001[Music] good evening welcome to the regularly scheduled meeting of the jefferson county board of education on monday august 23rd and 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 jesus one nation and dr gibson before we get to your presentation i just want to say on behalf of the board happy first day of school to everyone um you know thank you to the bus drivers for contacting all of their riders ahead of time to let them know what time they'd be there and to principals making calls over the weekend reassuring families that things are going to go smoothly and staff handing out high school schedules you know last week and over the weekend guidance counselors at the high school
002you know i don't know if you've ever seen high school first day but kids not having their schedules and you know the guidance counselors don't get their breakfast until 2 30 in the afternoon so it's it's crazy but they're there for the kids so that's important and then teachers just being ready to welcome those kids back to school today i mean everybody was just so excited to be back in the classroom and just everyone for making from a parent's perspective seems so seamless that you know the bus comes and picks up your child or you drop your child off and everything works so smoothly but there's a lot of working parts behind that smoothness that make it happen so just thank you to everybody that made that happen today absolutely yes ma'am yes ma'am that
003was at eight separate schools today so um thank you for joining me it was uh lovely to see there were some excited kids jumping out of cars um so the first thing that we have on the agenda today uh we had approached the board this is i think the third presentation that we've done in this series to talk about recruitment and retention we've given you some statistics we've talked to you about uh what we've heard from staff and the options we put out a huge survey pushed push push and we came back to give you the results of that survey get some feedback from you about which of these things you most want us to pursue in terms of budget and in terms of policy and what ones we might be able to implement more
004immediately so um really recruitment retention at the end of the day i do not have to tell you how difficult it is to recruit and retain staff right now you can get a 500 bonus for you know waiting tables at ruby tuesdays for heaven's sakes fairfax is now offering two thousand dollar signing bonuses for bus drivers it has become an incredibly competitive place you guys probably seen the news they're actually paying parents to drive their kids back and forth to school now because they cannot find bus drivers so it's really important to us these people that you talk about working so hard they do they make an incredible amount of sacrifices and so we're very blessed to get such great folks and we're trying to find ways to honor and support them with what we
005have so next slide um so first of all who we received responses from we received responses from about half of the staff most of those professional staff about a third of them school service personnel and four percent building administrators that is fairly in line with their representation our population uh school service personnel are a bit more than that they're a little underrepresented here but um they still came in in strong numbers so that their voice was heard in this process uh next slide so when we sat down and asked the folks we had categories compensation engagement and benefits and for each one of those categories we asked them to rank what they considered the most important um kind of what was surprising is that how close they were um we thought there might be some
006significant differences between those number one understandably was compensation but interestingly enough engagement was uh right behind it about two percentage points people want to feel like the work that they do is meaningful and that they matter that they're respected and that they're given autonomy in their jobs and that they're given the chance to to change things and make them better which really is something that doesn't necessarily cost money it just costs time time and effort benefits surprisingly came in a little bit lower um when we dig a little bit more into the results i think a piece of that is different people want different benefits depending on where they're at and their lives so some folks rank those a little bit lower because if you get more money you can spend it on anything if
007you uh don't have children then a childcare credit isn't really going to do you a whole lot of good so we think that's part of why the compensation engagement benefits came in when they did okay next slide sir thank you sir so um we sat down and went through each one of those categories and then within those categories we also ranked them so that we could drill down as much as possible not surprisingly the number one across the board is we need a salary increase um just to stay anywhere close to competitive with the folks around you um the creation of higher level positions within job classifications what this really is talking about is folks are saying i shouldn't have to leave my drive at my job as a bus driver if i love being
008a bus driver to make more money don't force me into a different job to make more money don't force me out of the classroom to make more money create within my job classification a ladder so that i can keep doing what i love but as i get better i am compensated better um that comes with a few complications with service personnel a few more than with professional but we have some ideas about how to do that internal badging and credentialing that really is about um instead of taking a semester-long college course or having to take two years and get a degree um it's about hey take this quick two four-week course test out show us that you know it and then instantly hey here's a you know 100 a year or a 50 a month
