BoE Meeting on 03/28/2022

001[Music] good evening welcome to the regularly scheduled meeting of the jefferson county board of education on monday march 28 2022 if you please join us for the pledge i pledge allegiance to the flag of the united states of america and to the republic for which it stands one nation under god indivisible with liberty and justice for all [Music] now the very first thing we have to do this evening is actually a very important thing and you guys get to witness that it's appointing a new member to the board of education because of mr cable's retirement first thing we'll do is make a motion to appoint the member is there a motion to appoint mr justin brown to the board of education thank you dr joy and mr osborne all in favor of appointing mr justin

002brown to the board of education for the term between now and june 30th say aye hi opposed thank you very much now if i could please ask mr brown to come up and miss laura storm is going to come up and swear him in [Music] hi may i have you raise your right hand and repeat after me i justin p brown senior do solemnly swear that i will support the constitution of the united states of america and the constitution of the state of west virginia and that i will faithfully discharge the duties of a member of the jefferson county board of education to the best of my skill and judgment so help me god and while mr brown is signing those i'll give you a little tidbit about him um mr brown has a bachelor's

003degree from hampton university a master's degree from virginia university virginia union university he has a virginia teaching certificate in history and social studies he's a former teacher in jefferson county and he's currently teaching in loudoun county mr brown not only has teaching experience but he also has parenting experience because he has children in jefferson county school systems at washington high school charlestown middle school and wright denny according to his personnel profile he adapts to new responsibilities he's detail-oriented he functions as a team member and he has proven communication skills and he has the ability to solve all of the world's problems did i read that correctly i try okay well welcome mr brown thank you so much man if you like you can say a couple words if you choose i just like to say

004i'm honored to be part of this prestigious board and the great work they're already doing i'm hoping just to help do my part along the way to keep jefferson county schools at the top level uh in the state of west virginia and i'm just honored to be here with students staff and community and i will try and do my best to fill in the big shoes that mr cable left us uh for the time i am here thank you all for your support thank you thank you now i believe we have some student recognitions we have quite a few student recognitions good evening ladies and gentlemen i'd like to thank all of the families the parents the caregivers the fans that are here to support our amazing students and see the incredible things that are

005happening in jefferson county schools we have a lot of staff members here this evening as well who are going to help celebrate and support these students as we look at some of the things that they are accomplishing i'd like to start by inviting dr lee ebersole to the podium six jefferson county school students have qualified for the 2022 young writers contest this year and i'm going to let dr ebersole speak some more about not only the significance of that honor but the incredible amount of work and talent that goes into that on behalf of the students and the staff who've taught them what an honor it is to be before you this evening uh i must say a lot of us lately have been paying a lot of attention to basketball right and again the

006saint peter's peacocks i have really followed them and i was sad to see them go down yesterday but they went down in glory but uh again i was also reminded of a favorite author of mine who is from milledgeville georgia and her name is flania o'connor and she actually raised peafowl on her farm and she said something really important and this is it she said i write to understand what i know and i'm about to introduce you to six young people who understand a great deal about our world they understand it well enough to use their skills and knowledge as writers to involve us in shared story so if i may i'll invite them to come join me on the podium and just come stand by me if you will the first person i would

007like to invite to the stage is scarlett sanchez scarlett is this in second grade at ransom elementary scarlett wrote a story it was called salem in salem as she just told me again and reminded me is a cat that lives on charlotte's back porch it was very important to her to say that it was under the covered back porch but she described how much she cares and protects this cat from other neighborhood cats so again welcome and then you'll notice we have this special thing that you get to hold and here it is this wonderful thing that says you're a winner thank you everyone could we give a round of applause please for charlotte sanchez the next student i would like to invite to the stage is coraline ballinger coraline is a third grade student

008at drisswood elementary in miss murgatz class we're so grateful she's here coraline wrote a brilliant fantasy about her dream school and her dream school is a very special place where a unicorn is the mascot and not only that but it's important to say that not only do children learn to ride horseback there they also learn to ride camels welcome to the stage if you would ladies and gentlemen carline ballinger congratulations portland this is for you yay you could you go stand over there please dear one ah now this name is familiar to you this is a two-time winner of our young writers contest and this young man's name is shea oben shay would you join me please on the stage shea is a fifth grade student in miss long's class at north jefferson elementary and

009shea really wrote a brilliant fantasy if you will called the journey now you might think that that's just him traveling somewhere in the world however it was a fantasy about you're welcome shay it was a fantasy about a dandelion imagine the journey of a dandelion as those puffs go up into the air and eventually grow into a plant that grows up in someone's household only later to move again and journey back to the ground from which they came again would you please join me in a round of applause for shea oben from north jefferson again the next young writers winner is evelyn bailey would you join me in welcoming evelyn bailey evelyn is a seventh grade student at shepherdstown middle school uh she is in miss friends english class there and she wrote a truly

010interesting story and it's called plant boy now it's not like you might think that it's a keeper of plants instead evelyn did this marvelous thing hey there how are you doing well what happened is this plant was lifted and then tossed across the room and somehow that plant hits the wall and guess what appears a six foot three man you really need to read that by the way ladies and gentlemen all of these stories are online and are there for your reading pleasure please take time to visit the page and now this is yes join me in giving a round of applause please for evelyn bailey now you're going to hear an echo on this one because we have not one but two people named profsmen that have won the prize now you might ask

011how come there are two people named protestant one from one high school and one from the other well they happen to be sisters and representing jefferson high school in mr russell's ninth grade english class is margaret protzman margaret would you please come join us here [Applause] and margaret wrote a story that was so full of emotion i won't be honest with you it was a pleasure to read but also a great challenge emotionally because the title of the story is drowned and she told the story of what it might be to drown now obviously as you can see she's very much with us here so again if you will join me in congratulating margaret kutzman and again we would like to invite her sister please emily emily protzman again from washington high school where she

012is in miss nicholson's 12th grade class and she wrote a story entitled guilt by association now again this is a true fantasy you might even call it a pot boiler because what's going on there's a great deal of anxiety about what's going on in the family kitchen and until the very end the very last sentence of the story you think that cannibalism is afoot but you'll need to read the story if you will or ask our author what was actually happening there so again if you would give a round of applause for these wonderful authors and again if you would please continue to cheer them on they will all be traveling to charleston west virginia on may 13th with their families and loved ones where they will participate in the annual in person by the

013way uh west virginia young writers day celebration at the university of charleston so we're looking for that one more round of applause please for our young writers [Applause] i've once again made the mistake of following dr ebersole i'm not nearly as excited or as engaging thank you all very much congratulations let's walk right back the way we came down the stairs here so just follow me down the ramp and we will keep moving i am incredibly excited about this because uh i can talk i used to do that for living writing has not always been my forte so the fact that you all are learning and doing this so early is wonderful you'll see if you're following us we're now passing a sea of white so i'm going to invite mary beth group to come

014up and talk to us about some of our student athletes who had incredibly successful seasons uh wonderful showings at the state champion state championship tournament and continue to make us all proud as residents of jefferson county and employees at jefferson county schools so principal jefferson high school mary beth group round of applause good evening i'm not going to speak long i just want to be able to introduce first and foremost my girls team who ran me to charleston i went to charleston three weeks in a row i've seen a lot of miles but for all for great reasons with band and basketball boys and girls it was um awesome trips and worth the trip no matter what my girls would say but they did go with a bunch of speed bumps i walked in to

