the organization any given child chandor Valley which as you know is the organization that sponsored the third grade trip to the forb Center for an inappro rate performance by the JMU dance group for any given child's website the third graders are once again scheduled to go to the JMU forb Center for another JMU dance Workshop scheduled on
019March 31st have you uh reviewed the plan program and no there will not be any more of these inappropriate surprises has anyone discussed the issues with the JMU dance program the also the fourth graders are scheduled to go to the forb center on February the 17th for a JMU Orchestra Discovery concert while this is a different Group which I hope would be more respectful of our children the performance is still at the forb center and at the forb center they read their highly inappropriate white supremacy statement before each performance I feel the current experience at the JMU forb Center is in appropriate for children as well as adults being forced to listen to their white supremacy statement and possibly being subjected to inappropriate surprises for these reasons I would ask you to cancel all field
020trips to the JMU for Center I would also ask that you review a full script and visual program before approving any field trips for any organization as well as guest speakers and guest teachers that no deviations would be allowed from the approved programs let's educate our children to be independent thinkers not indoctrinate them thank you for your time thank you Miss mser um I believe Dr shyo will have a presentation uh later in the the meeting that you'll find of interest and will'll address a lot of your concerns um okay now we can go back back to our public hearing and I currently have no one signed up to uh speak on behalf of the public hearing for the budget hearings is there anyone that would like to speak about the budget at this time
021okay this concludes our public hearing um for the budget the um 2023 2024 School operating budget um we'll now move on to highlights board members and we are going to start with um Mr Cross all right thank you um I hope all the board members uh had a great Christmas break or Christmas uh season that we had and I hope our staff and um our students and teachers all had a great time off as well um I tonight I I want to highlight uh Tim leech who's a the ad athletic director out the SP Ood high school he has worked for Rockham County public schools for a very long time and and he's going to be resigning here uh soon and taking on a new job and something new that he wants to do so
022uh thank you to Tim leech for all the work and time and hard hard work that you put in there at Spotswood High School because he took over uh at Spotswood when things were a little bit shaky in the ad uh area for some time and he's done an outstanding job uh in coordinating and planning events there at Spotswood High School and uh I just appreciate all the time and effort uh that Tim leech put in uh and all the years of service he did here at Rockham count County public school so tonight I want to highlight Tim and say thank you uh you're always welcome back Tim and I I wish you the best of hope uh going forward in your career thanks thank you um Mr folk thank you uh let's go Dr
023mcquilkin thank you chairman Laur welcome back everyone it's good to be back and for the calendar year 2023 this Saturday on the 14th at Harrisonburg High School there will be a job fair and all people who who have licensed teaching degrees are welcome to come and interview for jobs not only for Rockingham County Schools but for some some of the schools in the area I think there are eight or nine schools uh who are participating and we welcome and we were hopeful that the all the applicants and the people who are interviewing I wish them all well uh Mr Breeden thank you chair L uh I was out riding in the old car the other day and contemplating and I I realized um that when I came on this board I was 34 years old
024and if the good Lord lets me live one more week I'll be 61 um and so I thought since you guys do such a great job of highlighting school events and as I enter into what will certainly be my last year uh as a board member um that I would I would like to begin over the next couple of meetings and just giving a shout out to some of the people who have been so instrumental in my development as a board member and have been supportive and role models and um I'm sure that over the course of these next meetings I'll forget someone so please do not be offended if I if I do not mention you but there won't be time to to do all of them but tonight uh and and they don't
025know I'm doing this so they may not see it but tonight I'd like to give a sh a shout out to to Dr Fred Ken um Marie doam and Dr John kid um Dr Kennan was assistant superintendent in Rockham County schools for many years and you could always count on getting a straight shot from him I looked to some of those who knew and worked with him uh you might not always like what he had to say but you knew that his heart was always with kids and I'm blessed to say that I keep in touch with Fred even now Marie doire was uh Caitlyn's predecessor many years ago um Marie is just an absolute Saint as is anyone who has to do the board clerk job but uh I I blessed to stay in
026touch with Marie now and um just thank her so much for her guidance as we in those in those early years and and John kid I I mean there's really no words to describe I always think of John saying be ye careful and um and what he meant by that is be careful not to do something that's going to adversely affect kids education and um and and John and Judy remain dear friends to this day and we talk frequently and I'm just so thankful to have had uh Dr Kennan Dr kid and Marie DOL Meyer U Grace my life with their expertise and and and Goodwill thank you thank you Mr Bren um I'm going to go next and then I'll let you have it I just wanted to say thank you to um Becky
027Ford for uh and I'm glad you're here tonight for uh forwarding us the uh musical performance by Spotswood and montv middle school oh my goodness folks do we have some talented kids in Rockingham County uh I was able to watch the performance I wasn't able to go live but thanks to uh Miss Ford I was able to watch it and it was fantastic and I saw recently on Facebook that we've got musicals set and I'm looking forward to hearing what all the musicals are and I'm looking forward to going to all the musicals um but and we've got winter sports that are in full swing and just amazing things happening in Rockingham County Public Schools uh I would like to thank Dr Shel the last time we were here I asked for no snow on
028the on Friday uh before school ended and we were able to do that so we uh had a wonderful drive-thru and got to see lots of uh smiling faces at Lacy Spring Elementary um and they're just great things happening in Rockingham County Public Schools and I hope everybody gets the chance to experience something great in Rockingham this year um and again a big highlight for me as being uh elected as board chair so thank you to everyone for trusting me with the leadership for the uh the board for our children so thank you and I'm going to now pass it to Dr schel have a few highlights thank you uh Madam chair so on Friday we had um about 85 11th graders and the teachers at uh JMU in the Hall of Presidents uh for
029an event that was related to our community dialogue process and from the very beginning we've said you know when we talk about um how to create caring and safe environments for our students that's student voice needs to be part of that and so um a few years ago um Amy Johnson was an English teacher at East Rockingham high school and and that conducted this Amazing Project where students came up with a a plan to improve uh school safety and it was this 30-page document um we've looked at so much of the research since then and the students you know really covered um all of the topics uh both in terms of students uh feeling a sense of belonging in terms of even uh things such as Anonymous reporting tools and all the other pieces and
030so for this project Amy is now the librarian at Spotswood I asked her to work with 11th grade teacher so we really could have broad representation and so on Friday the students uh met and uh students from all four high schools were there they talk to each other about all the things that are important to them um mental health for example just as in the community dialogue group mental health is a key piece for them and uh a number of other things you know came up with a suggestions for how school can be improved and it was really um a joy to hear them explain uh what they would like to see and uh I will say you know for a few years now we've heard students come to us and say they should be
031a student representative on the school board and the issue was always well how does you know one student represent really um 12,000 students and then we tried a student advisory and again it was a small group and so uh in terms of um achieving some representation was really difficult and and I wish I had had this project with the students um five years ago because one of their suggestions that the board also will hear at the first um February meeting here um you know is exactly about that how to uh bring student voice to the table and um there some really really good suggestions so that was a highlight and when it comes to mental health uh Governor yonan's budget proposal uh for the upcoming year include significant funds again there's an initiative uh related
032to uh mental health in schools through uh the community service boards in terms of U making additional funds available to help students um and then also related to Governor yanan's lab school initiative uh just before the holidays Dean lesan from J you and I had a chance to present to yanin lab school committee so there's an evaluation process and um rcps the first School Division in the state to be ready uh with their lab school proposal and we had amazing conversations I thought it was going to be a committee of uh members of the board of education but it turned out uh there were a former superintendents White House officials a former Education Department officials and uh philanthropy organizations and uh it was a really really good conversation so we'll see again over the next
033month or so we should have a little bit more information but that was certainly a highlight too and and how those people looked at the proposal that we brought with JMU for um four lab schools in uh rackingham County potentially beginning a fall 2023 but again depending on the timelines could also be a little bit later so those were my highlights and uh again the final Arts events obviously um you know are a big deal on Friday uh this week or um on Saturday actually at 3 p.m. there'll be City County honor band at um Spotswood High School so I encourage everyone to attend who has a chance to see them uh they work with Professionals for the day and then there's a performance at three and that's always a major highlight that's coming up
034thank you thank you uh we'll now move into action items uh I need a motion to approve the minutes I move that we approve the minutes of December 12th 2022 and January 4th 20 23 great thank you Dr mcin do I have a second second thank you Mr folk all those is there any discussion regarding the minutes hearing none uh we'll vote all those in favor please say I I I all those oppos same sign great thank you Caitlyn for for doing a wonderful job on our minutes um next we have the bills and mileage I recommend approval of the December 2022 bills and mileage as presented thank you do I have a motion as such I move that we approve the bills the December bills of 2022 thank you Dr mcelin do I have
035a second thank you I'm gonna go with Mr Cross thank you Mr Cross uh is there any discussion on this motion hearing none we'll vote all those in favor please say I I all oppos same sign great motion carries 5 Z um next we have the field trips board members you have a number of field trips for your approval tonight uh Spotswood High School honor band January 20th through the 22nd seven students to Virginia Tech in blackburg into indoor percussion March 31st through April 2nd 2023 26 students to the Hampton Coliseum in Hampton Virginia FCCLA state conference April 13 through 16 for students to Virginia Beach and then from Broadway High School FFA Aces leadership conference February 18 and 19 18 students to Harrisburg Pennsylvania and the DECA State leadership conference March 2nd through the
0365th 45 students to Virginia Beach and I recommend approval of those field trips thank you Dr Shel do I have a motion thank you Mr Cross do I have a second thank you Mr Fulk is there any discussion on the field track hearing none we'll vote all those in favor please say I I I all oppos same sign motion carries the field trips are approved by unanimous vote uh next we have the adoption of civil rights Assurance policy ACA board members this is an annual approval and you have the policy ACA civil rights certificate um in your materials and I recommend approval um of this civil rights Assurance certificate against and policy ACA as presented thank you Dr Shel do I have a motion I move that we accept superintendent's recommendation thank you Mr Breeden
037I have a second thank you Mr folk is there any discussion hearing none we'll vote all those in favor please say I I all opposed same sign motion carries zero 5 Z 5 Zer motion carries I'm not very good with scores um next we we have a resolution for approving a loan application to the literary fund uh board members this resolution requires a little bit of explanation um as we've discussed in the past our next steps in the capital Improvement plan include uh an expansion of Broadway High School and uh the funding for the expansion of Broadway High School we've always uh mentioned that now this was uh money that the School Division would be able to have without a county borrowing money for this and so this is a change because the literary loan