009because you have this badge you've learned how to do this thing and it's tied to very specific skills we want from people so they get them and then we incrementally incentivize them people like that a lot um and like anything else you want to be good at your job who doesn't want to be a master teacher or a master coach you get compensated more because you took more responsibility right you learned more loyalty payment that's all about if you stay here and you don't leave there there needs to be some loyalty both ways right a payment based on years of service now our levy checks are at least one of them is based on the same concept the levy check gets larger depending on how many years that you've been here in jefferson county schools
010and the service personnel career ladder once again just like the creation of higher level positions it is for service personnel a way for them to gain additional education and certifications and move into higher paying positions our service personnel really are the backbone of the school system and oftentimes they are so limited in what their salary scales can be um that we really have got to find ways to convert those positions to higher paying jobs so those folks can support their families a lot of times they're working for benefits so okay next slide number two in engagement one of the things that the number one thing in engagement that folks ask for and this is really about time is staff development autonomy this year what we did outside of policy and procedure and learning how to
011operate canvas because that's where you have to put your grades in everything else was staff choice ms tanya dallas lewis did an exemplary job this year putting together staff dev calendar that was you have to get in your hours but you choose pick any of these that you want we had most of them online um there has been some request for us to make all of the staff dev by choice meaning we take these staff dev days and we can track you watching the staff development online you quizzing at the end of it we know that you've done it why not give you the flexibility to do it in any location instead of sitting in a room um at a school and folks really liked being able to pursue what meant a lot to them
012understandably uh service personnel student allocation again this was very popular and understandably so right now we give teachers an allocation per pupil to spend on supplies and incentives and projects we do not do that and actually i have uphold some school systems and i can't find any other systems who do the same thing for service personnel those classroom aides go in and they do projects with kids they pay for stuff out of their own pocket the bus drivers i've seen them they buy they have these little boxes of incentives that they hand out to kids and you know they need to be compensated that for that quite frankly even more so than the teachers for heaven's sake so that was a very popular idea and then engagement and social emotional funding really this was about
013providing schools with money and support for them to support staff um places where staff uh can go and decompress and can deal with some of they're dealing with a lot of mental health issues from kids and as you know you're in there and you're taking a lot of frustration and anger and fright and oh being overwhelmed and teachers absorb all that and absorb all that and they're calm and i've got you and sooner or later you need to be able to step back and have a place that's safe for you to be able to deal with that too so um also a very popular idea next slide and finally benefits uh interestingly enough you'll see these did not get a huge numbers but of those tuition reimbursement was certainly one we pay for degrees we
014have not paid for classes in the last several years because there has not been money from the state for tuition reimbursement but we're an educational organization you should you should support people learning and support tuition expanded service scholarship program right now we've had 13 service personnel who've gone through and gotten associate's degrees from the scholarship that we've established and we'd like to be able to expand that so that we can have an even larger number of folks because there's an annual stipend that goes with that as well and it also is a career ladder because with an associate's degree and a certification those positions can become professional one positions which also is a much more viable salary source for them to be able to support a family attendance incentive match for service and again you're
015hearing a lot about service but they're also the folks that um are the least well compensated that we feel like really need to be addressed right now the state provides an attendance incentive but only for professionals it does not provide it for service and one of our suggestions was to match that where locally we provide it for service relocation bonus uh we we heard some about this and that was simply a um a monetary bonus up front to say help you come in and stay here if you're a teacher no matter how long you've been a teacher if you relocate from outside of the county into the county to become a taxpayer here we should help you relocate because the cost of living in jefferson is so high followed by child care provision and a
016family first day next slide so we got 215 uh comments and we're putting those into a spreadsheet um to be able to um send to you for uh additional review these were some of the things that came up very frequently a lot of folks asking for training and support in special education very high needs students very complex care behaviorally and they don't always feel like we're preparing them as well as we could um trauma-informed care mental health having additional recognitions for the service personnel a lot of talk about flex time you know we can only be so flexible with kids in the classroom more support mentoring for new staff smaller class sizes we did get a couple who said hey if i'm on my spouse's benefits and i don't use your benefits can you pay
