001for goly y'all got quiet good evening and welcome to the what is this March 28 already goodness the March 28th meeting of the Rockingham County school board I would like to call call this meeting to order and ask for approval of the agenda thank you Mr folk do we have a second thank you Dr mcquilkin is there any discussion hearing none all those in favor please say I all those opposed motion carries we have an approved agenda now if you'll please remove your hats rise and join me in the uh Pledge of Allegiance iedge alance to the flag of the United States of thank you you may be seated now please join us in a moment of silence thank you the first item on the agenda is School uh recognitions uh can we have Miss
002Baker please join us at the podium good evening thank you members of the board Dr Shel for being here this evening thank you community members I know it's freezing cold for a March evening so I really appreciate you guys bundling up and joining us this evening um before we get rolling I just would like to thank everybody who helped make this evening possible um my custodial crew worked really hard to make sure that our Auditorium space and our library space and um any of the spaces that you may see were ready for company I don't know if it how it works at your house but when I'm cleaning a lot my kids say who's coming over so um thank you all for coming over tonight um I also would like to thank our maintenance department
003we had a emergency Podium repair today that had to happen and I know um Kevin was here earlier today to help set up sound and everything so appreciate everybody's teamwork to make this evening possible um I would also like to thank my two assistant principales that you will meet in just a moment um Mrs Laura Gunther and Mr Brad sailor they are um instrumental in everything we do here and I could not do this job without them so thank you both very much for everything um and I'm going to turn the mic over to them so that they can recognize a couple of our students this evening waiting to see if we advance our slide I I Advance the slide oh too far oh gosh phew that was rough um I'm here to present one
004of our character accounts recipients award so can I have Anna Flory come join me up front please thanks so Anna was selected by our eth grade teachers um and this is a little statement we'd like to read about Anna Anna holds herself to a high standard personally and academically she consistently demonstrates courtesy and respect while working with her classmates and teachers when working collaboratively with peers Anna is a quiet leader who helps keep her group organized and moving towards their goal she offers feedback in a respectful manner which is well received by her peers her Pleasant demeanor contributes to a positive classroom environment for all Anna always has a smile to share Anna participated in cross country and is an excellent teammate Anna's commitment to her education care for others and bright personality make her
005this year's recipient of the Britney lamb Kelly cogsdale character Council award congratulations Anna here but wait there's more Anna on behalf of the school board I have a couple of things for you thank you yep first we have a pen for you to place near your heart because this award is very close to our hearts and we want it to be close to your hearts as heart as well and then um we have a certificate did you bring people with you tonight my family are you comfortable speaking and telling us who your family is um or I I I can do it uh parents Lisa and Kevin Flory can you all please stand let's give them a round of applause thank you we understand that character begins at home and uh thank you for all
006the work you've done to bring us here tonight and we have a a certificate for your wall so you can hang it proud and be very proud of Anna and then Al so let me give this to you and then also because you've been so sweet we have a sweetness award for you this is a gift certificate to Klein's Dairy Bar congratulations do we want a picture I'll let you uh but let's please give Anna another round of applause thank you thank uh could I have Ryland Wade please all right Ryland is also a recipient of the Britney lamb Kelly coxell character counts award uh his eighth grade teachers nominated him and this is a blur that they had to say about you Ryland they said Ryland is a model student who continually strives for
007Success he is a natural leader in the classroom on the athletic field and in the School Musical he takes responsibility for his own work and actions and offers constructive and supportive feedback to his peers Ryland is respectful kind responsible and embodies the four R values that monov videoo was built on he has found the perfect balance between having fun and doing his work joking around and being serious Ryland is naturally curious and helpful in class and always ready to share his ideas with others ryland's dedication to learning and His Kind Spirit make him this year's recipient of the Britney lamb Kelly cogsdale character counts award good job Ryland and Ryland we have the the same items for you as well now are you comfortable telling us your people or do you want me to okay
008my mom is Natalie Wade and my dad is John Wade can you guys please stand thank you guys for what you've done like I said you know this definitely Bel begins at home and thank you Ryland and Anna for everything you do for this school it in especially in these times it's so wonderful to have great leaders and kids that other kids can look up to so thank you for being a role model for for your school let's give Ryland and Anna another round of applause it is my honor this evening to recognize a pair of volunteers who have shown their dedication to mon video in some very unique ways over the last three years so Mr Mrs wolf would you please join me sorry I'm going to embarrass you just like we do the