038application is for $14 million for Broadway High School and there's a good reason for that um this is a change from the original plan and the reason is that um there's a favorable interest rate of 3% uh typically these interest rates uh range um somewhere around 5 to 6% for other County borrowing and so the difference over 20 years um is about $4 million and so um actually using this loan application will save County taxpayers uh that money and it's not guaranteed of course that we would be successful with this loan application but if the application is successful then the funds originally uh dedicated to the expansion of Broadway High School would be used for the next uh few projects in that list so that would be the renovations at Elon Elementary and macville Elementary
039um it's and one reason it's not clear that this low interest rate would remain uh in place for this loan uh this resolution will go to the Board of Supervisors on January 11th so there is um awareness already by individual um members of the Board of Supervisors it's been coordinated with County staff and uh the conversations again with individual members of the Board of Supervisors um have been had and so there's that support um ultimately of course all money we have at the end of the year you know always goes back to the uh Board of Supervisors and so the money dedicated for Broadway is already held by uh County government and so again in collaboration with County government this is a good opportunity to actually get a low interest rate loan that is otherwise
040not available to the county so this again saving County taxpayers a significant amount of money and I recommend um approval of this resolution uh for the literary loan application and this will require a roll call Vote Yes thank you idea [Music] when certain town I don't have an approval date so these will be sent uh to Richmond um so they're waiting for that again um and then there'll be a process there but uh certainly it either way um if if this loan application doesn't go through the funds for the Broadway expansion of course are already there so it's not a concern in that sense but we should have it um you know in time obviously for that project but I don't have a specific date for you do we have a motion yeah I move
041that we approve the superintendent um suggestion recommendation for the literary loan application as presented thank you Dr mcen do I have a second a second thank you thank you Mr Cross um is there any further discussion this is a roll call vote so I'll turn it over to miss Gerson Mr Breeden I Mr Cross I Mr Fulk chair lore I Dr mcquilkin I thank you motion carries unanimously uh okay next on the agenda is the budget calend calendar for um 2324 board members you have the proposed budget calendar for 2324 in your materials uh you may notice that uh some of those dates um have already passed however That's Not Unusual because of the uh nature of those first steps so for example in October budget uh info was distributed to principles and then in
042December uh requests from principles were due and then all the requests uh were due to miss m last um last Friday and so then today we had the public hearing so those were all scheduled and they're fairly standard and then the rest of the calendar of course um explains when you will get information um you know related to all the budget requests the governor's budget and so on um until a vote that is scheduled currently for March 27th on the 2324 budget and I recommend approval of the budget calendar as presented thank you Dr shyo do I hear a motion uh I move that we approve the budget calendar for 23 2023 2024 is presented thank you Dr mcin do I have a second thank you Mr Breeden uh is there any further discussion on
043the budget calendar I have a question if we wanted to entertain um Ms harman's request would we need to do that by the end of the budget uh would we need to have that in by January 23rd does that make sense when you um it's not a budget related item it's a straight policy change it doesn't have any that's correct be policy jcr you would um have to now again certainly there's some amount in the budget related to tuition but that's an amount that uh wouldn't necessarily have to happen here so that's just as with many of the other requests you know sometimes um again once all of these requests come to you then there are also board discussions um individually about you know additions that board members may want to see or changes that
044board members want to see so the tuition that we collect is not um at an amount where you'd have to say oh now we really have to rethink the budget thank you is there any further discussion hearing none we'll vote on the uh budget calendar proposal uh all those in favor please say I all those opposed same sign motion car I'm sorry motion carries uh unanimously thank you all uh now we have High School uh course offerings for 2020 324 and I believe Mr Fitzgerald's going to present to us miss lur before I start tonight it warms my heart to see you as chairman of the board I remember having you in class I think it was probably 30 plus years ago maybe I wasn't supposed to say that but uh that's that's good to
045see that you're using that parliamentary procedure you learned many many years ago um during the December 12th 2022 Schoolboard meeting a list of proposed High School courses was presented to you guys for information uh for the upcoming school year tonight I'm asking for your approval of those courses so that we can go ahead and start scheduling students and I do recommend approval of the proposed High School offerings as presented by Mr Fitzgerald our amazing CT director thank you and thank you Mr fishal for your kind words uh I I do want to say real quick just quick commercial uh a lot of the parly that I've learned some of it came from my time in FFA a lot of it came from my children's time in FFA and if you ever get a chance to
046watch the national Google it National FFA parliamentary procedure finals it is amazing the way these kids do parley so much better than me so okay now that I've digressed do I have a motion to support the superintendent's recommendation follow the superintendent recommendation to approve the hospit offering for the 2023 24 as presented by erical director of Career and Technical education thank you Mr fol do have a second thank you Mr Cross is there any further discussion on this well I just wanted to State again tell you about a couple of the course offerings that we added are really really going to increase the opportunities for our children thank you yes sir you're welcome I agree yes I think it's real estate and what are a couple of the other ones there really we have a
047number of them we have real estate we have a couple theater classes digital arts classes there's a number of them on there this year I think there's seven all together great that's wonderful wonderful opportunities for our kids any further discussion hearing none we'll vote all those in favor please say I I all those oppose same sign motion car carries unanimously thank you Mr fitzgeral yes ma'am thank you next we have the Career and Technical joint Advisory Board I guess you're going to stay up here for that aren staying right here yes ma'am um The Joint Career and Technical education Advisory Board validates CTE curriculum each year uh for Rockingham County Public School schools Harrisonburg city public schools and our regional center Mass nut and Technical Center uh members of the committee are selected in categories
048based on federal Perkins requirements so that we can um receive Perkins funding uh for our CTE programs now the the members on the advisory committee are selected or given terms of two years and we have about half the members that uh rotate off each year and they can be renewed uh and a lot of them choose to do that nomination for the committee are made by committee members by teachers uh by school officials and then representatives are business and industry Community along with the Virginia Employment Commission um attached or in your packet you have a document that lists all of the committee members as of right now the new members and the members that are being renewed are in italics all the members serve for two-year terms with the exception of the student member which
049is a senior that has a one-year term uh tonight I ask for your approval of that committee uh as listed on the um in your packet and I do recommend approval of the CT Advisory board for 2023 as presented by Mr Eric Fitzgerald thank you Dr Shel and thank you Mr fitgerald do I have a motion I move that we accept the superintendent's recommendation thank you Mr Breeden do I have a second second thank you Mr folk is there any discussion I'm just going to uh say as part of our discussion I have a a close relationship to one of the members so I'm going to abstain from this vote um but uh is there any further discussion hearing none we'll go ahead and vote all those fa in favor please say I all those
050opposed and so the motion carries four in favor and one abstention thank you thank you very much okay now moving on to information items and our superintendent search firm presentation Madam chair Vice chair members of the board Dr shakel first and foremost let me thank you on behalf of my colleague Kevin castner and bwp for selecting us to assist you with your superintendent search want to assure you that we know our purpose and that is to do everything in our power to make sure that we assist you in identifying a pool of candidates from which you will choose your next superintendent as we do our work we want you to know that we are committed to sincere effort High intention intelligent execution as we work with you through the steps included in helping you do
051your work Dr Kastner and I are the team located and working mostly in Virginia we come with extensive experience Dr Kastner and I are both former superintendents with 25 years of experience Dr Kastner in albam Maro County or 11 years and I in Rono City for 12 years uh we have spent time in other districts in high level positions Dr casner uh has a Consulting business as do I I am on the faculty at Virginia Tech together Dr Kastner and I have a national connection with others who work for bwp across this country likewise uh we will be working uh throughout all of this with those other contacts to make sure that we identify candidates who will be good fit and match for you so that you have an idea of the work that we've
052done together Dr casner and high have done 42 searches including this one as you know we assisted you five years ago but you can see the list of searches that we've done in Virginia together we've worked together for the last 12 years Frederick County we just completed Arlington County Stafford County Winchester Stanton Harrison ber Dr Kastner in fact has gone far beyond 42 searches working all over this country uh assisting boards and again I say to you we understand our purpose uh and our goal is to do nothing short of excellence in assisting you as you make decisions who you will interview and who you will select be very clear Dr Kastner and I make no decisions we make recommendations for you you are the ultimate decision maker we will personalize this search for you
053we will tailor the process to your needs which means we are in touch with you on a regular basis we will identify candidates who match what it is you and this community say you want in your next superintendent we will present those candidates to the board present not not promote we do not have a stable of candidates that we automatically roll out to you candidates must apply they will be screened and we will present those candidates to you and Dr kasner will talk to you about that and finally I want to reiterate you are the decision makers the objectives for the search we will establish a process that assists the board to identify and select the best candidate to lead you forward you will have access to all of the candidates but you will select
054the one who will be your next superintendent we will assist in creating community and staff support for the search by involving them in the process Dr casner will talk about that step of community engagement we will aggressively recruit High highly qualified candidates and finally we at the successful completion of the search within the board's timeline your budget and expectations at this time Dr Kastner will walk you through the four steps in the process that we will use talk with you about some decisions that you need to make and we'll be happy to answer any questions you might have thank you good evening we're glad to be back with you we aren't the same group that was here in 2017 but our process hasn't changed we've had the opportunity as we work with different School divisions
055to try to keep up with things and it it's important to keep up with things we know Public Schools aren't the same as they were two years ago it's a different world we also know that this very important decision that you'll make for your superintendent is a responsibility that you definitely we know takes very seriously and it you're building on a wellness situation you have a good system but during this process there's a lot of momentum that will occur where you have a new group of people that weren't always here in 217 you have some changes in the board and all of a sudden as we go around your community in the community engagement process we intend to engage them and respect them and hear their work and get back to you on it it's
056important that we have this meeting tonight even though some of this information we've previously shared with you when we did the interview process and the reason is that this should be a transparent process and we want to try to engage the community we also want to acknowledge that when you do the bwp process you know that you're inviting us in as guests to your community to listen to all members of your community either where they go through a survey or they meet with us when we're here during the communication process or they send us emails and you're trusting us to record what we're hearing and sometimes we do these processes and some of the things are a little hard to hear that's not the case here but if we have a situation where let's say