017me for that uh next slide some more uh thing everybody really wants time duty-free lunches longer planning more paid days for prep i will say when i first came here one of the shocking things for me was that we paid teachers for three days to get ready do every bit of training that we have and get ready for kids i have never been in a system in my life where it was less than a week to 10 days just because there is so much to get ready for kids and to prepare so much staff development to deliver so it's no um wonder that our folks feel overwhelmed removal of paperwork requirements we started that last year during covid um i admit i meet with the faculty senate regularly and one of the things that they
018told me early on was the lesson planning was killing them in a virtual environment and so i spoke with the principals and then we sent out we said no lesson plans you don't teach kids keep track of your assignments but you don't have to do these complex lesson plans and um that was a very popular decision um i think still teachers still taught very well without having to um do a lot of extra paperwork um converting all leave to paid time off again in other places whether you're leave us for sick leave or leave without calls or vacation if you gotta leave you gotta leave use it for what you want why what does it in their point what does it matter if i have the leave i believe uh next slide so permanent subs
019and all the buildings more visibility although some people said hey come out and see me more and some people said hey come out and see me less never going to make everybody happy but um a lot talking about autonomy rating administrators uh by their staff for feedback on their performance so that administrators can hear a little bit more about how we're supporting teachers next slide uh better medical benefits more incentives and pay for more experienced teachers some of the teachers felt like hey you're chasing new teachers because we don't have enough what about those of us who've been here for 25 years who really need to be uh honored and paid for our time um some folks saying returning the coveted leave so that if you're quarantined that uh you don't have to use your
020personal leave the board did that last year um that expired you extended beyond what the federal uh government did you they did just first semester we did second semester um and again additional time in their schedule they just always feel like there's never enough time to get everything done that they want next slide so in terms of uh priorities when we uh took every single one of the results in the survey and all of the comments these were the consistent themes across these options for pay increases either across the board or targeted pay increases due to the size of our staff are interesting uh for every thousand dollars of pay raise that you give the entire staff it's around one and a half million dollars it just between pay and benefits the economies of scale
021with as many people as we have now targeted you can also the state did that if you'll recall they did three-step increases for math and special education because they were targeting those autonomy increases um giving teachers and service personnel a lot more latitude in their work schedule work performed i will tell you one of the reasons we were able to pull off summer school this year is because when we sat down with teachers we said what can you give me you can do monday wednesday thursday i got you can you do tuesday friday i got you and we were incredibly flexible we just had to put in those days and it helped us with teachers who said i can do the first two weeks but not the last four so we were really trying to
022get some flexibility and it helped us get more staff and more engaged staff because we were meeting their families needs um more extensive support system mental health more time for the work that we're asking them to do revamping the service personnel compensation and support um this we are looking at legislatively what the restrictions might be you know that every fall we go out to our legislators and say this is the help that we need from you some of it may be um yes keep these protections but yes give us some flexibility to be able to help folks advance right um and uh last but certainly not least um create a more consistent permanent continuous feedback structure right now um a lot of our feedback structure is hierarchy dependent it's you know you talk to these
023people who talk to these people who talk to these people and then these people talk to these people who talk to these people and it it rarely is clean back back and forth so we're looking at some different uh structures we already have a faculty senate process and i meet with faculty senate regularly meet with the principals regularly we're looking at creating a service personnel organization with reps from all of those that i would meet with monthly just like the faculty senate trying to get more um clear communication back and forth between folks so that everybody's on the same page okay next slide so right now what we're trying to do is get some feedback from the board or there's any of these that you want to see fast track more than others are there's
024any of these that you don't want to chase on that rabbit um and we will pull some staff together that are the most affected by these and come up with a set of action items attached funding staffing requirements legislative policy requirements to them and then bring them back to the board okay next slide it should be the last one so sorry i tried to go through that pretty fast thank you you're welcome questions or comments from the board i have several um so i'm you know i'm looking at this list with a consented end of all these long-term sums and i um i'm contacted often people that have been in the system for several years hired as a long-term sub they can't get a regular permanent job some people do get hired permanently and there's