015the first game into the coliseum down there and they were like oh you got three girls on crutches i said oh i do so but they they hung in there and gave it their own i was super proud of them no matter what so for my girls team head coach damon smith um hi how's everybody doing um yes like she said we did run into a lot of speed bumps towards the end of the year we finished the year at uh 16 and five last year we were 12-0 so i think last year was the first time in since 2011 that the team has been to the state tournament and we made it two years in a row so that's a amazing accomplishment especially from a group thank you especially from a school that only

016has been to the state tournament three years prior uh three times prior so i'm really proud of the girls so um i want to introduce my coaching staff john hartlindy is not here with us um so we'll start with my assistant rynell newman my other assistant marquise farmer and the girls i have tasia j who was not with us today she's at work and salil basham who is uh doing soccer right now um but first we'll go with one of the girls that was on crutches she just got out of her boot today justice lee junior justice league next we have freshman amara washington sophomore jasmine taylor jr olivia hedricks sophomore vicki hoover junior talia lindsay excuse me i'm sorry hey i'm hey i'm nervous up here i'm nervous i'm nervous yeah i'm sorry i'm

017nervous uh junior leah and i can't i can't remember at last name i'm so nervous up here leo sweeney exactly i'm sorry i'm sorry aliyah we have another one that was also on um crutches is daylen hoyler freshman i'm sorry aliyah um we have a young lady who is just made the baseball team the jefferson baseball team grace dodson freshman grace dawson junior mackenzie bresevich also also we just had a young lady that just had surgery on her knee and that's a senior having murray i'm super proud of these ladies uh this whole team we only have one senior so this whole team will be back next year and we'll be back at the state tournament again next year come on up so we can get some pictures coach another round of applause for the

018cougars thank you all so much for taking the trip to charleston and for joining us here this evening to be recognized greatly appreciated don't do that because we need you all healthy next year please so i'm going to get a quick picture if you'll all yeah oh do you guys remember like so slide on down here and then you all remember when you used to have the little league stuff and you'd do one of these is anyone or anyone's knees not healthy enough okay you stay standing please all right yeah anybody not in a brace who can be flexible all right one last show of athleticism for the season thank you thank you cougars on three one two three with some enthusiasm one two three cougars there we go thank you very very much and

019mary beth's job is not done this evening so as my girls find a seat um i'd like to also take this time to say we went back with our boys so i would like to take this time to let my boys know we may not have finished where we wanted to but we were one step closer and i'm super proud of you guys okay so my head coach for boys tech lewis just wanna say a few words can you hear me just want to say a few words um before i get started um these i guess before i started talking about the team real quick i want to talk about the community of jefferson county i've been in the county for 20 years in middle school and high school um this is probably the first

020year um since i've been at jefferson that we've had that much support um just from not just the school i want to thank this group her enthusiasm about basketball but from the parents from the community we got a lot of calls about sponsorships this has been a wonderful year so i wanted to thank everybody for that support first for supporting those guys who worked really hard this year so before i call the names i just want to throw some things out we were 23 and one um this year like mrs group said we didn't finish exactly where he wanted to finish but 2031's not too bad um we were the first jefferson high school team to go undefeated in a regular season in school history um so i wanted to make sure um they'll never

021forget that um also we were um the first team to win a state tournament game of 40 years since 1982 so that was something that was never been done and then also we went back to back as well actually we were 11-5 with the covington shortened season and we went to the state tournament for the first time since 2007 um and we hadn't gone back to back since 92 and 93. so just wanted to make sure um everybody know a little bit of history and they know a little bit of history because sometimes it gets forgotten but these guys they're going to be remembered for years to come um so i'm gonna introduce everybody one by one i'm gonna start with my freshman class first that way i won't forget anybody i'll start to take

022that back i'll start my assistant coach um will fleming it's his first year here at uh jefferson high school he came over from washington high school he did our jv team this year did a great job for us tommy murray he's not present he's um been a long time assistant with a mind for since 2012. he's not present today um i want to announce our freshman uh taishan roper step forward to sean jamari jenkins [Applause] adonis troxel [Applause] jayden gladden [Applause] ty vickers and then we have one sophomore that's not here uh colin johnson [Applause] saw more why shall we [Applause] sophomore jerry wilberger [Applause] now jean alone jr on the team will shively [Applause] cameron johnson's uh had a visit at virginia union university today so he's not here number number three cameron johnson

023he's a senior [Applause] bryson fleming david haynes [Applause] darion masenberg [Applause] and our oldest senior deon taylor [Applause] once again i want to thank everybody for their support this year um and these guys were amazing um hate to see some of them leave but i'm sure uh we got some big shoes to fill especially the young guys but i wanted to just make sure i let them know um that they had an amazing year um they worked super super hard i don't i don't know if everybody knows how hard they work um in practice uh how much we run so i wanted to make sure everybody knows these guys put it out um a lot it's a lot behind the scenes that you don't see um even the wins and also don't show for it

024they always put a hundred percent and i think it showed this year with the 23-1 season thank you all [Music] you guys have done an incredible job anytime we post anything on social media about your team it gets thousands of views and hits and shares amazing community support you give in jefferson county a lot to be proud of we got certificates for you that you could hand it out after i didn't want to run in front of you and steal thunder so all right we're going to get a quick picture can you guys gather in just a little bit just realizing there's a lot of height on this team everyone's super tall no knees okay all right perfect season on three one two three all right cougars on man all right cougars on three one

025two three there we go thank you gentlemen all right regional social studies fair students who choose to take on the challenge of participating in a social studies fair have lots and lots and lots of different options uh for anything from geography to history to the humanities to political science that they can dive into and we have a plethora of successful students um stephanie unger is here and she's going to talk to us tonight about some students who paired very well in the regional affair now we're going to get those students up on stage and recognize them uh for their achievements so want the wireless you want the podium here you talk here i'll hop up there with them all right go ahead okay um i'm stephanie younger i'm the regional social studies fair coordinator and

026these two young ladies this is noel nicodemus and she did a project [Applause] she did a project on the history of wound closure and she is going to represent jefferson county at the state level on april 29th this is jillian dillo [Applause] and she did a project on banned books and again it's going to represent jefferson county at the state fair april 29th both in charleston i have a question we got to talk to you briefly last time what do you change after you go through county and then regionals and you're going to states do you tweak it or does success stand have you had to change anything about your project um tweak it a little i guess presentation the display board or you just go back to scratch just tweak the presentation how about

027you well it was slightly difficult because i got a perfect score and then a near perfect score which i didn't have any feedback but i i'm going to change my introduction introduction and that's all when the judges say it's perfect don't change a thing just roll with it congratulations thank you both so much that's social studies we also are blessed with scientists in our student community and a science project is more than just a display board they have to literally formulate a thesis and then prove that thesis over and over again and we are are so excited to be able to recognize those students here this evening please welcome jessica russler and shane price who are going to introduce our students and bring them up on stage for recognition all right good evening i just