057as people would look at a board and they have issues or they always have split votes they have meetings that go on till 2 or 3:00 in the morning all this is part of the process but here again we're building upon something that's already a strength and we're also doing this at probably the most ideal time of the year to attract candidates so when you look at what we have up before you uh all the objectives uh we intend to meet and I want to go through some details and the whole issue of the it starts out with specifications with specific ifications means we need direction from you as a board you have a folder in front of you and on the left hand side of that folder uh is a sheet that talks about
058key decisions now some of these key decisions we should be able to get tonight some of it we're going to need to work with the calendars and staff to be able to make uh firm dates when we're talking talking about the community engagement so the idea that once you determine when you're going to have your community engagement session we're also going to be working with a survey you need to know that the board will approve of the different groups we're going to be meeting they're going to improve the survey and they're going to improve the announcement this will not OCC occur this evening the most important decision that you as a board can make this evening is whether you decide that you want to have a confidential superintendent search or do you want to have
059a superintendent search where the names of applicants could become public if you do that you're going to have a much sh Aller pool because sitting superintendents are going to be reluctant in Virginia school boards have that choice if we were to go to South Carolina the three finalist names will be revealed when we do work in South Carolina the numbers in the applicant pool is smaller so as we go around the country the data is pretty clear that if you're trying to track the best possible candidate that you want to consider a confidential search and we would need to have some board agreement if you could this evening to establish that I'm I'm asking for direction I'm going to defer to our chairman of the search committee this time um we thank you than you
060very much for coming this evening and presenting not only to the board but to the public at large we are live streamed a board meeting so that there are not only the people sitting here this evening but those who wish to to join us uh can do so after listening to your request as to whether we should have a an open search or a confidential search uh I'm going to make a motion that we have a confidential search thank you Dr mooken we have a motion on the floor for confidential search do I have a second second thank you Mr mariden is there discussion I appreciate you both of you Dr casner coming and Dr Harris coming as well and speaking to the board uh during the interview process and and I think it was
061Mr Harris that really has sold me on a lot of everything just because he's like your dad sitting in the room or your granddad and if you get out of line he's going to give you a good whooping but he's he's a Down to Earth um man is is honest seems honest and I I trust um just the time I've had a chance to to speak with Mr Harris uh and talk about these things during the interview process and um so I I would agree tonight to make it confidential thank you Mr Cross is there any further discussion hearing none we'll go ahead and vote um for on the motion of a confidential search for superintendent all those in favor please say I I I all those opposed same sign motion carries we will be
062having a confidential search one of the things that you're doing in this process is you're doing a search it's not just for Virginia we have 136 school systems and great potential superintendents in those systems that could very well have an interest in your job but also if you go National there might be other people that have been very successful in Virginia are now in different other states and so if your obligation is fulfilled in trying to find the strongest candidate available then you have a national search that wouldn't preclude if you have an internal candidate but if you have an internal candidate and we've had this happen in the past if they would be vetted through a national pool then that will give you a confidence and also an expectation that you've done your due
063diligence whatever decision you make so this does happen uh and we just like to say that it is important to go through the robustness of a national search and a quality pool of which I can assure you the only candidates that we would be recommending to to you to consider would have the match and fit based on this information now to obtain this information you can see here we wanted to have an Community engagement process now in the community engagement process we want to meet with each individual board member uh we will take notes when we have those meetings and not by name but we will create a composite information of what board members are saying and if we meet with groups throughout your community every time we sit down with a group of people
064we also will take notes and we actually will read back what we hear and eventually we will do a report that will come to you as a board and that okay that report again is going to be different than the report in 2017 but when you receive that report it's public record and is all this information including the presentation this evening the communic the report that we'll make with engagement that will lead to a datadriven recommendation for a leadership profile that's what we're trying to do um last time we met over 200 people we had over 750 surveys so we took the quantitative information the qualita information and we use that to create a draft profile I suspect this time we will probably have a larger participation one of the things we know now that
065if we can ever have meetings where we can live stream as well as just having people in attendance we actually are getting greater participation which is what you want but also you want to have something that people would be aware is inclusive not exclusive and that's the goals we have so in the specification stage we're going to collect that information we're going to run it by you as we go through it and then we're going to get into recruitment now recruitment really comes down to the fact that people choose to where they want to apply to work and if they're going to choose they want to go to a place that they can bring their family they need to know what the valley is the valley is different than other places and they need to
066know the culture and the values and they need to know that they can be the type of mix that you're looking for that's going to represent someone that's going to have those type of leadership skills but also uh has experience in similar type communities so having someone that would just live in a total urban area that didn't have an example of something that's a little mixed when you're talking about the importance of FFA or any the other types of things you know that are uh vital parts of your community so these are the things that are going to happen you have a good system It's a Wonderful size because you have a little bit of a central office it needs to also be competitive as regard to compensation but in the recruitment stage as we
067complete this evening it will be on our website starting tomorrow where we will then give more details when we complete the announcement uh we're recommending in the timeline a recruitment period through uh March 30th and you're going to see that I have a draft calendar in there but that's the type of thing that we'll going to need to run by you and make sure that works our whole goal we we know you have a sitting superintendent until July 1 although sometimes they do take some of their leave before then Oscar you're going to have to decide that uh but the whole idea is trying to make that successful transition which would mean you want to have someone that the board's is going to be uh ready to announce sometime in May so you can have
068conversations and have some uh job sharing as you go through some of the transition process so as far as recruitment we you we do all the appropriate National journals and everything but our recommendation is no longer to do a 60-day window we can have a cost of about $1300 by doing a 30-day window and we believe that doing things all electronically not paper copy also is going to save you some money I do not think it's going to sacrifice the quality of the search but also there's different connections that we have and Wayne will tell you from not only the people in Virginia but work we've done in other states so uh we're in good shape we get into the Recruitment and then as you go through this and we're going to be asking you
069to approve this but again I put a copy in your packet so we'd like you to have all the this information now salary parameters one of the things we recommend that you don't go high you don't go low but it is a value when of your top leader that you're trying to set a standard where you're trying to attract and retain not only your superintendent you're also trying to do that with your teachers and staff so that information is a matter of being data driven and you want to look at that and at that time time we'll talk about that in discussion what we'd recommend in the announcement just it be appropriate based upon commiserate uh commiserate experience so we don't like to put a number in there when we do an advertisement we have
070want to have some flexibility where someone's been a sitting superintendent or someone this is their very first job all that you will need to consider when we get into assessments uh the one thing you're counting on is we're not going to bring you anybody that we haven't vetted not only in looking at their applications but knowing people that know them they're going to tell us things on the record or off the Record and we're going to have to do Google searches we're going to have to do deep background checks and our goal is to not have any surprises now I've been through 52 of these and we haven't had any surprises yet but I will tell you it's harder now social media sometimes people are taking shots that aren't always accurate but the thing is
071when you announce whoever you're going to announce everybody in your community is going to be doing the same checking and sometimes they aren't checking all of a sudden to say hooray they're trying to see if there's anything there they're missing if you are work in a Union state they're going to check with the union leaders so you don't have you don't have that but the fact is you're counting on us and we actually will will recommend hiring a firm to do things far more than we can do whether it's speeding tickets or checking bankruptcy all these things when you're talking about assessment before we're going to recommend a candidate that has the qualities and characteristics of your profile this is something you'll be counting on us the other thing we'll be doing and I say
072this although some of you have been through this we will give you suggested Protocols of the dos and don'ts when you have an interview there are certain things legally you just can't do and we want to make sure that you know that information I know that you'll follow it uh have we had exceptions yes but it's very very rare we also would be happy to give you some sample questions for your consideration that when you're trying to prepare for the interview so you don't have to reinvent a lot of this and when we work with your clerk we're going to have a lot of information on a thumb drive so that we can help make this efficient and not take any more staff time that's necessary however when it comes to taking staff time and
073doing this and trying to get people to meet with us it should have an importance because of what this merits in trying to get the best possible candidate and trying to have that involvement of internal staff or even external people in your community so we go through all the assessment we get to the point of doing all this and we get to the point of trying to look at this process and knowing as we've already stated we're going to do everything in the best interest for you we might not tell you uh what you might want to hear sometimes but we'll give you the pros and cons and then you're going to be making the decision Wayne made a good point you're the decision makers here and in this um we think we can make
074this a pretty seamless process you have the I think the last slide is the general dates here uh which we can work with and at this point uh Wayne would you like to add anything before I ask if they have any questions let me say something about the community engagement and how that helps with match and fit for the candidates that we bring to you based on what we have determined is match and fit for you to decide do you interview them we will take everything we hear in those discussions the interviews the public forums based on three questions what are the strengths of Rockingham County Public Schools what are the challenges that the next superintendent will face and what are the qualities characteristics experiences skills and knowledge the next superintendent will need to be
075able to demonstrate given the responses to those three questions from that Community engagement you will approve the leadership profile we will use that then to determine who from the total pool are the top four to six candidates we present those candidates to you in a closed meeting you decide who to interview you decide who the top finalists are and then you decide ultimately who is your next superintendent so that's a capsule of this whole process our goal is to bring you match and fit pop four to six you decide and we look forward to the work we look forward to doing that bless do you also do the background check for uh internal candidates yes we will the same background that you do for those outside of okay I thought you said differently during the