025no rhyme or reason because the people that some of these people that get hired on aren't certified some of these people that don't get hired on are certified but maybe they don't have the specific yet i can give you names um if that's what you're looking at me for um okay so and then there's people that are close to certification they've taken i don't know 20 out of 24 credits and nothing's happening and they're still not getting hired so i think something could be done for these people that keep getting turned away from employment because they're not specifically certified yet or at least be more transparent in you know the guidelines because it's not consistent um so and i mean i know there's math teachers and then you talk about treating people with respect that
026i mean this is very frustrating for me because i brought that up and then the way that these math teachers at washington was handled really you know they resented it and we lost three math teachers at washington high school plus the math special a teacher so far and i suppose if they found other jobs they would leave yet there are long-term subs in there who are partially certified i mean i know one who was at jefferson and now is at washington um so that that's one thing that could be helpful of course you know salary increases and of course that's expensive but there you know i don't i don't know how that could be accomplished so so you said that you know the prep days i've never been in the school system where teachers didn't
027get to planning periods they the teachers in west virginia or at least in jefferson county they have a long work day whereas other areas in virginia and maryland they have two planning periods a day some some of that is accomplished by block scheduling where students get you know there's more learning but the teachers get more time um i think it's a good idea to convert the leave to pay the paid time off the issue with the um step ups for service personnel you know i asked about that in january or december and you were going to give a presentation on it but you didn't um so i am all for some sort of clear system that is transparent where service personnel can you know know where they stand and know what they have to do
028to move up the uh financial ladder um i it's just frustrating for me because in february 2018 when teachers were out there striking i came in here i stood over there and i begged the board not to agree to the proposal of so what happened was you presented a proposal of giving people outside of the education system years of experience and i explained to the board what would happen if you did that and so what happens is you bump the seniority of your employees that you have so you bring in somebody with no experience somebody's a dog groomer they come in they've been doing it for 25 years you give them a position as human resources director you give them 25 years you've bumped the employees that you have but you also remove that benefit
029that teachers have so it used to be a benefit if i was going to choose between two schools one that allowed me to work my way up and you know move up to the board office that would be more attractive because if you get you know you feel like you want a different position you can move so that um so i think that um really thinking about some of the policies and the way that they impact employees is serious and instead of i mean i i don't know what else to say but the truth is instead of just agreeing to things that come through to really think about the impact and maybe maybe you all do but i'm clearly frustrated because like i said i've been talking about some of this stuff and it seems
030like it doesn't go anywhere i don't mean to be sounding negative but it's i'm really upset that we lost the math teachers i mean that's pretty serious because we're going to have people in there hopefully they know some math but then the teachers that are there they're gonna have to make up for the loss of the the other math teachers and math is something you just can't pick up you you can't um you it's so you can learn to pick up the skills for an elementary teacher or to teach maybe middle school math but you know to teach calculus or trigonometry i mean even experienced math teachers you if you don't use that you forget about it so um i'm all for really putting the um our employees first and making them a top priority
031this there shouldn't be um it shouldn't i'm going to stop because i think it's going to get into something else but there from my perspective what i see when teachers complain they are not given an easy way of it you know and that's another issue there's got to be a clear system for when employees have a complaint or an issue and i think i brought this up before where they feel safe and not this anonymous you can say something online i mean they really there needs to be a whole culture of feeling respected and knowing that you can report an issue and it'll be resolved and not that well you know what you got hurt on the job we're coming after you you're getting a bad evaluation that's the message that that employees have and
032had and so anyway i think a lot of these ideas are wonderful just talking about the math teachers at washington high school i mean i know a little bit there because the fact that my kids have had them and um that comes down to a state issue of lack of locality pay because those teachers were able to drive across the state line and they're making over 30 000 a year more i mean that's that's what it came down to thirty thousand dollars a year plus per year to drive across the state line um well you know what teachers do not get into the field for money but if they are pushed out and they warned this board the board was warned at graduation that they are upset they feel that they're not respected and they