028wanted to say with all of the challenges that have been posed this year i just want to take pleasure in recognizing these students for their achievements and science fair and it's real honor to have them up here before you tonight i'm just going to read the names they are samantha didion and if they would come up here on stage please when your name is red [Applause] mason mcconnell [Applause] scott leonard mcguire gleeson jillian dillo lily nicodemus [Applause] amanda beza [Applause] noel nicodemus [Applause] addie topping caitlyn [Applause] speakman christopher cox [Applause] katrina hernandez colby carter dylan marconi [Applause] eli dillo [Applause] juliet wells and andrew russ stone [Applause] now we've already had the state science fair and i just wanted to point out that uh andrew stone and uh jillian dillo earned uh first place in

029their respective categories in the science fair and next year i hope to fill the stage with folks from jefferson county thank you shane all right sir really quickly if you would tell folks your name and then just what your project was about um scott leonard and my project was about enzyme and browning enzy what was your hypothesis my hypothesis was that um that putting fruits inside um boxes to keep them sealed would like prevent them turning brown did it work uh it it had mixed results but it wasn't the best method to use you heard it here first tested and proven you're back how do you okay first question before we get into science how do you do both lots of time both of you both of you are back we're going to have to

030get that answer from you as well so what was your science fair project and hypothesis my science fair project was cleaning up oil spills and what method cleans up oil spills the best and my hypothesis was that fair fluid would work the best because it's the only method that doesn't have any supplements were you correct no well it does work best absorption and boom and skimmer methods i will pretend to know what those are by nodding thusly all right and how did you manage to juggle both science and social studies time a lot of time time management i failed that class miserably so talk about your science project what was your hypothesis and what was your project about my project was on the strength of very wind closure and my hypothesis was that simple interrupted

031stitches would hold stronger than some interrupted stitches were you correct yes nailed it and how about you sir what was your project and what was your hypothesis and if you could tell folks your name i'm andrew and my project was when mealworms eat styrofoam over time do they does their manure have more or less plant beneficial nutrients over at in their manure what was your hypothesis did you think they would yeah were you right yes so mealworms eat styrofoam help plants yes i would never believed it thank you sir and well done at the state level thank you very much [Applause] let me get a quick picture with the board watch as i dramatically fall off the stage okay we're good thank you all very much and it's not just science and social studies that

032have all the fun oh no history is also here uh with history bowl and we have some record-setting um students here for our history bowl and the success that they showed i would like to welcome mr frampus up to introduce those students who were able to attend and talk a little bit about the history bowl and the significance of this event mr frampus by the way a social studies teacher at shepherdstown middle school well about five years ago i heard about this history bowl thing and said gosh a trivia like a jeopardy contest for kids and what i teach i'm like yeah i'm all in so we went to the competition in the regionals and just went there with a goal see see what this is about two years later we went back right before

033covid and they were like shepherdstown who was at the first jefferson county school to actually win the regional and we crushed that competition covet happened and we couldn't go so in the goodness of the west virginia's heart they sent us an invitation last year and we were able to take our eighth graders even though they themselves didn't qualify in lieu of our previous year and i was very proud of those students to go down to see state and see how they competed there and they did win more than they lost it's a double double elimination they want we have uh three and three and two this year's group um has absolutely like floored me we did not start history bowl this year until december because i wanted to hold my breath and see if we're

034actually going to have it i didn't want to get my kids all wound up and then not actually go again they started in december and they actually earned their way into state again and they're competing against teams that start in sixth grade i am absolutely stunned with how well these students have handled all of their responsibilities as well as over 400 questions that they have to answer um i give them 400 questions and they answer 10 of them orally with me randomly selected and they're hitting 90s and 100s every single time i have one alternate i have four players and i have one coach who's my right arm who keeps me on track and keeps everybody's numbers straight um we have scott leonard noel nicodemus sean battery my right arm lucy mitchell [Applause] and the

035best alternate i can hope for melana ryder guys thank you so much all right because i don't like to let you off all that easy i do want to come up and ask you favorite historical era you had to pick an era in history to study for the rest of your academic career what would it be favorite historical figure all right that's okay how about you hero or figure revolution hamilton nice okay maybe some applause how about you sir uh like 1800's history civil war u.s history all over the place or european history at the time all right you got the triple crown this is it all three subjects represented very well done what's your favorite era and or historical figure on the spot i'm sorry i see you knew your project that was good

036but when i say the whole of history it's a lot i don't know always just go with the treaty of paris that's what i was taught in european history can't go wrong how about you sir i fire world war ii well fantastic ladies and gentlemen shepherdstown middle school history bowl winners thank you all very much photo opportunity now i'm out of your way okay thank you all very much you can take your seats oh nope never mind photo op my bad we good all right thank you all very much and that's all we have this evening all right thank you all very much all right f4a presentation the paige jackson alumni room bond project update welcome mrs white thank you i was just going to introduce myself good evening members of the board and welcome

037mr brown as mrs skinner said i'm joyce white deputy superintendent for operations and i'm delighted this evening to highlight the paige jackson alumni tribute hall bond project for those of you that don't know the jefferson county schools central offices are housed in the former paige jackson high school which was the black high school in jefferson county before 1965 when schools were segregated today a room chock full of artifacts and memories serves to honor the men and women who taught and learned there and to preserve that time in our history those artifacts have been collected donated and curated by a very active group of paige jackson alumni but the room is outdated and the artifacts in the room will not last forever if not preserved for the future this evening randy jones principal architect zmm will

038show you the results of many months of work with the paige jackson alumni the alumni worked alongside a committee of invested staff partnering with interior designer carly chapman of zmm to produce the results we will share with you this evening while the new tribute hall will preserve our current artifacts many new artifacts and memories will be added by the alumni as well we look forward to generations of page jackson alumni friends relatives community members students and staff taking a walk through history as retold by members of the page jackson alumni it is my pleasure now to introduce first randy jones he will be followed by introductions of members of the page jackson alumni who are present here tonight many members of the alumni will be wrapping up our presentation with their thoughts about the tribute

039hall and briefly sharing their amazing journey through jefferson county schools randy we'll start with you good evening it is my pleasure to be here this evening to show you a few um slides that we have put together that represent uh countless hours that this group here have dedicated to giving us ideas and suggestions on how we can transform this classroom space into something really special we started media as a group in mid-november and we've had several meetings since then and this has been a process of evolution the greatest privilege that i have had is to listen to you all to the stories that you tell it's truly inspiring to hear their stories and to try to very humbly present this into a space that will do it justice that will capture the spirit and the

040energy and the drive and determination of the folks that went to this school we could begin with the the first slide um so these these ideas were developed by our interior designer uh carly chapman she's been with uh with us all the meetings our goal was to create a space that would be dynamic that would incorporate the latest technology would interest students it would interest folks that have ties and connections to the area but also it needs to be continued to be used as a space where we can gather we can have meetings and and so forth so what you'll see is the space on the left as the the museum and then the space on the right when it's used as a meeting space so it's designed to be very flexible and i'll have

041a lot of different uses next slide so some of the things that we're trying to incorporate this is we've heard just a little bit of their amazing stories and their recollections of what they were able to share with us i think these have now been documented a lot of these been documented in both on digital media i think the stories were told verbally and also somewhere on camera so we will have all of this really rich information that we can then put into interactive displays so that you can go in there and you can either touch a button or put in a code on your phone and the story of what that display is will come alive and will share with you a lot of times in first person what it was like going to

042school at paige jackson high school back when they were there next slide please so each of the walls has different features of it one of the walls will have a timeline that will show the evolution of the schools in jefferson county and each of those will have an interactive component to it as well we also want to be able to display the artifacts that are in the room but we also want the artifacts to be something that can be rotated in and out some of these will be on loan some of these are very precious and they're the last remaining things that they have from their high school days so we want to make sure that we can preserve those and protect those also we will be as part of the process all the photographs