076you heard you heard Kevin refer to vetting okay when we walk through the application to determine who's starting to rise to the top when we select that top 6 8 10 Kevin makes a phone call to some I make a phone call we ask a few questions it's not a formal interview yet once we narrow that pop eight down four to six then Kevin's going to make a formal interview call and we're going to talk about that and then I'm going to pick up the phone and call some people that I know who know that candidate who that candidate doesn't know that I know or who didn't write a reference we do that for all of those candidates so that's part of this background check in the sense of vetting and then I'll call the
077person Kevin called and he'll call the person I called to do formal questions we make calls to other people who we know we call their references all of that's background but then there when you get to the top two candidates that's when you get a deep background check but we Google and we do social media checking as well there's a group called Millennium security all former military and they've never let me down and they just are straight shooted so we you heard Kevin say we don't want any surprises we don't want to be surprised we don't want you to be surprised the one final thing there is a guarantee if you select from the four to six we present to you we guarantee that that person will stay a minimum of two years or we
078will come back and do the search for free only for expenses folks we don't want to come back and I will tell you in the searches that Kevin and I have done there's only been one instance where we had to go back and that was because the person was promoted to the state superintendent position that's one out of a lot a lot are there other questions any other questions thank you all for your time thank you for agreeing to help us with this I think it is wide widely regarded that the superintendent search is the most important thing a school board can do and I think we're all committed to finding the very best candidate that we can for Rockingham County public public schools and thank you for being our partner in that thank you
079be safe heading home okay next item on the agenda is the superintendent update members of the board and the public I have a few items for your information today um one actually I just added um today uh just because of questions I've received uh related to some chatter that's just on uh social media let's see if Greg has this so uh and it's okay I mean that first slide I you know don't really need the slide up so there we go okay so there I've had a few questions from people um asking me when we would move 8th grade over to East Rockingham High School right from Elon Middle School to East Rockingham and my answer has been the same to everyone who's asked me I said there's no plan to move eighth grade over
080to the high school um I think the uh misconception comes from my presentation about the capital Improvement plan so uh we looked at what the next few uh steps are in the capital Improvement plan Broadway expansion um of course the um Renovations at elen elementary mville um expansions of uh manav videoo and Spotswood um MTC has some issues as well and um when we looked at the capacity and where student where schools currently are um I showed that Elton Middle School is currently I believe 15 students was the number 15 students overc capacity and uh so that of course leads to the question well you know what are we going to do about that and so my response back then um was that it all depends right so most of the growth in Rockham County
081occurs in the Urban Development Area so the Spotswood manav videoo attendance area cabun Peak View and um even with uh grados and the South River attendance area having moved to the EAS attendance area um again grow is uh significant there so Peak View and C run you know again they're uh pretty much full and if we hadn't moved um the South River tenance area Spotswood would be U more than 100 students over capacity by now and even the plan for the expansion of Broadway that would allow us to move uh Route 11 North um to the Broadway tenant area you'd still be full at Spotswood so you know all of these we talked about this when um when that redistricting happened that there really multiple steps and so then the question was again how do
082we handle um Elon middle and it really all depends on what the growth in the eastrock Elon metal attendance area is so right now we're not seeing significant growth so we've had schools uh way more overc capacity in the past um I remember Spotswood I believe was at uh you know a couple hundred overc capacity and so there are some short-term steps un unless really see that significant growth and so when the growth occurs that's when steps have to be taken and I said you know that obviously is not um something that is my recommendation it's not something that would happen uh anytime soon with this sport but in in the future there are multiple options one obviously always is simply expanding the middle school right and Mr crossed you know talked about the size
083of the cafeteria and and whether we needed to expand Al middle but when no growth is occurring and and even though you're slightly overc capacity it's not um as urgent as when you have a school that's you know rapidly growing um Peak View added something like 60 new students just in one year right so you see that M much more explosive growth there and so said um expansion is certainly one option but there are also always options to consider what uh where you have current capacity so when the um County government and the school board decide uh to take on a project you know there's always that question well what else can we do instead and so one other option is to use existing capacity um that can happen sometimes in school divisions with elementary
084schools where elementary schools are split and they say okay we have a lot of room at this elementary school but they'll end up at two different middle schools high schools um in other cases uh grade levels are shifted so uh Rakim County this was before um I was superintendent there was a time when um fifth graders I believe came up to Elton middle school so for a couple of years the fifth graders were at the middle school um until again um you know then the relief came in other ways Al Elementary expanded and Riverbend was built and so um one of the suggestions that we had talked about previously was um can you move eighth grade over to the high school right and so it's an option that exists there are other options that exist
085too um if you want to use existing capacity again that's just one option um Elon Elementary has plan your space you know there also the option of leaving sixth grade at the elementary so there are just capacities that exist where we have hundreds of seats available and um I said you know from my perspective looking at other school divisions I believe shanida county has a high school that's 8 through 12 uh and there are many many others that that's an option that uh because you can uh of how much space you have at eastrock you could have a separate Wing we do this in middle school with sixth graders then a separate Wing um you have uh you know a little bit more of a self-contained environment but at no point um did I say
086that um eth graders at Elon middle would be moved to the high school that's that' be years down the road that conversation but it's one of the options and so when uh we this these are actually questions that come up when we present to the capital Improvement plan committee because when you look at a school Division and you say hey we need to expand we need to maybe build another building yet division wide you have hundreds or more than a thousand open seats in schools and it's a logical question that we also get so rather than expanding where can you move students so um that's where that came from and again because I've received a a number of questions now like that this was actually a plan that was being put in place I just
087wanted to clarify that that there's no current plan to move eth grade to East we're 15 over and again there's because of the U low level of growth in that area it you have time to see where that goes now again if housing developments are approved in grados and all of a sudden you see this influx right Elton right e Ro you know the capacity is there because of the proposed angular development years ago that just didn't materialize um it gives the the Schoolboard time so that's important to understand so I wanted to clear it up publicly because you know one by one it just have to explain that to everyone who calls me and and explain that that's not really an existing plan for center field trip so um came up earlier so uh
088the forb center field trip on December 8th we had a field trip to a dance performance at the forp center um organized through any given child and then on December 12th on Monday um Miss heral who is also here tonight uh spoke about her concerns uh with that field trip and uh the three of the main points that she made from uh her perspective Ive um the she anticipated a holiday performance um that also she talked about the land acknowledgement statement that was read at the beginning of the performance and then also talked about uh themes of the performance and so now what I said you know this was again just before holiday break so I started talking to um any given child I spoke to JMU and Herold and I had three phone conversations
089um over those couple of weeks we talked probably total for more than an hour I would say and had a really good conversation and and there's something I want to say right off the bat it's interesting how when a thre minute public comment piece is then used um for everyone else's purposes and and I will say this happened on on both sides so um there were new stories that then characterized uh Miss Herold as a racist right for saying what she did uh on the other hand of course it was all that all of it was garbage that uh we need to cut our ties with the forp center we should never send kids there again we should cut our ties with JMU and everything in between right and and I will say this she
090doesn't deserve any of that um I have found our conversations to be incredibly um positive to be nuanced to talk about why it is that Miss heral had those concerns and that there were legitimate concerns and what the steps can be that we can take to not just say oh it's all nothing or we should never send kids to the for Center again but what actually happened and how can we take steps to uh make sure that um if the same performance had happened again that Miss heral would have not felt the need to come to the school board so I certainly talked to her talked uh um to teachers didn't talked I talked to a few teachers but I surveyed teachers anonymously talked to school administrators and talked to some parent contacts um you
091know parents that actually had uh students who attended the performance so any given child the organization that we've been working with for a few years is an organization it's one of um at least 15 chapters Nationwide um that um attempts to make art experiences uh available to students who otherwise may never have those experiences whether those are Orchestra performances whether it's um again dance whether it's uh you know uh people coming in and Performing um they actually get access to some worldclass performers and the reason for that is is that that any given child organization um was created in partnership with the education department at the jnf Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts uh we all know the Kennedy Center and the uh level of quality that the Kennedy Center uh puts out and the
092education department worked with this organization to make these available and so the any given child has a board often times um for example our um Fine Art supervisor is part of that and then there are simply uh conversations with different organizations uh to determine what events might be available to our students and so there you know Jame for Center we've done events there for a while they you know we may say hey they may sayy we have a dance performance coming up you may want to send your third graders and then at the beginning of the year even um at the end of the previous year you know we get a list and and so we get a list of performances that are available and so we have um performances available to all um students
093uh across um grade levels and um of course just like with many other places you know we don't get exact SCP scripts or choreographies but there's certainly the understanding that um all the organizations that participate um try to take care that it's appropriate right and so that's what the real question there is it's not an All or Nothing proposition but um why you know was U Miss Herald upset by by what she saw there and so a lot of it of course has to do with communication and I think even um the communication that we did receive wouldn't necessarily it may have uh if that had been sent to a parents maybe it would have um not led to the idea that this is a holiday performance but still it's not really descriptive enough so
094simply says that daners from the Virginia Repertory dance company will perform two choreographic works from the upcoming show so the eth was the first time that was performed and then uh 9th through the 11th uh the forb center had public performances so by the time uh we heard about it on Monday there were no more performances um scheduled so it was it was a much larger event uh for the general public um but you know this is basically what the communication was and um there there was a question about how the permission slips were decorated I talked to every school I asked them what the permission slips said not all of them said exactly the same thing so for example um here this is the John Wayland um field trip uh permission slip this is