033are therefore and they're upset about board policies and therefore they're going to apply outside and ma'am just to interrupt you for one second they did not warn the board because we never as a board had a conversation with them so i'm not sure if you had a one-off conversation with them but you can't qualify it as warning the board please okay so um two board members were told about it and dr um gibson learn was informed about it and the result was a hostile letter to them and it just made it worse so maybe the rest of you didn't know but um that's what happened and certainly dr joy i always respect the fact that you have your own lens on things and that lens is often informed by your previous experiences and by the
034people that you speak with and who seek you out i certainly i am not going to be disingenuous and say that there aren't people who are unhappy we have 1200 employees and and almost 9 000 kids and their parents we will never make anyone happy what i think is both disingenuous and unfair to the staff here is to make sweeping negative statements about entire groups of people about individuals and again i understand i am not going to say that there is any perfection on this side of the veil but i think that there are a lot of incredibly caring dedicated people and their lives are complicated and they are not always linear or straightforward but i do think that we have a lot of people here who are very caring that support one another that
035look out for one another and it would be great if that could be acknowledged and like i said they don't get into the field for money they're here because they care and they give everything many teachers and you know employees grew up here and it there you have to see it's serious that when they're leaving and um if they wanted money they would elect previously but they were very explicit that you know it's because of board policies and they don't feel respected and you know for all last year i send emails i'm getting these complaints from uh another school shepherdstown middle school where there was a you know a lot of teachers were unhappy they're going to leave and sure enough i think 15 left they went some of them were just you know laterally
036they didn't go out of the county they went where they could get a job so they transferred to schools within the county so that's you know not for more money other people that are certified in positions that have applied i don't know this system principle job at shepherdstown i think there were employees um i would certainly say if at some point we're going to start talking about specific positions specific individuals principals who you are conveying um you're casting aspersions on their leadership and they're not here today they were applying for a job i didn't say anybody wasn't doing their job these people applied for jobs and they're still sitting there so this idea of hiring from within you have to take it seriously it has to be across the board there has to be clear
037policies the problem that we have here is the good old boy system where it's may everything is may it applies to this person today but you know what i know your mother and she's she's good people so that's the you know what actually if you are going to convey that you believe somehow this system is in any way shape or form not following to the t every single legal and legislative imperative for hiring then i suggest we go into an executive session where our attorney can give you some accurate information ma'am i'm not referring to just that the employment i'm referring to just the way that parents are treated just like this attendance policy that's coming up today the may we've taken out all accountability and so it you know you've got to pick and
038choose well if i think this person needs to you know go to court and i think this one we need to go look at i mean there at some point you have to presidential clearance i'll suggest that we um ask for an executive session for dr joy to share what she needs to share obviously about some specific people in some specific schools about success i'm not i don't have any specific motion to go into executive session thank you is there a second you need a second is that what you're waiting for yes sir second thank you mr cable all in favor of going into executive session for a moment hi opposed all right we're going to be going into executive session for a few minutes so we're going to ask you to please wait in
039the hallway okay we're going back into open session now miss ogden did you have a motion to go back into open yes ma'am mr osborne all in favor of going back into open session and just a reminder if everyone would please wear their masks in here we would appreciate it thank you all right thank you for your patience while we discuss some personnel issues here um did any board members have any other comments or questions for dr gibson on the recruitment or retention survey results i guess when do you feel like you will be enacting some of these things and will you bring it back to us or when would you bring it back your plan um yes ma'am we right now part of this was to get feedback from the board thank you very
040much we will go back and in priority order we'll pull the individuals we'll have a group of service staff and a group of professionals for these and then um go through each one price those out have any policy changes i would suspect two weeks might be close but uh the first meeting in october certainly at the latest there may be some ones that we could act enact more immediately such as the flexibility on staff development for the remaining staff development days for the rest of the year we could bring those back at the end of september and then do the next round in october as they require more work okay okay thank you very much for taking the time to do that for the what was it 49 of the staff that replied yes ma'am
041can i ask a question as well dr gibson do you think it would be beneficial for um i mean the benefits seem to be the most lacking as far as the choices right they it would from what i'm looking at seem as though the top three under compensation are almost just as valuable as the highest one for uh benefits yes ma'am and again i would say the issue with the benefits is simply benefits are typically narrowed to one group if tuition reimbursement if you're not planning on taking another class that's not very meaningful to you if you have young children um child care benefit is if your children are grown that's not meaningful to you so i think at the end of the day the across the board was compensation so that they could then