043are in the room will be digitally archived so that those will also be preserved in the future next slide so again we're just we can you can see here we do think we have a some of the original athletic shirts and some of the flags and things like that that we can display or at the very least provide replicas of it but we want to again represent what it was like almost like a day in the life of what was like going to school there we'll have a desk that's in there from one of the originals that one of the alumni was able to donate for us so it's very exciting we're doing as much as we possibly can in 800 square feet and we have a limited budget but i think we can do

044it justice and these folks here once you hear their stories i think you'll truly be inspired by what we're trying to accomplish we hope that construction will begin this summer and we were hoping to be able to get it done i think you all have an anniversary that's coming up i'm not sure we'll quite get there but at least it'll be uh in progress and underway so thank you joining us this evening paige jackson alumni members if you'll stand when i call your name dolores foster and i see him over there via zoom larry togens john brown he's not here with us this evening daniel jackson [Applause] ernest dandridge [Applause] i don't see jeanette dozier she was going to join us jeanette back in the day yeah great person margaret gaskins is she via zoom

045okay but attending in her place april and alan hamilton have you joined her okay these are the paige jackson alumni and we'd like to hear from them this evening um we'll start with dolores foster thank you good evening to everyone i feel kind of awkward with my back to the audience but i know that you're the most important folks here in this room so i went to uh to assad's assad and reverend i'm very proud thank you for your community service thank you my name is dolores jackson foster and i am a product of jefferson county schools uh grades one through eight i attended grandview elementary school and in grade nine i came to pace jackson high school and this i'm not this one i'm not usually i'm in in the in the room of

046the jefferson county border where the um where the jefferson county board of ed is is where i started my high school education but before i begin i would like to thank you dr gibson learn and the and your staff for honoring us in such an excellent way uh they only not only did they think of of all the intricate details of how this room could be but she involved all of us and so dr learn dr gibson thank you very much uh i thank you also for making history come alive i started um my teaching education at pace jackson high school i graduated pace jackson and the first my first year teaching in 1961 was at pace jackson high school so i stand here very proud to be not only a product of paige jackson

047high school but also one who taught the first year and one of the few teachers who are still alive to tell the story that they taught at page jackson high school i want to get home give homage to the graduates who those who graduated uh the the young men you see sitting here were also a part of pace jackson high school but i think we need to do more than just say thank you but we need to say thank you very much first of all to larry tokens who is who was in the class of 1965 and with things kind of slowed down as far as honoring and and having the reunions larry's class stepped in and and gave birth to new things in the association so larry thank you very much along with his

048wife carolyn she must be somewhere in the room i'm sure carolyn also was instrumental um pace jackson high school alumni association was chartered in 1983 and we began to have reunions like every other year and finally we thought that we were getting older that we need to kind of fast fast forward this stuff and we began having the unions every year so every year in august i mean july sorry the last full week in july according to jim taylor we had a reunion and we come together to to celebrate we celebrate each other we celebrate you know the things we have done the places we have gone and how we have worked perhaps in the communities where where we live when we left charlestown west virginia so annually we would have this reunion and we

049came back to charlestown but finally one year we came back and that was a page-jackson room we were very elated but to know that this page jackson room is now going to become because the tribute hall really really adds to our to our are being very very very very very appreciative of what has happened to to us for other folks to know and to appreciate the kinds of educations that we that we had and the kinds of struggles that we had as students in jefferson county is really really very honorable because i never dreamed that anyone would think that pace jackson high school was as important as i am thank you dr gibson learned thank you very much and to the board of education thank you for for floating the bond and and so that

050we could have this building i mean have this room in this building and i can't wait to see what's going to happen to the paige jackson high school history for years to come i'm sure my my children and my grandchildren my great-grandchildren will come back to charlestown and being becoming this tribute hall and see what has happened what was like for me other than my telling them about paige jackson high school so once more thank you very much [Applause] mr john brown will be joining us next mr brown jackson [Music] hi i told you really i'm so sorry uh good evening everyone i honored to be here to speak about the school that i graduated from uh it's well growing up uh i had to follow my sister's footsteps that's my sister right there number

051three i'm number five out of 13. so anyway uh i i would like to say i went to grand view and hoppers for a one through eight then after you graduate from hoppers ferry we rode the school bus from harpers ferry past the white school to paige jackson and of course at that time it didn't bother me by us leaving the the uh of us it didn't bother us going past the school because we were just laughing with all this funny you know so anyway i came to paige jackson and i i had to to learn when i say learn the teachers were very diligent they made you learn whether you wanted to or not uh and back then we didn't have cell phones or telephones uh but they knew everything that you did in

052school by the time you got home why do you do this why you have this so anyway uh we learned how to do little more sneaky things in school uh we had uh mr damage which was our principal uh with his his son who is here tonight uh was an honorable man we uh we had we had canyon room we had a cafeteria but the cafeteria wasn't like what they had today our cafeteria was a candy potato chips and then you had to go to the auditorium like this and eat your lunch or eat in your classroom and in the room where we're going to dedicate that page action room is why i had math i had math in that realm it was a math form of mrs fleming and qd fleming which is her

053husband was next door where i had ffa i uh let but two months ago i went to uh jefferson high school to talk to the ffa about how we had as black students and i told them we had uh we did a chess and livestock and the livestock was hogs or chicken and you had to in your project you had to produce a hog or chicken because you didn't know when the man was coming check you out so anyway uh then then we had a chest then we built chests almost the color of this just accordion right here so i was determined to be something of of a jackson because i was like i said i was the first boy that went to paychecks from the jackson family and i had to care supposed to

054carry their name my other three sister was smarter than i was so you know i was catching on both sides uh the teacher side and my parents side so i say lord have mercy well anyway it was it was honored to go just to thank to a black school knowing that you're going to be something because all that school came doctors lawyers military people ministers you could name it and always was very uh like i say very literate and honored to learn because what you didn't learn you could learn some from somewhere else and and the other thing about all black school is that we had uh we had concerts we had dancers we had proms we had football we had basketball we had track but it was amongst only the black kids uh in

055the year i can remember the year that we went to uh shepard college to play uh a basketball tournament and i think uh muslin was only school that that wanted to play us now closer we were to charlestown they wouldn't scrimmage us in football so so you know we had conflict so we had to go to virginia or maryland to play our sports winchester berryville and seven or seven but i'm very proud and honored to to attend a school such as paige jackson high school and all i have to say i'm i'm waiting for this room to be finished so that i can show what i have done and what we're going to do thank you all for having me [Applause] thank you mr jackson mr ernest dainridge is next good evening i was called

056about a week ago to come here and give some perspective from two standpoints my father was the principal of the school pace jackson high school and also i was a student at paige jackson high school until it closed and we were transferred to charlestown high and i want to just give some thoughts and observations about my experience at pace jackson high school the principal slash my father used to tell us students to have faith in god in ourselves and be positive he had a saying of which was incorporated in at least one of his school graduation speeches you are the architect of your future a belief students needed to work harder to come to create and achieve goals in life work harder at endeavors for example during football or track season i remember some boys