095from a family we obviously redacted the name just so it's clear that this wasn't just a um a preprint and um what it says is uh this is sponsored by Any Given child um sheno Valley for rcps third graders there's no cost we will not be able to bring chaperon so um for Miss Herold she had no idea why we wouldn't be bringing chaperons that wasn't really explained in that one at other schools it simply was mentioned that this is because of um space constraints for Center can see 450 people uh we have 880 some third graders so uh that's where that decision came from you know if we want to allow all eighth graders to go to a performance and then you barely have room even for the teachers now you always know that
096some students aren't going to attend um but there was no explanation in this particular case that it was because of space constraint simply no chaperon right and all of these things I think add up to um what someone expects to see I think in a in a performance now miss heral was allowed to go she took the place of one of our assistants and did attend the performance there's also again misinformation out there that she talked about uh performance she didn't personally see she did she was able to attend right um and then I brought that concern so um the field trip was not at any of the school advertised as a holiday performance uh none of the communication indicated that it was and the and the field trip form wasn't really adorned with um
097any Christmas um or holiday themed decorations either however ever it's interesting I spoke to another parent and that parent asked me so are we not going to be able to send the kids to the for Center anymore because my child uh was the happiest she had been all year when she came back she loved it had other parents said my child now wants to be um you know a student when she grows up in the school of dance and I said um well so far I haven't seen any permission slip with any Christmas decoration and that parent who Al who's also a teacher in in the county said no our school did as I showed the permission slip and um her response was well I I mean we get about 100 papers in December right
098and many of them are related to holidays so you know whether it's um you know some tree decoration or any other of the of the many pieces of paper that went home and so I think um the reason that someone would expect this to be a holiday performance um well it's a dance performance it's in December we're approaching the holidays and there was no other communication so when we don't have information um we do fill in the blanks and it's perfectly reasonable for someone to think you know when I think oh it's December we're going to a dance I think Nutcracker right so whatever it may be and it's not unreasonable uh that that's um that that's what uh people believed it would be but I will say um I've checked with all the principles
099how it was advertised looked at the emails looked at the permission slip so um that's that's a perception and we have to deal with that right and I think the third one is the big piece there uh there wasn't enough information to think otherwise right so that's just how it is um the I refer to it as a l land acknowledgement statement um that's how others have referred to it as well uh it's the college for the Visual and Performing Arts at JMU indigenous and enslaved people's acknowledgement has multiple components it talks about acknowledging the fact that uh Native Americans uh lived in this area and uh that that is being acknowledged also acknowledging um the history of slavery tied to James Madison and the victims of the transatlantic slave trade and I think the
100statement that um people online at least were upset about is the third part we recognize that the painful histories and it's always important to read you know every word and the histories of white supremacy persist in present day racial realities and privileges at this University in our communities we invite all to commit to dismantling racism and oppression by creating change where we live and work and so in my conversation uh with Miss heral because again online it's all uh the statement itself is is nonsense um we had a very good conversation she and I hope it's okay if I share this um Miss Harold said it's not the statement itself that's history but it is that I came to a performance expected a holiday performance um with uh my grandson she talked last time about
101uh why that was you know this particularly um affected him and and then the performance and I just didn't expect it right so there was no heads up and in addition to that it's just inappropriate for third graders right so that was the conversation there is this even if historically accurate is this appropriate for third graders so historically accurate well when we talk about the histories and how the histories of white supremacy affect um people today when you look at Native Americans um and you know African-American Community obviously as well uh 1924 racial Integrity act so that um act that you'd heard about before with the one drop rule so other than the uh number of different racial categories after the racial Integrity Act of 1924 only two racial categories existed uh one was whites
102and again single drop rule so any drop of non-white blood basically makes you colored so that's the other category colored now there was one exception oftentimes referred to as the pocah exception so you could have um 116th or less so if you had you know if you were a quarter Native American you were colored right half Native American you were colored both you know parents you were colored but if it was less than one uh 116th great great grandmother or less and there was no drop of anything other than Native American and then you could actually qualify as white I guess in some way that was that's why it's called the poanas rule so pocah descendants if there was if it was just pocah and you know and then that was the only Native American
103blood you could actually qualify his way now William pleer who was responsible for Vital Records um then changed the birth certificate rules in Virginia so after 1924 birth certificates could only say white or colored and um the effect truly was that you know just as in the statement is mentioned uh that people were erased their ancestry was erased and and tribes in Virginia have long struggled for both state and federal recognition and when we talk about present day uh those third graders that went on that field trip they were alive when um in Virginia finally um Virginia tribes were finally recognized by the federal government so Senator Kain um was one of the legislators who proposed it went outside the Bureau of Indian Affairs process and the reason they had to was because this was
104one of the biggest obstacles to getting Federal recognition was that ancestry couldn't be shown because it was only white or colored Supreme Court overturned that in 1967 with the loving versus Virginia uh ruling but uh 2017 president Trump signed uh the the that into law and so now I believe six tribes in Virginia are ferally recognized but many Native Americans lost their ability to um Trace their ancestry and so those are the current day effects right and so um the question Still Remains though if the historical accuracy of the statement isn't in question is this appropriate for third graders um I spoke to the dean of the College of um Visual and Performing Arts and because I'd read that over the last few years that statement wasn't really read much at the for Center and
105uh what he explained to me that there was a recent faculty decision that um at for Center performances this would be read again and that when that decision was made there certainly was no conversation around well wait a second we got some third graders coming and he said if we if that had been part of the conversation we would have said well this is intended for public performance it's the staff member who was there was under the impression this is now mandatory and so that's the conversation we had at what age is it a appropriate and and I'll get to that um again with a really good conversation around that um for third graders it's not a standard um to even know of uh Native American tribes in third grade so in third grade that
106statement for the vast majority of kids it's they don't know what's being read right they may hear the word white they may hear Native American but it's it's a complicated statement right and so there um certainly can be that acknowledgement that once students are aware of it or if is work done right according to a standard so for example the new proposed social study standards at least in one of the versions The Struggle of Native Americans to gain Federal recognition is Virginia studies fourth grade right but unless there has that there's that conversation maybe too early and before then so um that was not the intent and uh that's how it was explained to me by the dean uh in terms of the performance themes so again expectation that this may maybe a holiday performance
107you certainly then don't expect um what the performance was like um I don't know that even the current description of it um does it really Justice the the piece that's in question really is the second piece so there are two short performances the second one um is called Sor and so the explanation I again I haven't had a chance to see it um I've seen an explanation of it Sor means speak um in a language that's spoken in Nigeria uh it is is about people finding their voice and so the themes that you heard about when Miss Herald spoke last time you know for example of um a black dancer being pushed down but then speaking up again not exactly what you expect when you go to something where you expect the or where you
108had no information about what the performance is um certainly we all can interpret that in our own ways the dance are probably interpreted as racial bullying but then overcoming that by speaking up others finding their voice uh students finding their voice you know bullying and and all the other things but what was missing was an expectation by the parents and by the families um of what may actually be performed now there was an email sent earlier um to the schools saying hey the teachers should have a conversation with their students about what a modern dance performances but what those uh conversations in each classroom look like I don't really know um so uh again one element of traditional Nigerian dance some kids in at least what the teachers told me they were uh giggling about
109them shaking the butts right um twerking is of course an interpretation that's sexualized based on more um American dance uh in you know over the last few years so I think Miley Cyrus maybe maybe but again um the teacher feedback so 22 third grade teachers went to the performance I sent a surve Sur to all of them um there's always this um idea that our teachers are afraid to speak up uh because they fear retaliation and um what I told the teachers was one that in my entire career in Rockham County I've never tried to trace where a particular submission came from uh email address wasn't required and so I gave him some additional information I said you know if you want this is anonymous I trust you um I want your feedback um but
110if you still are afraid that somehow someone might Trace timing and IP addresses you don't have to be logged into Google to do this right and if you are outside our Network and I gave those instructions if you're outside our Network for us to trace a submission to a particular location and then tie it to someone's computer um you know we're talking courot orders and uh certainly we've needed the time nor the ability for something like this even if we were that um Despicable and tried to trace uh where something like that came from uh we couldn't really do it so you can remain anonymous out of the 22 21 replied so I asked them five questions as a teacher did any of the elements of the performance make you feel uncomfortable um did you
111as a teacher do you feel that any of the elements were inappropriate for your students overall was it a positive experience for you based on your observations or conversations did any of the elements um make your students feel uncomfortable and overall do you feel the trip to the for Center was a positive experience for your students so two teachers um echoed Miss harald's sentiments uh was exactly the same issues U those two teachers said that they felt like the land acknowledgement statement was inappropriate there's actually a third teacher who otherwise said this was a great performance who also said that certainly caught my attention uh one person said uh that statement probably not really for this H group group but um everyone else said um they didn't have nothing made uh them feel uncomfortable and
112then for the other questions it was pretty much 19 out of one person didn't answer the first question uh and then it was 19 out of 21 so a positive experience for the teacher 19 out of 21 a positive experience for the students 19 out of 21 um again the comments um echoed the two teachers that um didn't like it were echoing the exact same statement so uh not surprising right these aren't things um where we get agreement across the board uh two teachers actually approached me when I visited their schools and told me that they don't want to remain anonymous right they want to they were in full support of the performance uh to tell them you're going to remain anonymous um we're not going through that we've um had few cases where again
113then it takes on a life of its own and so but they explained why they felt it was a positive experience however two teachers did not and again um I think when I look at overall uh what this is about um and I think again correct me if I'm wrong but when we talked about this it was the lack of available information to make an informed decision about whether to come to that field trip and to take your grandson to the field trip I think that's what it comes down to for the most part um and that students didn't understand um statement right it's not for their AG group and it yeah it's the last paragraph is a quote the other two again it's a longer statement um one of them is about uh native