042decide what mattered most to them benefits i think gets very splintered into specific groups who that that benefit applies to and not to others i mean to me i would say like under benefits just personally the attendance incentive to match service because that's a fair and equitable issue for me would be an important thing and a family first day because it could be used for everyone whether it was a parent or a child or you know a spouse a significant other whatever you have those would be two that would be like from that that i think it would be important to put dollar values on uh and this is just anybody else can jump in um the staff development on time i think the engagement thing all three of those things are important and there's
043not necessarily a cost um associated that is you know an astronomical cost if you will but it would be interesting i think to see the the pieces on all of that and then at least the top three of the um compensation um i mean really all five of those are good but um and then i think once you get more details to go back onto the staff and then ask the staff to rate those if we have to choose between um you know this this or this because of you know however much funding we can secure with that that's when i feel like that's going to be helpful because they're going to have an actual this is what we would do and be able to rate those and give us some more feedback on what
044would be beneficial to add or not take away that's my thought thank you very much all right next up is deputy superintendent of operations update ms white good evening i'm going to start this evening with my update with the bond projects we're concluding our summer bond projects and i'm happy to say that they're on schedule with substantial completion of most of our projects the wildwood middle school athletic fields are finished the students are practicing on those and the final touch is the bleachers which are currently being installed the jefferson high school turf field the um the turf is actually being sewn there was a lot of design work to that they have added many additional staff the staff from um our vendor are working 65 hours a week plus to get the um turf field
045ready for this friday and we anticipate it is on track to be done on friday uh we're also installed putting the infill in which is the last step to completing the field so good weather pending which it looks like we're going to have we'll have that done there is a soccer game on thursday that is being moved to shepherd university i know that mr caton and mrs group have worked well together in order to make that happen for the first soccer game our rants and hvac units we had two of those in the bond call and they've arrived and they're installed and the right denny intermediate and blue ridge elementary roof are completed we had a charlestown middle school track project we did mill up the asphalt and we have put new asphalt down and
046the striping is to be completed this week and we've received more bottle fill stations which maintenance will be installing throughout our school over the next several weeks in child nutrition i just would like to remind folks that meals are free for students for all students again this year and mr bites is uh busy with a new grant that he received from micro orchard at charlestown middle school and he's looking forward to beginning that project soon in transportation they worked very hard the office staff in communicating with parents communicating with schools and assigning all students to buses they were excited about the return to drivers and once drivers did return as as kathy said earlier they were able to call all their students about drop-off pick-up times so that went very well they had a smooth
047opening today i was at seven schools and all the kids got off the buses very cheerfully the drivers were excited to be back and we had a great first day back our operation directors in general have been busy providing staff development to our cooks custodians bus drivers transportation aides attendance clerks secretaries teachers and administrators during the last two weeks and i want to personally thank them for the huge lift it took a lot of their time and they provided quality staff development to our staff i was able to stop by and provide participate and view many of the trainings and watch our talented coordinators and directors at work so it was a pleasure to welcome the staff and the students back today in technology i'm going to highlight we have a couple of our staff
048here uh dev and pearl for attendance and then jen rowan the technology director and so i'm going to have a little guest speaker jen's going to give you a canvas update because i know many parents are curious about what the next steps are for them to log on to our learning management system and get familiarized with it so jen is going to briefly describe where we are what steps we've taken and then how this is going to roll out to the parents after labor day so jen would you speak briefly to that thank you you're welcome well it's nice to see everybody in 3d um i always get really excited and pumped up because living in zoom the world is a little different um and it's just always good to be able to meet in
049person um today i'm going to give you an update on where we are with our learning management system last year just as a review um we had a stakeholder group that took a look at some feedback that came back from our parents students teachers principals um the central office and with that group in programmatic levels we decided we discussed what do we want in the learning management system that's going to allow for things to come together a little bit more and streamline our communication um and where our classes are held and where our grades are held um after we got together with that stakeholder group we got together with a um another stakeholder group after we put out the rfp and we had three vendors respond canvas was the winner because it did match our