057who lived out in the country stopping by a gas station after practice and buying a cold soda on a warm evening to keep cool while they walked a combination walked and hitchhiked all the way to the country home such as out to summit point another example i wanted to share was a teacher giving advice about also dealing with things away from the school building mr qd fleming instructed boys who might have come from very financially limited resource homes to save money and invest in a white shirt and nice tie in case at some point they wanted to apply for an after-school job probably the kid could not have afforded a suit or even a sports coat but at least with the white shirt and nice tie they could have made some type of impression on

058the employer to show that they were at least trying also another thing i want to point out was there was broad encouragement for kids to try different activities such as the band sports shop etc so not so much with the situation to have a kid who naturally was good at an activity but there was a chance for a greater number of students to be exposed to activities they might not otherwise have been able to try for themselves and i think all these examples are reflected on the students who've gone through paige jackson thank you again for your time [Applause] thank you mr dainridge next we'll hear from mr george rutherford good evening i'm george redeford i'd like to really thank the board for recognizing the page jackson high school and going to keep the memory

059alive i just want you to know one thing paige jackson high school only lasted 27 years a jackson high school building only last 14 years paige jackson only graduate student for 23 years the history of paychecks is really great you'd be surprised the number of students who wind up being educators principals of schools all over the country officers in the military and so forth so i hope you really remember that paige jackson more than just the building it's been a whole lot of people i can remember very well the first class that graduated from faith jackson high school it wasn't the building but it was paid jackson high school the building was the eagle elementary school and the history they would be very proud today to know that their memory is still being remembered thank

060you [Applause] thank you mr rutherford and finally the last alumni will hear from this evening mr alfred baylor did you want to speak yes i thought you did thank you want to thank all of you for inviting us now you've heard from the brains mr damage sent me home more to get my mom to get me back in school but i would say one thing about jefferson county and the board of education and uh paige jackson in particular i wouldn't have been any i wouldn't have i wouldn't trade anything in my life about growing up here in jefferson county attending paige jackson high school actually i was born 78 years after the end of the seminar of the civil war um i can remember quite distinctly the beginning of the second world war i went

061into uh i'm 83 by the way on 84. so we are quickly passing out of the way but the teachers were dedicated and as junior said they made you learn whether you wanted to learn or not uh when we left out of paige jackson high school we were quite well prepared to face the world whether we went into college we went into the military we went into business and i'm awfully proud of the ones i went to school with the ones who preceded me the ones that came behind me like larry toggins and those guys paige jackson jefferson county i would not have traded it for anything in the world uh and uh lewis is carrying it on i will say one thing that paige jackson school itself has stopped the paige jackson name will

062never ever stop as long as the alumni association keep on going because we stood for something walked to school brown back to school we we had second-hand books but we we rose above that and i wouldn't trade it for anything in the world now thank you guys thank you for for having [Applause] to us up the presentation i just want to thank the paige jackson alumni and the alumni that could join us this evening your legacy will certainly live on here at jefferson county schools and it's been an honor to work on this project mr tokens did you want to speak i know you didn't say you wanted to speak but we're happy to have you say a few words just be a few words too i i want you to notice i got my

063page jackson hat on my page jack and shirt i just want to say uh i'm sure the pace jackson alumni association founders which included miss katherine jackson norton which is the sister of mrs foster mr james taylor mrs dorothy taylor mr bobby brown mrs helen branson mrs marvin hughes and other family members would be very impressed with what we've seen so far for them i would like to say i would like to thank the entire board the super attendant and the staff for putting all this time into this project i'm very impressed with the project i spent uh my seventh grade year through uh graduation at pace jackson i know every inch of that building from the shower room to the furnace room to the classroom and and the room that the board meets in

064which was my english class and the library thank you so much ma'am superintendent and the board members for this project thank you mr jones um i calculate you have about 15 weeks to get this project okay no pressure but 15 weeks okay you can go home now and start working just kidding all right thank you very much for being here this evening we appreciated it [Applause] and mrs white did you have anything for the deputy superintendent of update operations update it's all good things so take your time this evening i do have my deputy superintendent of operations update currently we have other updates on bond projects our architects will be meeting next week with a committee of our expert education staff to determine design and layout in the following areas for our two new schools

065at ransom elementary and shepherdstown elementary we'll be looking at the food service cafeterias we'll have an initial meeting which will be held with zmm's food service consultant to kick off with our own director of food services dillon bites a meeting to discuss the feng shui in the kitchen this will be a series of questions about equipment and preferences etc the second meeting will include a review of the full kitchen design in art and music we're going to ask our art music teachers at the two schools to meet and they're going to focus on interior requirements like casework sinks marker board placement etc zmm's interior designer carly chapman will facilitate that meeting and work with those teachers we'll also be discussing our steam labs in a committee meeting again the interior designer carly chapman will be

066joining stakeholders which include tara mahoney and mary lynde the coordinators of instruction for those grade levels carly has designed multiple steam labs so she'll be facilitating this meeting to determine what our needs are for our students and these and these steam rooms the media center committee will be meeting and they're going to work with our media specialists at these schools to make sure that our our ideas for a modern media center align with the users the students that will be using them carly the interior designer will be meeting with that committee as well we'll also beginning be beginning i.t technology work and zmm's electrical and technology engineer will discuss the technology needs of our two new schools this meeting will include a representative from the wvde technology field as well as our own technology team

067here at jefferson county schools and finally zmm will be meeting with maintenance and they'll be bringing their mechanical and plumbing engineer they're going to review with brandon caton and his maintenance crew any preferences they may have for mechanical equipment plumbing fixtures lighting et cetera in technology uh dr jen rowan has been very busy securing us emergency connectivity funds as a response to the coven 19 pandemic the federal government issued 7.17 billion dollars to provide the emergency connectivity fund for all entities that qualify for e-rate such as jefferson county schools and they were organized through the universal service administrative company and they streamlined the process for us to apply through their electronic report electronic portal and we applied for funding for four hundred dollars up to students for laptops as well as wi-fi hotspots and additional

068computers for classrooms for students who i forgot my charger i don't have a charger i forgot my laptop etc so we wanted to cover students at all times the ecf program has helped the district maintain 1 million 71 thirty dollars in local funding to help support current and future technology initiatives on top of technology doing a one-to-one initiative and applying for these and receiving that funding to help our school and system reimburse ourselves get some more laptops for our students this has been an incredible boom to our school system so i'm very proud of dr rowan and her team here at technology and that wraps up my superintendent update for this evening thank you very much you're welcome all right next we have the approval of the minutes is there a motion to approve the

069minutes of the regular board meeting held march 14 2022 and the special board meetings held march 14th and 21st 2022 thank you miss ogden is there a second thank you mr osborne any discussion or questions all in favor of the minutes from march 14th march 14th and march 21st say hi hi oppose thank you all right next we have citizens comments and just a reminder that you're limited to three minutes and you're prohibited from making negative or derogatory comments using a name or position by which an individual can be identified comments may not be threatening profane vulgar or abusive or the speaker will be required to cease his or her comments first up we have joanne curran followed by karen buck tonight i don't want to confront and laugh at your absurdities i want to

070appeal to your thoughts and maybe spark you to think outside of the present box what's the difference between parents and teachers what's the difference between a home and a school what's the difference between a family and a school day is there a difference i think we can agree there are because all your decisions say there is a difference your decisions say that you think families can't do it without your help here's a list of school responsibilities teach academics successfully and that would include the arts provide data to prove their success i guess that's it and here's a list of parent responsibilities only name their children love their children feed their children including obtaining government assistance as needed on their own keep them physically emotionally and mentally healthy give them medicine teach them life skills talk