114tribes at least that's what I've received from jgb RAC Supremacy were words so white supremacies and the last paragraph uh certainly again Native Americans is in the first one and the only other and again because this wasn't a recorded statement um I asked jamu for a copy of it that's what they had sent me the second one um was about uh the slave trade and slaves um the statement that they had sent me uh lgbtq wasn't mentioned in that statement but that was your recollection right either way though you agreed that the statement isn't for third graders correct right and so uh and then also um the third one that chaperon um weren't able to go and even though it was because of um space constraints it does when you then have an issue it
115does paint that in kind of an awkward way well we tried to exclude parents because we knew they were going to do this to the kids and we talked about you know uh projecting their voices versus you know yelling at the kids but again it's perception based on what you expect at a performance and so um again U Miss Harold and I talked about this we those are things that can all be taken care of I talked to the dean about the forb center statement and again and he acknowledged um not really for third graders and so from here on out as we send students um the next performance which is an orchestra performance actually at Wilson Hall um one it's not going to impact chaperons because I think they're seating for 1300 people uh
116two we will communicate with um JMU and he agreed to that um that this wouldn't be read uh for students unless one it's a topic that's been covered in class and two parents are aware of it um and third that um we will allow chaperon now at the for Center it can get tricky but given the numbers we had this time um if all students had attended it would have been you know 440 just students ultimately was 350 students so there may be a way to say hey all the students that want to go once we have permission slips four or five days ahead of time and say we have 60 open seats and we can bring 60 chaperon right so we don't necessarily want to exclude kids um but also uh you know really
117um the first part here right provide parents with more detail about upcoming events and again that's a conversation I had in terms of what themes are um approached in that and I will say for the orchestra performance that's coming up in February I've seen what's already been communic at and it is much more detailed uh with an explanation of what that performance is um but also um a link additional links with uh wealth of information so you know um we really appreciate JMU working with us working with our students we appreciate any given child working with us and our students um these are uh performances that uh We've successfully brought students to for a number of of years now and uh I anticipate that we'll continue that but there's also nothing wrong with saying for
118this particular performance um not having enough information uh certainly you know made uh some attendees feel like well this what was what's this that's I thought this was going to be something different and so more information is never a bad thing um waiting with um acknowledgement statements until kids are ready for that and have actually learned about it otherwise it doesn't as no meaning or they just they hear single words and and um certainly can upset them and then again revisiting the chaperon so uh that would be um the steps that that we will take and um that should hopefully make sure that parents can make that informed decision right based on what I know um either I give permission for my child to attend or not if we ban it Al together like some
119suggest right you get into the same thing um because it affects fected um one student or 50 students that the other 400 even if the parents uh would want them to see it I can't see it so more information is never a bad thing and I think that's certainly something that uh we can support any questions related to this because I have one more item you said tonight that first of all I'm I'm disappointed that I'm I'm just now hearing about a lot of this information to night with the public you could have made this information available to the board and at least told us about what your findings were and to that I I'm not happy about that I hope in the next uh superintendent would do a better job in communicating with the
120school board of what it uh what information they find out in investigations such such as this I also didn't need a history lesson from you tonight as well on on what you said tonight so um the one thing that you you pointed out t tonight was that and that their parents who said that when their uh kids got back they were um just really excited and everything about the play but there were also teachers who said that when their kids got back from the play that they were very somber that there was things about them that didn't look the same they they wanted to ask what was wrong with the kids as well so it it's when you say a blanket comment that everyone was happy with this it's not true there was a lot
121of uh kids who came back like what in the world did we just see uh there at the forb center my major thing that I have a complaint about is number one is that we should do a better job in knowing what our kids are going over to see at JMU and so that needs to be something that needs to be done on our part uh on overseeing what our children are going to be exposed to at these uh forb Center U um PL where they go when they go so we need to know beforehand um what are they going to see what's going to be in there and when you talk about twerk working that was something that was first um happened over in Africa I believe it was and so it's it's not
122something that we're used to uh here in America and the fact that um it's something that we're here in the valley that we're teaching our kids that it's appropriate uh to twerk or to shake like that uh in a play so that was kind of downplayed as well so I think there needs to be more oversight from our side of what our are going over there uh to see on this yep so um 19 of 21 isn't everyone so as I said 19 teachers uh felt there was a good experience for the kids uh two teachers did up so again I said across the board of these questions it was two teachers who had the concerns and 19 who didn't um as I said um what the steps would be certainly again we need to
123be aware of what's going to be um performed so requesting um that um more details about upcoming events um is provided so I think what you just asked for is exactly what we also said we would ask um of JMU and they've agreed that they would provide that and again the um I'm not will share the um details of the February performance that will be at Wilson Hall and certainly there's um a lot more information than um what we had previously so and that's and that's great and the the second thing that really bothers me and I can I can share this uh when it's my turn to speak though is that the the whole white repentance acknowledgement statement from the forb center is something that I don't want our kids being subjected to when
124they go over there so I'm recommending that the board tonight would not allow our students in Rockingham County to be subjected to that uh at the forb center and that they would take out the white supremacy and and the other things I got the whole list because you presented a different list of of what I've seen as well and so I I don't believe that we need to subject our kids whether they're third graders or 12th graders to making them feel like they have some part in uh this oppression that we've seen in our nation's history so um that's a big that's a big deal for me as a school board member sending our kids over there and it's a deal breaker for me that if we as board members are going to subject our
125kids so that if they want to do that JMU that's their that's their on what they whatever they want to do but at Rockingham County Public Schools as parents majority of us do not want our kids subjected to that message when they attend a play so I we know beforehand what it is and if that's the case and the board wants to know that it would be great to know that on the permission slip sent home that this message is going to be read to your kids before the performance starts and so that's a big deal that's a huge deal with me as I said there there would be two conditions one that it's something that students have learned about and secondly that it would be shared with the community uh both the statement itself
126and the historical context so parents can make an informed decision but I am not in favor of uh not allowing students whose family um families want them to see a performance to be excluded from it because someone else doesn't like the land acknowledgement statement which brings me to my other topic um again related to how we approach uh themes that um our teachers have to deal with all the time right so we've talked about this before uh teachers selecting um educational materials so we have a policy um obviously the board selects textbooks but rcps policy uh does delegate the responsibility for the selection and use of supplemental materials to the individual schools teachers must carefully review materials prior to use and exercise a high degree of professional judgment in their selection and use of supplemental
127materials so those would be materials used for classroom assignments to ensure that the use of such material serves to both support and complement the basic educational objectives within the specific sub subject areas and classrooms and um it is just like um the conversation around uh performances um who makes the um decision about uh selection materials and what sites or what organizations we simply want to ban because they offend the sensibilities of of part of the community and so the school board has delegated that um to the schools uh selection but with again um High degree of professional judgment um those teachers know their students they know the subject matter and they know um what good materials are so we had this conversation about the um C3 teachers Hub that's been a suggestion that we ban
128that um because we find inquiries on the C3 Hub that uh we don't think are appropriate for Rakim County schools that have been deemed inherently divisive by the yankan administration you'll get your chance to ask questions at the end uh provides inquiries that follow the IDM model uh and teachers can select inquiries based on uh whether an inquiry is appropriate um for their classrooms to see3 um organizations endorsed by the National Council of social studies so again these are um people that um understand the subject matter very uh well and it's clear that not every inquiry that's posted to the C3 teacher hub is appropriate for every classroom so there certainly are going to be inquiries that will not work in rockim County Schools but there are others that do and if teachers exercise uh
129their High degree of professional judgment then we if we we ban entire resources um then we will deprive them of the opportunity to find uh good ones for example you know we talked about Governor yankin talked about teaching the good and the bad of History we need to teach all of it and not just because it uh fits our personal beliefs and so the concern that's been raised previously Mr Cross made that concern known as well at the second November board meeting that if we point out the uh that the framers were maybe flawed in some ways that now the next step is we'll tear down the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution and I just as a um former history student and social studies teacher I I just have never found that to be
130an issue with any of my students um the Declaration of Independence and the US Constitution are incredible historical documents that uh accomplish things that many European constitutions couldn't accomplish despite being dozens of pages long um putting every detail about how government should operate into a constitution and then yet you saw constitutions fail very quickly in many countries and the strength of the US Constitution is it's a couple pages and accounts for a society today um just with you know a couple dozen amendments that is completely different from what the world was like in um you know back in 177 with the Declaration and then 1780s um for the Constitution so we can celebrate the document it doesn't mean that we can't talk about the things that were in those documents that today we would say
131um really we want we would like to see better right um and people at the time said that right so when when uh we talk about all men are created equal right um Abigail Adams uh wrote a letter to John Adams um in Boston and said hey now that you've declared your Independence uh don't forget about women right uh you guys are are creating a government and we don't want to see the same a dictatorial approach where women have no say well that's not how it ended up right took until 1920 for women to have the right to vote and again our lifetime I mean 1974 until 1974 unmarried women even if they had a job often times couldn't get cored because they were women that's it right and so we can celebrate both that
132this is an incredible historical documents document but also that it number one the process for amending it was there that can be celebrated right and that over time it was able to account for these things but we can't pretend that everyone back then agreed with that women didn't agree that they would have a no right to vote right um so you know it's 1974 Equal Credit Opportunity Act U finally women were treated the same when it came to Credit Opportunity 3 fths compromise right that the document itself so Article 1 Section 2 Clause 3 of The Constitution said when we talk about how many representatives each state has we'll count um the regular population including um indentured servants so people that you know sometimes people say oh but what about the the white slaves they