009kids this is Sarah and Earl wolf and they have been Avid supporters of our a program for the last three years that her daughter Katie has been with us and she's very active in our egg program um I have consulted with both Mrs horn who's our current egg teacher as well as Miss Wars who is our act teacher the first two years of Katie's time here and they both had wonderful things to share about excuse me I'm dropping things um about the wolves um if you know anything about how egg operates here in Rockingham County you know that there are lots of co-curricular activities it's not simply going to class um so the wolves have been very helpful um Hands-On helpful in many ways um including every fundraiser that we've ever had and again the
010a department has lots of fundraisers from strawberry sales to fruit uh to plant sales and they have been very helpful in all of those um they have also been Hands-On with all the events at the county fair um miss Warren said they give generously of their time and resources um which I understand is a truck that you often lug students and other things to and from um and because of this um many students who maybe were not able to be involved in egg have now been involved in our egg program so we really thank you for that um most recently the Wolves shared their calf with us um this is Aubrey we had um a kiss the cow contest recently um to raise money for the John painter in JJ Jefferson Memorial student support fund
011um so our students voted for teachers and little jars um we kind of started with some pennies we progressed to quarters and by the end people were given some dollar bill donations um but together collectively we raised $500 for Bridgewater so we are super thankful for that and we would not have been able to do that without Aubrey so thank you guys for sharing your calf with us it was quite an experience to have calf join us in the shop and we were able to live stream it across the school so that all of our students could could watch this unique fundraiser so we really appreciate it so thank you again for everything you have done for our a program and our students here at mon videoo yes thank thank you very much um as
012a FFA parent I I really do understand the commitment you guys have made in fact um I recently heard that FFA actually stands for Father's Farm alone and as a parent an a parent we can say that is true isn't it so thank you not only for what you've done here but for what you've done keeping everything running so your kids can participate um we we also have a certificate to hang on your walls because we're so very proud of you all so I'll give you the certificate and then we have a Klein's Dairy Bar gift card and I'll give that to you and again thank you all for all of your hard work let's give them another round of [Applause] applause uh our school presentation this evening is going to be um a short
013video clip that highlights our advisory program um so student advisory is one of the practices that is a true middle school practice um that we know benefits students so um we purchased a curriculum this year that we've been adapting to fit the needs of our students and we've carved out about 25 minutes daily uh in our schedule for advisory uh about three days a week we do lessons and those lessons are built on um character and Community type activities and then the other couple days of the week we reserve for um any school business we need to take care of or just even some days for students just to do their homework and catch up I know some students have had some significant absences and things like that so this has been a really um
014instrumental part of our day and really helping us build relationships with students and focus on some of their emotional health needs that we know um they they need it's the last couple years as we all know have not been normal so um this has been a great addition to our day that we believe is really helping our students so we're going to share a quick video and I again thank um Miss Laura Gunther Mr Brad sailor for putting together this video while I was on vacation over spring break so cheers to them thank you [Music] what so yes eating can be is that a healthy way to deal with it to after okay sometimes listen sometimes we just see like a comfort like and it just like okay it's a matter of or did you
015or did you has there been any special lesson that you remember uh the one ver sympathy versus empathy what can you tell me about sympathy versus empathy uh I don't remember which one but one of them is putting your yourself in the other person's position and the other one's comparing like what happened to you and them has that been a helpful life skill yeah hi Esther can you tell me something that you have enjoyed about advisory this year um the lessons and probably my teacher tell me a little bit more about the lessons what kind of things do you do in advisory um I like when we talk about like all of the things like on how to be kind to one another and how to like keep friends and not be rude nice has
016there been a particular activity that has stood out to you no I like them all awesome anything else you want to share um no all right thank you tell me a little bit about what you like about advisory this year I like how we get to a net with other people and we get to interact and do a lot of funny things and our teacher is really nice and fun and I love to just be with other people and interact we play games sometimes and when we have workday helps us do our work find out what's one topic you guys have talked about this year that has helped you grow um I think when we talked about trust because you need to know how to trust people and know how to not break other people's