071to them comfort their emotions teach them social skills and behaviors how to treat other people always be honest respectful empathetic and humble kiss and hug them laugh and cry with them teach them their own families faith and values teach their children about sex any way they want any time they think is right counsel or get outside counsel as the parents and doctors decide discipline their children make their own arrangements and decision to fill up after school hours and because nothing in life goes perfectly families can figure it out themselves parents can seek help from family friends faith group professional and any government assistance services they need parents know their own family's needs things schools should not do do not love the students do not feed the students do not rename the students do not keep

072secrets from parents do not teach students to keep secret from parents do not give medicine without parental approval do not teach anything related to sex outside of human or animal biology do not teach them any values or social behaviors other than those that they can learn on the playground anyway do not offer any opinions of or views on faith do not touch students do not direct or comfort student emotions because when you do these things it's the reason we can't trust you and it makes us enemies why can't we agree why can't we just be friends again why do you feel the need to overpower us on these things don't try the argument that some parents don't do all these things so schools have to schools have been trying to do parents jobs for at

073least the three generations i've been alive we should have seen some improvement by now you have no proof no data that you've improved the lives of students as children or adults just the opposite if god thought parents were unnecessary he wouldn't have made them male and female and task them to love each other to raise and protect their own children schools are not the center of a child's life stop underestimating and disrespecting parents it doesn't matter if you like our decisions it doesn't take a village or a school to raise a child it takes a family when student scores hit the top then you can think about giving us advice it doesn't matter if you like our decisions thank you ma'am thank you next up we have karen buck followed by caleb hayden we've got

074some incredible students teachers and that paige jackson alumni we may want to listen to them about education this is my opinion directed solely to this board with the exception of mr brown respectfully and that leadership team parents i will be addressing pedophilia in our schools you may want to mute me and listen later present company accepted i apologize this situation has bothered myself and many parents for quite some time something isn't right here pedophilia in our schools is a disturbing and horrific subject and it is happening in jefferson county schools it is not discussed and quickly swept under the rug 800 000 kids a year go missing personally i think it's more here in jefferson county schools there have been six assaults on children and young people in the last five years that we know

075about i'll address two such incidents in one high school we've had two possibly three sexual assaults on students in the same school under the same principle and the same superintendent that principal supposedly a third party who didn't know anything about it was promoted to an administrative position at the main office at the other school a student was absent for 30 or 40 days and no one noticed uh this was when virtual learning came into into being that teacher a third party who didn't know anything about it was fired so one was promoted and one was fired at a recent board of education forum for candidates i posed a question to two important current school people after citing the two school incidents i asked the question what are you doing to address the issue of pedophilia

076in our schools and how are you combating this the first school person said they couldn't address it because it concerned employees okay but what about addressing the situation and how you're going to combat it the second school person answered by saying if we tell the parents that we're addressing this the parents will get very upset so we've got apathy and fear the other three candidates answered my question completely and to my satisfaction now if you are promoting a very progressive and permissive atmosphere in the schools if you are refusing to address pedophilia in the schools if you are scared to addre in our schools let's address this before it turns into a monster like it did in berkeley county how many berkeley county administrators have we hired yeah good night thank you next up is

077caleb hayden followed by sandy norland hi my name is caleb hayden i'm a captain for the jefferson county wild lacrosse team it's our first year for the team this year we've dealt with a series of adversity between not having enough players for season to now not knowing if we have a season on again now not knowing if we have a season altogether friday march 18th the board announced we were no longer allowed to use jefferson or washington's turf field for whatever reasons you may have for this decision i want you to know some of the consequences that this decision caused that next week we had a game scheduled for at jefferson march 22nd at 7 pm this game was set for multiple weeks in advance family had called off work friends were talking about it

078the community was involved and most of all all the players were excited for this game your decision not allowing field use changed that game to march 21st at 6 pm changing availability for referees changing availability for family again for family members to make this game uh and so we had to switch the game to luckily charlestown middle school allowed us to use their field but since the conditions at charleston middle school aren't what they are at jefferson field or washington's field many family members were unable to attend and it was hard for a lot of family members to not see the first game in county history for a lot of their sons 911 the field use all of our home games have now been changed referees have had to change work schedules some not even

079be able to make certain games oh sorry most importantly the pride of playing the first men's county men's lacrosse game in the county history at jefferson high school was taken in washington high school as well we made the best for situation and thanks to charlestown middle school we were still able to play our game after this game three jefferson while wild lacrosse member players including myself approached an administrator at jefferson high school the administrator was very thoughtful and and hurt our concerns going out of her way uh by calling astroturf and speaking with the athletic director i don't know the results of this conversation while i wish they were good she the administrator stated herself that the remaining three home games that we had would be no issue i ask that if you think that

080three home games might be too much to bask on these home on your fields i ask that you have in consideration april 11th is our senior night and all of us seniors would love to have our game either at washington on your turf fields and at or at jefferson we have banners made with all of our pictures and it would mean a lot to the team and to the county we would deeply appreciate it and it is a one game i know three games might be a lot to ask but one game is really what we want if you allow it we will be deeply appreciative and i know that myself along with miss sandy and mr larry would some would somehow in our way return the favor i'd like to end it off by

081this week this past weekend jefferson county lacrosse team made history as we won our first game in county history thank you next up is sandy's northland followed by william rutledge hi good evening i'm sandy norline i'm co-founder and team manager of what the jefferson county wild lacrosse team um i think most of you have gotten a letter from me in the last week detailing our history and i'm not going to take the time to go through that now i apologize mr brown that you do not have access to that as a quick summary we do have four washington high school team members we have 15 jefferson high school team members and we have one home school and you can see a good portion of our team here tonight supporting us um while we really appreciate

082the use of the fields um for our games at charlestown middle school who have been very gracious it seems to be the scheduling we seem to be able to work out with the two different schools with washington and with jefferson to be able to utilize those fields it seems that there's a sticking point over lining the fields we've i have talked to representatives at pioneer athletics who they make chalk aerosol chalk as well as a removable paint and i have spoken to astor turf as well they do all recommend and i've talked to several coaches across the county all of them utilize and recommend the pioneer removable paint even above and beyond the chalk paint um it's not a paint it's just a sprayable chalk just like your sidewalk chalk um the chalk washes away

083with just a rain shower or a broom we've done a demonstration that has been presented to mr keaton and um i think ultimately he has presented it to his higher-ups as well um i have not tried the removable paint however i know that the coach at harrison county the coach at morgantown high school and the coaches up at martinsburg all use the removable paint it does leave a residue if you don't clean it um and martinsburg did not clean theirs at the end of last season and so they could still see their lines um during football season i feel like that is one of the sticking points they're beautiful fields they're brand new fields and we would be honored to be able to utilize them to support our community to support our boys who represent

084all of our high school and a very community based lacrosse program we are making history we are the first lacrosse team here in jefferson county la crosse is coming it's being supported we're building it up from the top down and hopefully one day possibly before those fields get realigned we will be in the schools so i ask you now to help us out get our team on those fields let the community be behind us let's fill those stands and bring all of those peers and continue to build what is inevitably coming to our county so thank you thank you next up on zoom is william ratledge can you hear me ma'am yes sir whenever you're ready thank you for the opportunity to speak tonight for over a year i've made a simple request of the