133refer to indentured servants treated differently in the Constitution slaves count as % of a person now of course no right to vote the property but we at least want to give uh the states that had slaves a 60% of a person's count when it comes to how many seats they had um in Congress that's in the Constitution right now was eliminated but uh interracial marriage in Virginia wasn't um allowed until 1967 I mean I was alive then right so these are things that affected communities for centuries and these things didn't change until our lifetime but it doesn't mean as we're often times accused that we only talk about oh the bad things that happened to a minority populations um you know first of all women are I believe the majority in the country but um
134also we talk about many many other topics indentured servants often it's like oh it's all about the transatlantic slave trade we don't talk about those people who you know came uh from Europe and then had basically were at to work until their debt was paid off but could never pay it off so in fact we're beholden to someone to work uh it's one of the history standards right inventur servitude um but then we also talk about you know for example a PO white populations um you know in the shanor National what's now the shanor national park we do want to talk about all of it how these aspirational documents created a framework for a country to have a continuous democracy longer than any other um country around right but at the same time that people
135have flaws and we can acknowledge that and how far the countries come and that there's still ways to go right and so that's what that's about in fact we teach an ENT we have an entire class at eastrock about how uh the gener you know creating the shanon national park affected um students uh even their so their families uh families into Elon area when people were simply pushed out of the mountains so we don't have a singular Focus we talk about what happened to people and over time you know um history was about those who made decisions and often times the people that were left out were the ones who had no power whether they had to own property to vote whether they you know whatever it was um so these are um conversations that
136aren't always easy um but you know even uh the um later version now that's going to go to the Board of Education from um the Department of Education and their history standards they've added significant elements of that uh what we call hard history it is what it is that doesn't mean we're going to go into a class and and you know split the kids and say oh white that means oppressor that's doesn't even we don't know you know that's not appropriate and we've talked about that you know that's not what we're about but all history needs to be acknowledged and often times that was erased from the history books and so again when we talk about a supplemental material policy that gives teachers the right to make solid professional decisions versus spanning resources right we've
137talked at length about the Virginia in inquiry collaborative no one was made to attend was a professional well one person social studies supervisor if the social studies supervisor didn't participate then teachers couldn't attend for free but teachers had a choice to participate and then they created resources for use and if you ever want to see an example of uh that policy in action where teachers used their uh significant professional judgment to decide what works in rockan County Schools the outcome of that world history uh inquiry year where we participated um shows that right um the um efforts of the Kurdish population to gain independence the role of women in in South and Central American politics and it also gives our teachers a chance to share with others does everything that comes out of a professional
138development activity then have to end up in Rakim County Schools no it doesn't Okay um just to clear this finally again um in November I was accused of having lied about two things one that we were only part of it for a year uh two that we were part of it from the beginning um I did receive an apology about the um the year but just if you want to know whether we were part of it from the beginning so this is a slide from March uh 2020 Virginia inquiry collaborative um included a number of activities I believe over in Charlottesville here are the four School divisions uh you will find Rockingham County to be absent and we weren't part of it from the beginning so I want to be on the record there not
139because of stuff that's on Facebook but because it was said in public meeting and so when we start Banning activities we can't be part of the viic this is what we lose out on this is what we lose out on our ability to attend professional development opportunities that involve social studies teachers from across the state from the uh participating School divisions and we lose out on work with organizations who find the Virginia inquir inquiry collaborative and the inquiry design model and the work that was done at those meetings valuable because they both fund the effort and they participated so the sessions we attended were also attended and obviously endorsed as valuable by organizations such ads so we're not talking about people who want to tear down our understanding of History the Smithsonian United States history
140museum had representatives there and the Smithsonian okay national museum of American History Thomas Jefferson's monachello James Madison's moner in fact they funded part of it Virginia Museum of Fine Arts the National Portrait Gallery the American Civil War Museum the Colonial Williamsburg Foundation if you ever want to talk about um an organization connected to a president that significantly funded uh with conservative money uh George Washington's Mount Vernon those are organizations that were part of the viic and rather than saying I don't trust our teachers and they can't come up with activities that work here we have the evidence that they do and if these people are at the table and are saying this is a good effort then I certainly uh will support it so had we been part of it the year before and these
141organizations are part of it it would have also Justified being part of it then the reason we talked about one year was because it was a question about CRT and I said the topic was world history CRT is about the American legal system and its impact um and whether it uh creates um a racist structure or negative outcomes for minorities and as said it couldn't have been part of that conversation because it's not a world history topic right um that doesn't mean that when the topic is US history and Smithsonian and Mount Vernon and monello and Williamsburg a part of it that I wouldn't also have supported it our teachers make good decisions and I do want them to know that they have my support um to make good professional decisions and all the evidence
142is there that they do but this is who we would have missed out on so that's who we're trying to ban thank you excuse me please be seated okay we'll just we're just going to move on thank you um next on the agenda are policy revisions I believe we have uh Marcy Williams to talk about policy revisions thank you very much Marcy tonight I'm here to talk you about two policies the first one is policy daa and it's the uniform Grant guidance for federal grants the addition that you see there are is related to the Davis bacon act and talks about minimum wages for those employees that are on those sites for federally funded projects um that's the only addition there and then the second policy you see uh for your information is Jed and
143it's about attendance in this policy there's several changes throughout it we did Define what distance learning present means it's a code that we've had now since back when we were doing all of our learning online and we also outlined in this policy where we might use that now uh on page two is the definition of the policy on page three and four we removed some of the language in this policy that no longer applies like after school detention and Saturday school as consequences for um treny acts because that's not something that our schools are currently offering on page four you'll see we added a piece there about infectious diseases and viruses and when we require students to quarantine that might be a place where we would use the distance learning present code um so we
144added that to our policy and then last family vacation may be another option where administrators would give approval for some distance learning Pres code uh and allow students to learn online those are the two policies that we have for your information tonight and are there any questions for me at this time board members do we have any questions and I'm going to remind board members if you come up with questions feel free to contact Marc uh before the next meeting thank you thank you very much board members you will find in your packets the financial review and the attendance reports for December um so there they are uh we're going to move on to board members questions and I'm going to start with uh I think I'm gonna start with Mr Cross Mr Cross I
145figured you start with me so this is no that's fine that's fine that's fine um thanks for your sign very mature um I don't even know where to where to go tonight after hearing um a lot that was discussed tonight um with our superintendent and um and his rebuttal of the Virginia inquiry collaborative as well um I've laid it out over a year and a half of investigating our involvement with the Vic and um it was more than us just attending a conference in which you made the public seem to be that's what we did and that was not the truth um it was six School divisions that came together and not only that but through the four years I ran and and I I'll read one of them tonight although I wasn't um prepared
146to read this tonight because you hid this from board members especially myself that you were going to address the viic and and other things you did tonight so but I could pull this back up um here on my on my phone so just give me a second so when we when when we were in it one of the the emails that we received from John Hopson and I I talked all about who John Hopson is and how we were uh involved with his involvement his involvement with our history supervisor uh Mr Dickinson and their involvement with the vslc and and their involvement in attack that group attacking the young admin ation when it comes to their history provisions and all all that they do they're a Lobby in educational um um for curriculum they Lobby
147curriculum in uh in Richmond so this is one of the emails that that John sent out to um all those who are involved in the Vic on the um October 20th of 2020 and Dr sho's in there and other other uh central office employees as well along along with our um history supervisor and this is troubling because an email it says we just we just wanted to follow up on our first session and say uh how uh heartened we are to be around so many Educators committed to teaching for equity and Justice and this was interesting particularly why the winds are swirling I'm this was you think back in 2020 all that was happening all the BM riots everything that was going on and this is a anti-racist anti-h hatred anti-bigotry uh curriculum that the
148vi came together to write to enhance or to to better write Virginia histories because apparently we're uh we were all taught um racist history growing up even myself that graduated from Spotswood 1998 so thanks for that lesson again tonight as well but this is one of the things that that was very troubling about that was the homework that you subjected our teachers to here in Rockingham County and the history and the the homework the homework was from Dr durenda Carter on Ted on her Ted Talk on white supremacy and all kinds of other things like that so these are the ideology of which the group was going around also the the yankan administration found uh the group that we were a part of as well to have written um divisive material um that through his
149executive order I believe number two that got rid of so the Vic I'm not going to go down that whole thing it was not good for Rockham County Public Schools and thank God we have an election coming up this coming year in November and I believe that this board is going to better reflect the residents of Rockingham County and we also have a new superintendent that's coming on so I'm thankful for that I'm thankful that we're we're not going to be a part going forward in Rockham County and subjecting our teachers and our students to uh this kind of curriculum so um the VC see it is what it is I've I've told you from day one that I didn't believe that we should have been a part of that and we can agree to
150disagree but I'm I'm telling you that we should have never ever been a part of that so um the the second thing that I wanted to bring up tonight was that and I and I and I said it earlier was the fact that the white repentance message that the forb center reads off before our students go to is inappropriate and so I want to take time tonight to read the what they listed on um on the news report as well so they say we invite you this is what is read this is what I believe was possibly read to our students that night seeing that there's a couple of um a couple of these out there that I guess they could have been read but uh this is it's not Dr Sho this is it
151is not the people in Rockham County are not upset that we teach the hard history facts of Virginia or the United States of America it has nothing to to do with thank you thank you and and this is someone that's part of the community dialogue group that was that was picked uh before other people that were uh picked over as well it's a very mature pick there on the community dialogue um but it has nothing to do with teaching the hard facts or hard history we want to know that we want the kids to know that has nothing to do about that it has to do when we subject our kids to this kind of material that we find not to be the truth and so I want to read this tonight says we have