017trust in order to have a good strong friendship excellent thank you what has been your favorite advisory lesson so far this year um I like the one we did like this week with stress yeah can talk about what yeah that's something I like I think both of us a lot especially [Music] me [Music] so advisory has been more than anything I think a really great way to build relationships uh and practice team building in my class this year uh my advisory students will often say are we doing an advisory lesson today or is today a work day and they prefer the advisory lessons um and so we've covered all kinds of topics from this week's which is about stress to trust to knowing the difference um between um different kinds of like helping out a
018a friend in certain different situations so uh it's it's been um I think really really really good for for team building and I don't teach everyone in this class so without advisory I would never have got to know literally really have to visit her in my class so overall very positive experience let her breathe let her friend cool off and that gives you a second to cool off as well you get to kind of stop and say okay how do I want to respond to this that's not going to escalate the situation that's going to kind of bring it back down so we can have a good conversation any final thoughts for our how to deal with peer [Music] situations I know that um some of that text was probably hard to read in the
019back um but and some of the students were a little challenging to hear with masks but hopefully you did hear some of the themes that we were getting at that were trying to build relationships and connections and provide all of our students with a trusted adult that they that they know here in the building because um sometimes in a sea of 630 kids sometimes it's it can feel pretty lonely even though there's lots of people around so we really do try to build those connections with our students and that concludes our component so I will pass it back to you all thank you very much Miss Baker um and thank you to the Mont Vio family for being so welcoming and getting us ready for um company tonight can we please give Mont video a
020round of applause for all they're doing um I'm going to take a moment here to recognize while we're still in recog nitions uh any students that are here tonight so if you are a student not just a government school student and if you want to slip out um you can do that now too um but if you are any Student please stand up so we can recognize you any students here tonight there you go look at all of you [Applause] all thank you all for being our guests tonight and I hope you enjoy the meeting um we will now move into public comments and I just want to take a moment to remind people you'll have 3 minutes to speak um we ask that you be respectful of others while people are making their comments
021please keep um please stay quiet and then also keep in mind that those students that just stood up they are in the room um our first speaker Michael stimple and if when you come up if you could please state your name so that we can get it down for the record hello hello everybody uh thank you board uh for giving me the opportunity to speak uh my name is Mike stample I'm from the Broadway area let's talk about banning books um in legislation Pro proposed Across the Nation you have phrases like harmful to miners obscene or obscene material described reading material that should be banned in school libraries I know of a book that would meet all these criteria and that is likely in most homes in Rockingham County that book is the bestselling book
022of all time the Holy Bible let's start from the beginning in Genesis 19 you have a father offering his daughters up to a group of strangers who want to engage in sexual violence with a guest and at the end of the chapter you have sexual acts among family members Psalm 137:9 advocates for infanticide 1 Samuel 15:3 and other passages like it calls for genocide of a specific people group 1st Samuel 18 vers2 talks of talks of aund four skinn dowy 2 Samuel 11 talks about a voyerism relations with is pregnant arranges to have the woman's husband killed in battle judges 19 more sexual violence this time it resulted in the death of a man's concubine you get the picture I have heard that some are calling for Bibles to be put in every school but
023what will that accomplish up until the landmark Supreme Court rulings in 1962 1963 the Bible was read by teachers in public schools also during that time open acts of racial Prejudice and violence was acceptable and even legal in this state and States Across the Nation clearly just having the Bible did not make people more righteous the Bible itself CA on people to be not just hearers of the word but doers of the word so instead of banning books and putting Bibles in schools let's love our neighbor as ourselves and let's act justly love mercy and walk humbly thank you thank you our next speaker is David Burell thank you for the opportunity tonight my name is David Burell I'm the pastor of the Church of salsburg in Elton Virginia right at the very entrance of
024East Rockingham High School uh like once again thank you for the opportunity to stand for just a moment tonight and uh just to say a little bit of something about that very Bible that very Bible in those passages that he give was really going down through a history lesson of people is what that was doing it then that God himself condones those things if you'll read the Bible and the Commandments and what our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ said he didn't condone those things but what I want to talk about tonight is is very simple it's it's this right here as we look at this uh we just came through what everybody knows and says is a pandemic and and there was certain things and certain devices that were brought in uh to help us