085jefferson county it staff provide me an account with student permissions so i can view the virtual activities as my students see them the student view is inadequate and has failed me on multiple occasions last year i had a virtual student in tears because what i saw and the questions she saw were not the same i could not understand why she was unable to answer the question and she was frustrated because she could not give me what i asked for this was a straight a student who earned a 97 percent in my advanced math class two months ago to save time and allow for faster student feedback i used the county rep recommended canvas in canvas quiz to assess my students the students could not see the pictures in the quiz therefore could not answer any

086questions last friday i published a canvas quiz to my students due to my error they were either assigned three quizzes no quizzes at all or worse the wrong quiz if i had the student level permissions account i requested a year ago and again this month i would have discovered this before my students had i discovered the error i would have fixed it avoiding my students frustration and potentially improve their test scores they did not do well last friday because of this unfortunate event i will lose two instructional days to reteach the material which i did today and re-test my students tomorrow it would have been unfair and even further frustrating to them to drop a test on them today without notice forcing them to study over the weekend if the i.t staff keeps telling me

087it is against local state and federal policies laws or regulations to grant my request i have repeatedly asked them to provide me the specific policies laws or regulations which prohibit them from granting my request they will not provide me the documents or point me towards the actual references they cite this is unacceptable it was unacceptable last year it's unacceptable now i thought the reason we are here is to enable and support the students my students are beginning to excel they are starting to understand and appreciate math the i.t staff seems to think this is a personal attack it is not it is a teacher following his belief that the kids matter please either direct the it staff to grant my request or provide me the references i need when i appeal this to the state's

088department of education and governor thank you for your time thank you all right moving on to the consent agenda it's lauren are there any changes to note yes sir thank you and welcome mr rohn um on the superintendent's recommendations concerning personnel on number nine transferring into a different position the um bus operator who is transferring into a supervisor position that is actually a 240 day contract so that correction is 240. and then on the um superintendent's sign-offs on the transfer for number four there's a deletion there um that individual has actually rescinded um that new appointment and so that is being deleted from our recommendations to you this evening due to the rescinding of that opera position you thank you is there a motion to accept the consent agenda with the adjustment to number nine

089and number four thank you misogynistic second second thank you mr brown any discussion or questions all in favor of the consent agenda as amended say aye opposed thank you thank you mrs lauren all right moving on to unfinished business 13a request approval for a vendor for dust mop services good evening again we have two vendors who have made a bid for dust mop services for the district superior industrial with a bid of thirteen thousand one hundred and twenty four dollars and eighty cents and unifirst with a bid of twenty three thousand six hundred forty two dollars and eighty eight cents this evening i'll be recommending superior industrial to receive that bid is there a motion to accept superior superior industrial for the vendor for dust mop services thank you mr osborne is there a second

090thank you dr joy all in favor of approving superior industrial for the vendor for dust mop services say aye oppose thank you next we have request approval for a vendor for pest control services well we had a couple of vendors at the pre-bid meeting for pest control services we had one pest control company return a bid that is glad hill pest control with a bit of 8 188 that is the vendor that we will be recommending it is also our current vendor i'm sorry you said it's our current vendor yes ma'am okay is there a motion to accept glad hill pest control as the vendor for pest control services thank you miss ogden is our second sure thank you mr osborne any question or discussion all in favor of accepting glad hill pest control as

091the vendor for pest control services say hi oppose thank you next we have request approval for a vendor for waste removal services we had two bids for uh waste removal services for our district the first was waste management with a bid of 133 000 133 one or ninety let's put it out 133 thousand one hundred ninety five dollars and eight cents and republic services with a bid of one hundred and seventy two thousand three hundred fifty four dollars and eighty cents we will be recommending waste management our current vendor this evening all right is there a motion to accept waste management as the vendor for waste removal services thank you miss ogden is our thank you mr osborne any question or discussion all in favor of approving waste management as the vendor for waste removal

092services say aye aye opposed thank you thank you next 14a the review of the fiscal year 22 financial data thank you for having me tonight i have two presentations first the financial overview [Music] can you go to the next side so the first slide is through january 31st our total general revenue received is 55 million dollars as you will see the largest of that was local funds at followed closely by state funds at 44 our lowest amount would be the general funds for federal and that's basically our medicaid billing and then the three percent was miscellaneous mostly made up indirect cost your table referendum fees um the next slide we talked about the expenditures you'll see our total expenditures are at 47 million of these 80 percent are salary and benefits and i'll talk about

093that in the next slide um the remaining 20 is spread over the other few um items here purchase professional services and technical services an example would be training development contracted professionals purchase services of other water and sewage includes cleaning and maintenance and your purchase services other advertising contracts with other agencies transportation then you have supplies plant and equipment and then others is going to be dues and fees those kind of things they're all very nominal compared to 80 of salary and benefits i want to spend a little bit of time and talk about that you know as a services industry the majority of our expenditures will be salary and benefits and you can see we have a number of different benefits we offer and our benefit costs are right around uh 30 um so if

094you look at a employee who's making 50 000 a year their benefit costs are going to be right around 65 000. and um of course that would increase year to year because salaries increase benefit costs increase as well um at the end of fy21 our fund balance was very strong at about 7.5 million um again that comes directly from the board being fiscally conservative and making sure that we're planning for the future um because you never know uh when you might need it and so um it's just going to show that you also have put some money into different reserve kind of accounts as far as the digital one-to-one that joyce talked about earlier as well as buses and vehicles those kind of things one-time costs so the leadership team we met with the principals

095over the last few weeks to look at our needs for the next fiscal year as you know we want the students to drive our budget and so with each principle they came in with different needs and and different things they were seeing um but there was a few things that was very similar across the board one was the need for increased social and emotional support both for our staff and for our students and of course increased intervention services for our students and of course the increase and continued investment and implementation of recruitment and retention plan which this board approved a few months ago i don't know if anybody has any questions thank you but sure when will i guess this isn't for you maybe it's for dr gibson but when will we see more about

096this week um recruitment and retention plan yeah um i believe but some of the things have already been put into place and then there are some that we are working on um and i think that there is another phase coming up very soon that will be presented but a lot of it will be in the budget when we do our budget presentation as well and that will be um in may you're welcome all right next we have the proposed levy rates for fiscal year 23. for fy3 23 proposed lovey rates um there's three main levees um and i will go into detail and um into each one of them here in the next few slides but levy rates are not set by the school system as many of you know and it's the assessor's office

097that certifies the values of the property and projects the total property tax that will be collected and approximately 75 of levees that are collected in tax collections go jefferson county public schools first i want to spend just a few minutes talking about the regular levy the regular levees projected to increase by about 2.3 million um the important thing to highlight here is that this increase does not equate to more revenue when it comes to our regular levy because it has an inverse relationship with state aid so it's basically our regular levy will be will be neutral next is the bond levy and so back in on november 11th of 2020 the voters approved a 43 million dollar 15-year bond term and so the money that is collected goes straight to nbc because we are required