152this is what JMU at the forb center this is one of the statements in which they read out to our children whether they're third graders or 12th graders I don't want to subject them to it and so this says we invite you to recognize the written histories of the shannona valley the city of Harrisonburg and our University's namesake James Madison as fractured as fractured so we're a fractured number one we're a fractured community by our Harrisonburg city shandor Valley and that James Madison also is a fractured person as well we'll get into the demonization of our founding fathers with statements like this as well so then it goes on to say let us acknowledge this is the land acknowledgement let's acknowledge then that we are currently on the land of the indigenous suin alanin and
153hod no Shan if I got that right communities who lived here for many generations who contined to be systematically erased by policies and practices that remove their histories from this place then it goes in and say let us honor the enslaved people who built the wealth and Foundation of James Madison then it goes on and say this is a part that really uh that we have a problem with is that you ignored tonight really it's not the fact of teaching hard history that's that we want that okay we want the parents of Rockham County we're not racist and we're not behind the times where we don't want that that toau we want that all Tau but this is the part that we don't agree with is when it says let us recognize the histories of
154Virginia and the United States as complicit with the racism of white supremacy I'm sorry you don't get to judge that you don't you don't get to subject our children to those kind of statements and make them feel like the white children that are there that are oppressors and the the colored kids are the kids of color that are there that they are that they are victims sorry we don't get a chance to do that we recognize that these difficulties these difficult histories persist persist in present day racial realities and privileges at this University well if jmu's got such a big problem on racism we probably shouldn't be sending our kids there if they've got a big problem racism we should consider our partnership with JMU because it sounds like they've got a lot of white
155repentance that they're doing at JM JMU lately we commit to dismantling racism in spaces of our work we invite you to work beside us to create change and that was the main purpose of the viic in teaching its lessons that the children's would be civically active and when they showed that John Hopson shows that clip on nbc29 he shows four clips of children going out and protesting on on on street corners at courts and doing all kinds of stuff civically engaged in the major majority of parents do not want their children to go to grow up to to be um to go out and to protest and and act like this some of them may do that's fine but that was the main goal of the purpose that that that John Hopson says that was
156the main purpose of the viic I'm sorry that's not what we want to be a part of here in Rockham County so this is just another step in demonizing our founding fathers because we believe that we are a morally better people than what they were at their time we believe that we in this generation are a morally better people than what our founding fathers were and one day we will all be judged by that so are we morally better than what they were I don't know when we when we have aborted 63 million babies in the womb since 1973 are we morally better than them when we rip the the the brains out of children from within the womb and we have a governor like Governor Northam that talked about U having a a child
157birth on the birthing table than having a discussion with the parent whether they want to keep the child or not are we morally better of people that enslave people but it seems like we have a self-righteous attitude in our generation that we think that we're morally better than what the founding fathers were over a half million soldiers and the Union Soldiers during the Civil War gave their lives to free the slaves they put within our constitution they put within the framework of our founding a a a the ability for all men to be free in the in the United States and thank God that they did that is slavery wrong you absolutely I absolutely agree that slavery was wrong they'll be judged for owning slaves but when we think that we're we're morally a better
158people we're per we're performing child sex surgeries to thousands of children in the United States the last I heard there are three hospitals within the United States that will will will that will do a child sex change on children is that morally is that is that good I don't think it is in Los Angeles children can leave school without parent permission they can visit a doctor without parent permission they can be prescribed hormone blockers without parent permission are we morally better in September of 20 2022 the world's youngest transgender model walked down the runway in New York City 10 years old Noella MCM it was her name no Noella is reported to have known her gender when she was 2 years old are we morally a better Society time will tell time will tell so
159when we we go down this wokeism this is what we're doing when we're sending our kids over to JMU to the forb center to have this read to them as we go through this wokeism generation that we're going through so you want definition of wokeism out here that that's been very popular um want to know what the definition of woke is here's here's the best W the definition I can find of being woke taking on the world view of critical social justice justice which sees the world only in terms of unjust power dynamics and the need to dismantle problem problematic systems so when they say within this their statement at JMU when they use the word white supremacy they're not talking about the KKK and skin heads and and Nazism and all that kind of
160stuff they're not talking about that this is what they're talking about when they talk about white supremacy they're talking about white supremacy as a historically based institutionally perpetuated system of exploitation and oppression of continents Nations and peoples of color by white peoples and nations of the European continent for the purpose of maintaining and defending a system of wealth power and privilege that's what they're saying and so that's why I have a problem with us subjecting our kids kids to statements on white supremacy and at JMU when I thought that Virginia wasn't a and subjecting their children to any critical race Theory ideologies in K through 12 I thought that was the big deal at the beginning of the year we wern't subjecting our kids to that we are at the forb center at the very
161beginning so tonight I'd like to see the board move and I and I I know you want but I still like to say it but I would like to see the board move to where we do not allow our students to go over to JMU and be subjected to this kind of statements on them that if we're going to send I'm not against going to any given child and letting them see plays that we've reviewed and that are okay I don't have a problem with that I'm not saying baned all plays going over at the forb center I'm not saying that what I'm saying is is that I do not believe it's right to subject our kids to the acknowledgement statement that JMU provides at the forb center that's what I'm saying but I'm also
162saying that I would like to have a a better oversight from the Rockham County Public Schools and what we are subjecting to kids and seeing when they go and it is age appropriate it was very it was not age appropriate for what the third graders saw and I think you admitted that tonight as well that the main subject of this is that it wasn't age appropriate and what they saw at the at the performance was not age appropriate but then it leads down to the bigger one that I'm saying tonight is that I believe we need to take a stance as a community and as a board saying that if you want to continue reading that acknowledgement statement the very beginning then we will withhold our children from going over there and being subjected to
163that so that's what I would like to present to the board tonight as well I can make a motion to do that so we can have you have everyone on um on record tonight or where we stand on that but I think that it's something that we could make as a school board that we could make a judgment and we could we could tell the superintendent that listen our kids aren't are not going to be subjected to that anymore when they go over to the forb center and if that's what they want to subject upon our kids then our kids will not be going and that should be the message that every single one of us board members here in Rockingham County should be sending to the superintendent of Rockingham County Public Schools I'm GNA
164interrupt here um Dr Sho when is the next um planned trip to the forb center um the next performance by the for Center is at the end of February or middle late uh I think it's 17th maybe yeah and that's a concert performance at Wilson Hall so it's not at the actual forp Center building the next one at the for Center I believe is at the end of March okay thank you so we would have time at another we could make this an action item for another meeting Absolut if that's what it's going to take to make it an action item to vote on this then absolutely if anything I'd love for the community to see where we all stand in board members of what subjec and we're subjecting our kids to when we send
165them over to the forb center at the very beginning of reading this acknowledgement statement that many of us do not agree with and so yes that Miss lur that would be great if we can make that action item and the in the and the even the me it can be in the following meeting it could be an action item in the next meeting doesn't have to be something they had to take three four five six months to do it can it could be done next meeting it could be done this meeting if we wanted to you've both certainly given us a lot to think about and talk talk about between now and the next meeting so thank you yeah uh Mr folk thank you uh Dr mcin Mr Breeden I think the one thing I
166can agree with Mr Cross on tonight is I don't know where to go that um suppose if I'd have been in church I would have turned my JMU alone I'm not sure inside out I don't know um let me just say though that if you've not had an opportunity fellow members of the board to see the movie Inherit the Wind um which was made in um starred Spencer Tracy and um Frederick March and it and it dealt with some of the same kind of issues that we're talking about here tonight as it related to at that time a state making it illegal to uh to teach Darwinism in public schools and banning different activities and there's a scene in there where uh Spencer Tracy's character says and I'm quoting from the film I say that
167you cannot administer a wicked law impartially you can only destroy you can only punish and I warn you that a wicked law like Cera destroys everyone it touches its upholders as well as its defilers can't you understand he goes on to say that if you take a law like evolution ution and make it a crime to teach it in the public schools tomorrow you may make it a crime to teach it in the private schools and tomorrow you might make it a crime to read about it and soon you may ban books and newspapers and then you may turn Catholic against Protestant and Protestant against Protestant and triyo your own religion upon the mind of man if you can do one you can do the other because fanaticism and ignorance is forever busy and needs
168feeding your honor soon with banners flying and drums beating we will be marching backward backward to the Glorious ages of that 16th century when bigots burned the man who dared bring Enlightenment and intelligence to the human mind end of quote now before anyone says here tonight that I'm advocating Darwin ISM let me be clear my faith tells me that the one thing that separates our species from lower species is that God has given us the ability to think and to reason and to make decisions and as for me my faith is strong enough that I'm not afraid to hear opposing ideas my relationship with my kids and my grandkids is such that I'm not afraid to discuss counter opposing views so don't misunderstand or misquote what I'm saying but I will go back to that
169statement that I made earlier that wrung so clear to me from a previous superintendent and that is be ye careful thank you Mr Breeden um do we have any students left in the house uh St we do normally recognize government students that are here and I think we had a couple uh I I think we've got a couple that are like please don't call on me but I just want to recognize that we have students that are probably here uh because of government and I think there's a maybe a younger one or two in the crowd and I just want to welcome them and thank them for their patience with us tonight and uh congratulate you guys on seeing um government in action uh we wish you luck in the coming school year and uh
170thank you guys for attending tonight um Dr Shel do you have anything I'll just keep keep it brief um vslc right follows the same pattern we attack it um there are social study standards that are proposed who are recently endorsed by the Virginia Association of supervision and curriculum development and by the American historical Association thank you thank you okay we we have reason to inter close session do I have a motion somebody want to read it somebody other than me for a change all right Mrs lure I move that the board enter a closed meeting for the purpose to discuss or 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
171discipline or res disciplining or resignation thank you Mr Mr Breeden do we have a second second thank you Mr fault um is there any discussion before we vote I'd like to thank everyone for being patient and quiet and respectful tonight um have a safe journey home uh all those in favor of entering closed session please say I all those opposed same sign we're in closed session thank you all very much much I'm trying be thank you so very much you thanks sir a nice box thank with that