025through the pandemic a lot of it we're still finding out because we're waiting on our knowledge to catch up with the science as we study those things one thing that we had was a little old mask and we every Everybody wore it I wore one today when I went to the hospital to visit some of my folks that are in there and these little devices are made and and I don't care how you feel about the efficacy of them either way but they are made to be a filter for us and are made for us to have a filter to keep some things out that we don't want inside of our body myself as a parent of a 16-year-old that goes to a Rockingham County school and being the pastor of probably I'd say hundred
026and some uh children that go to Rockingham County Schools it is part of our uh Duty and responsibility as parents and in the jobs that I've been elected as as a pastor and you've been elected as as board members is to be that filter and we watch what comes in and what comes about for our children and what we let in and what we don't let in we're supposed to be that filter we look at the science behind it that we can have that we can look at it over sexualization of our children and what we expose them to at a young age when they're not mentally and mature enough they're not developed enough to handle that information that they've got we've got to look at the science behind that too but as we look
027at this I've got one here and I've got a whole list of books that has illicit sexual M material in it that I've got the list that that I know is in Rockingham County Public Library I'm not going to say what's in here and what I had to read through to get through it I would not say that with a female in the room much less a child it is our responsibility to be the filter it is our responsibility to protect our children from the things that is being put in now God tells us in the word of God that he gives us a space of Grace sometimes I thank God for grace and I'm telling you school board that we have a space of Grace right now and something more is coming down the
028line if we don't take advantage of it thank you for your time thank you our next speaker is Bob Hess I don't know how many of you have received my many emails but here's the latest information that I'd like you to look at while I'm speaking my purpose is to discuss the problem we're having at the Island Ford intersection where we had an accident in November I have a proposal on the table to the board that says says do away with that intersection altogether have the kids bust to the Elon schools therefore they don't have to cross that intersection it eliminates a lot of problems it's no cost you don't have to wait for V do to come up with a new program that's going to require changing the railroad crossings Etc to accommodate the
029tractor and trailers which now pass through the lane which the bus parks in so you got a conflict right there if you go and have the schools bust the kids to Elton you don't have that controversy you have no cost no interference no risk of anybody getting hurt or an accident with a school bus or a train simple change the cost of having vot go in there and put signal lights in there is going to cost you millions of dollars and it's totally unnecessary except for the public that intersection needs to be changed but it'll take 10 years to V do gets through all the analysis all the studies all the funding then the legislature will get into it and they'll have to have a study I know from following i81 for seven years I
030followed i81 in we's cave seven years ago we still have not put a shovel in the dirt because of all the policies and procedures that have to be followed so that's my recommendation to the board I think if you read the notes that I gave you there for the outline I I think it's very clear if you have any questions I'll be glad to answer them right now okay thank you thank you our next speaker will be Zach Nicholson uh good evening I'm Zach Nicholson I'm here today to try and have a conversation about the inappropriateness of Sherman Alexi's novel The absolutely true Diary of a Part-Time Indian a conversation that needs to happen with this book and perhaps others the documents I handed this board um the documents I handed are excerpts from the
031book A book that was too vulgar for little ears for last meeting uh you guys would not put up the slides at Cross had so I took the liberty of resolving that issue by handing each of you a physical copy of questionable excerpts from the book read what is before you as you can see it's easy to tell why this book is one of the most baned books from school in this nation why parents are Furious and question how is this language in this book acceptable for middle school and what possible educational benefits it serves I have sent multiple emails to Shel Breeden and cross and have asked repeated times as to why you guys think this book is appropriate we all know Mr cross's thoughts on this I want yours so far I have
032gotten as repeated lectures on the IAC section of school policy and not an actual answer or conversation as to why this book is suitable for Middle School um Mr breeden's not here tonight I know we've had our differences uh in the past um but his silence on this matter is deafening parents I email Mr Breeden on March 11th in a thread that taged shyo as well in this email I sent excerpts from the book some of the same ones before the board tonight it's now in your hands uh Shel responded Breeden did not I was told that a presentation was to be done at next meeting regarding that section of policy so March 23rd I sent another email asking not for Clarity on school policy but just a simple conversation on why this book is