098to have five to ten percent to be collected and placed in the reserve by the end of the font now the excess levees where i will spend my most of my time on um per the code of west virginia boards of education are required to do the following they're required to set proposed excess levy rates submit to the state auditor's office for approval and reconvene on the third tuesday in april to officially adopt the approved levy rates our current levy call which voters approved on november 4th of 2020 and will be in place until june 30th of 2026 any excess levy above this 22.4 million dollars must be used as stated in the levy call and the levy call states that it needs to be used 80 for personnel and 20 of poor discretion the

099excess levy revenues projected to increase by almost 2.8 million as you can see the ss values have increased by almost 15 while we are seeing property values increase across the nation this is an indication that jefferson county is growing it's a desirable place to move it's a desirable place to live and it's a desirable place to have your children in schools here so that's a wonderful thing as the largest employer in the county this money will be used to invest in our staff and capital projects as you are aware the board approved an intensive recruitment and retention plan which these funds will help supplement a few but not all of the examples of how we are going to invest in the planning of our staff are through one is the mentor program the payment for

100employment qualification costs extended attendance bonuses for service personnel long-term substitute equity micro badging referral bonus tuition reimbursement that's just to name a few um it's all in detail in the recruitment and retention plan that was approved a few months ago as for long-term capital projects we're looking at replacing some hvac systems that are old and aging some roof replacements and then some bus replacements as well i wanted to highlight this slide because it shows the trend data over the last many years and if you look you'll see that the projected growth well this year is great you have to remember that back in fy 2009 10 through 13 we saw a dip in that and so just now we're now getting back up to where we were back in 2009 while we are projecting a

101substantial increase this year we know that this is not the norm and we want to continue to be conservative stewards of the money to ensure long-term stability while mindfully investing in our staff this has been a priority of the board for many years and we want to continue that as we look forward towards the future i don't know if anybody has any questions thank you very much thank you all right next up we have the summer pay structure proposal okay a couple of these things that we have for you this evening is a pay structure for the summer summer pay provides school districts with the flexibility to adjust the structure without the restrictions that we tend to face with the regular employment term therefore we are recommending a change for the summer 2022 pay to

102add 18 percent on the employees daily rate we can adapt in future years should our budget availability change this adjustment would apply to all positions and is a benefit to our employees to provide them with an increase in pay where we can our current funding source will cover the additional expenditure and on the board agenda and the attachment was a breakdown of our programs and the links and what that increase would be their daily rate plus 18 percent [Music] we're asking for action on changing the summer pay structure are you done i'm done yes thanks is there a motion to approve the summer pace pay structure proposal thank you miss ogden is there a second sure thank you mr osborne any discussion or questions so we just go over again what what was the background

103in this um and how long is it sustainable um [Music] you know what i mean obviously i know it's difficult sometimes teachers are obviously spent by the time some are concurrent um and it's difficult to get staff to be able to do that and we do have a lot of catching up to do but what what was the like how did this amount come up what was the justification for um well the two points that you made um you know was the the background into looking at changing the the pay structure um obviously it's it's something that um is of great interest to us to be able to afford salary increases where we can for our for our staff and as i mentioned the summer time does provide more of that flexibility in order to

104do so and that relates directly to what you mentioned in your question about the sustainability um it's based on budget availability so if we're at this point next year and we don't have the budget available like we do this year then we can modify it if we need to decrease it if we need to adjust it or if it's something that we have to step away from then we can do that in the summertime but it is an area where in the summer like i mentioned that we could put a little bit more into the pay of our staff how did you come up with 18 that's a great question um we looked at various models that would help us apply with consistency and equity for all of our staff so that way we didn't

105have um you know when you look you know in west virginia that are the daily rates are based on your your salary um i mean sorry your daily rate is your education level plus your years of experience and we have some individuals who have been teaching summer school for a very long time and of course we have some newer individuals as well so if we were to look at it from a stipend which is one um way of adding to the daily rate um when you when you calculated it it didn't really apply equally or in the best interest of everybody there's a little bit of disparity across the board so looking at a percentage seemed to be a more sound structure and that way everybody is getting 18 so there's no there's no disparity

106in that arena we have some experience last year as well yes did you have a heart we have a hard time finding teachers last summer yes we did all staff members to support the summer school was was very difficult and i assume we're anticipating as robust a program this year as we had last year yes yes will the program be the same as last year or we look at something different this year um cause us to need more or less stuff no we're we're anticipating the same levels of staff what was the rate last year and was the rate plus a number or was this just there's flat daily rates and um looking at the numbers too when we were trying to decide if we would increase the daily rate by a dollar amount or

107a stipend one of the things that we were trying to do is make it an attractive rate too so that way it does allow us to be competitive with the summer programs in surrounding areas so that's that's the advantage of it is that it does offer a competitive rate which in the summer time you know like i had mentioned with the flexibility it provides us with that advantage to do so yes yeah i think it's a great idea to give the teachers and staff what closer to what they're worth i think it's a great idea so i can yeah thank you so we have questions there's a motion on the floor all in favor of approving the summer pace structure proposal of the 18 say hi all right thank you ma'am thank you on behalf

108of the staff thank you very much next we have the tuition reimbursement program um in the recruitment and retention plan tuition reimbursement was approved by the board and we have for you this evening the parameters and requirements for effectively offering a tuition reimbursement program for jefferson county school employees highlights of the program include reimbursement is based on budget availability it would be done on a first-come first-served basis the priority would be on teacher certification seeking programs it allows for direct pay partnerships with the state's alternative certification pathways that we have now available non-certification seeking employees may also apply with certain conditions the individual must maintain acceptable grades for the course to be considered for reimbursement reimbursement is to not exceed the highest in-state tuition rate and proof of payment in a grade report must be

109submitted as part of the application process an agreement will be required before educational costs are provided to the employee with the condition that the individual who leaves employment within three years of the date on which the reimbursement or the direct payment is made shall be required to repay the money or supports received i'm looking at our surrounding areas and the tuition reimbursement programs that they offer this is a very competitive reimbursement program we can start this reimbursement program upon our approval of these parameters this evening employees who meet the eligibility criteria can apply at the end of the semester and alternative certification employees can participate in the direct pay option more immediately the tuition reimbursement program benefits our employees and is an excellent opportunity that we can provide to them as they pursue and develop

110in this meaningful career i have two questions is there a motion to approve the tuition reimbursement program thank you mr osborne is our second second thank you mr brown all right no questions um is there a great requirement yes what is it let's see okay what's the funding source the funding source was part of the recruitment and retention plan so you um when you approve their recruitment retention plan um a few months ago then that money was then um allocated into this budget and i can't i don't have that entire with me so i'm not sure off the top of my head about how much was um supposed to move but we have a good amount is this uh just this year or just next year no it's not it's ongoing until as long as

111we have the funds to sustain it so what we would have to review on an annual basis as part of the budget process um we had a component of tuition reimbursement in the past so um it is exciting to be able to have this back in jefferson county and to expand upon it like i had mentioned to be a competitive program with our surrounding areas is is a great opportunity so again thank you very much well we are in the business of education and we certainly want to encourage you yes absolutely all right so the motion on the table is um the tuition reimbursement program all in favor say hi opposed thank you ma'am thank you thank you all right next we have superintendent's comments dr gibson lauren do you have any this evening no

112all right um this evening is the meeting that we don't adjourn so i'll ask for a motion to recess the meeting until we can reconvene on tuesday april 19th is the motion thank you mr osborne is there a second second thank you miss ogden all in favor of recessing the meeting until tuesday april 19th say hi hi oppose thank you very much [Music] you