033appropriate an email that tag cross breeding and Shel um cross and Shel respond at breeding still silence so um Shel referred me again to policy and offer no insight as to why this book is appropriate I offered solutions to perhaps a rating systems uh that could be that could be used to warn students of inappropriate content beforehand versus the current policy which addresses the problem usually after a student has read or been exposed to such a book uh this section of policy I'm concerned with is how the committee who reviews the material is selected is tapped for that um just to me is nothing more than potentially uh stacking the deck against parents what good does it do to file multiple complaints against a book to a committee that's going to keep rolling in favor
034to keep it your next option then is to appeal to the school board read the documents I hand it to you again consider this my appeal a book should not just get a free pass on language or content simply because it deals with Equity or racism it seems many prefer to stoop to the same levels of foulness as the subject versus say Martin Luther King or JFK's method who tackle issues with logic and not cuss words or slang you guys love throwing the quote around of when you know better do better you guys know better I'm still waiting on that do part so I challenge you tonight to revisit the content in this book give parents an answer tonight as to why this book is appropriate neither ban the book or put in a rating
035system to notify parents we don't allow this behavior in class under code GBA jfh with the evidence I presented tonight we should be able to FasTrack that that this book's appropriateness or inappropriateness with a motion so I ask you tonight Who's going to make it thank you [Applause] thank you and our final speaker for tonight is John Bradshaw good evening I'm John Bradshaw um as most of you know I'm a former teacher of ringham County I resigned at the beginning of this year um so I say that to only say this and you just have to believe what I'm telling you anything I say is not out of resentment I'm in the will of God right now and everything's going on in my life is right where God wants me to be so I'm not
036resentful at anything I have I speak tonight on behalf of teachers in the county and as you can understand it's hard for teachers to speak their actual opinion has nothing to do with you guys it's just you're their boss and it's hard for them to speak their actual opinion um and tell you how they feel in the classroom the truth the truth is there are a lot of teachers who a lot of really good teachers who are resigning early who are quitting earlier than they would ever expect who are I shouldn't use the word quinting but but are resigning because of the conditions of the classroom they feel unsafe in the classroom I had notes I'm not going to go to my notes I'll just say it from my heart um they are resigning because
037they don't feel safe in their classrooms there are kids that and I I mentioned this last time I spoke in February 14th I spoke about how there are kids with weapons in our classrooms and they're getting two days suspended kids with weapons with intent to use them and they're getting two days suspended people need to know that this is going on in our school system now we can pretend pretend it's not happening but our teachers are afraid to be in the classroom because they're sitting with with the students are are are are violent and there's nothing being done about it I I I was shocked that I didn't get any emails or any reach out to me after last time to say hey what do you know what can we do to help what's going
038on um maybe you didn't know about it but I can only assume that you know about these issues but you're not doing anything about it why that is I have no idea but I would think that you would be more concerned about the safety of the teachers and the students in this County the other thing I want to address is causing a lot of stress for teachers a lot of concern for teachers is the fact that you can't get above and it might seem ridiculous to some people but you can't get below a 40 in any assignment in the classroom teachers are feeling very disrespected by that they've got students who are just um not turning in assignments I had students myself who didn't turn in the majority of their assignments but still pass my
039class they had no basic knowledge of the content but they're still passing the class because of this policy this policy was put in place under the guise of it was done through uh because of virtual learning but it was put in in place so that it could stay in place in the name of equity and we all know that um and but it's not passing people that need to be passed in our classrooms thank you [Applause] thank you all for your comments uh the next item on our agenda is the highlights by board members and I will start with Mr folk it's always pleasure thank you Dr mcquilkin thank you thank you Miss Laura thank you Mr Bren your microphone's uh I would like to say thank you to the folks at Mido sounds as
040if you had a few challenges getting get everything together and when we walked in you would never know so thank you so much for all you've you've done to welcome us this evening um I would also like to point out that every year annually the Virginia school boards Association holds an art contest and the U school SCH School divisions involved there are about 12 to 15 of the school divisions involved and they they all submit art in the elementary category the Middle School category and the high school category and in the past um Rockingham County has often had winners and this year is no exception