050very high expectations of what we wanted in a learning management system so throughout the summer we have been preparing um this june we took a group of around 87 to 100 people to learn canvas from the canvas instructors and we did that virtually for four day boot camp those people were the coaches some administrators who wanted to be involved and teachers who were selected to be part of the professional development experience they are then called canvas ambassadors so the idea was that we're going to build capacity we build capacity on in our coaches but we also want to build capacity with teachers next door to each other so they can have some person to rely on that's right next door so we also developed this um platform or this way of of levels of stepping
051up their understanding the teachers understanding and the idea is that our students are going to learn at the same rate as our teachers right now i think what i talked about before is that nobody likes to live in the construction phase and right now we are in the construction phase we're getting everything up and running our contract started the first we had uh training for our administration um during our administrative training which was a lot of fun and got a change you know got them acquainted to the um to the platform and now our next phase is to help our parents get onboarded to the program we did have some test runs with our jva students we had four orientations three in person and one online when they had their computer pick up for jva
052since they had to be ready day one and it went really well so we wanted to expand that to everyone in jefferson county and do a webinar on wednesday this wednesday at six o'clock i would like to invite all the parents of jefferson county all the board members who would like to learn from a parent's perspective what are the most important things you want to take a look at how are you going to see grades as a student what are you going to look at that's going to say where's my to-do and how can i see all of my things at the same time so we'll give you some tips and tricks it's going to be probably around 45 minutes with a question and answer session so please come in log in and let me
053know if you have questions to get there go to our website jcswv.org on the right hand side there's it's a canvas login button click on that area and you'll see right in the middle the the link to log into the webinar and that's wednesday you said it six yes ma'am thank you hi dr dre um all students get the chromebooks correct that is correct so um we have decided that our in-person students were focused on student safety and getting them back into the routine we know that our first grade students some of them have never stepped into a building before so getting them back into the routine is super important we don't want that focus to be on the technology so our focus on getting technology out and to ready our staff is to make
054sure that our computers are going to um be out after labor day that's our that's our target goal so to elementary to all ages so my question is about the there was the meeting we had about the mccormick grant and somebody wanted extra money for the special ed students because they can't really use the chromebooks that the severely handicapped students needed ipads or something specially designed for them has that been handled every student has the opportunity to go through the special or the people services to obtain assistive technology and there's a process that you do to gain that assistive technology so um but this was just for this particular teacher she needed for her class it sounds like and so i got the impression that unless they had it like written in their iep you
055weren't approving for them to have a device that they could use that would be more helpful to them we look at everything individually and to see if they have already have those devices or need extra devices we do try to honor that as much as possible but seeing as that was last spring i would have to go back to the specifics so is it possible for students to have do you not give those to students at all unless it's in their iep that's what i'm trying to understand how this particular class could get a couple extra ipads so that you know all the students could be working with them yeah i completely understand your perspective in fact i used to lead an assistive technology group over in frederick county virginia so i would encourage that
056teacher or the parents to go through the process in which we have in place here in jefferson county through the pupil services so you're saying that they do need to have it in their ip then they have to go through people services to get it on there dr ron am i assuming that every student is going to get a piece of technology in the county including our specialized students yes ma'am yeah am i am i to assume that every student is going to get a piece of technology that they can actually use even if it's in a special education class yes and i i'm not a special educator so that's why it has to go through more of a specialized process to meet their needs more specifically so i rely on our team and our
057collaborative effort to make sure that we are purchasing things with the public funds in the right way and i think i remember too with the grant the teacher was asking to have extras in the classroom in case that student actually left theirs at home yes yes thank you for reminding me that's i think where the background there needed to be followed up with to make sure that you know they have whatever extras they might need but every student in the classroom will be provided with exactly what they need from what i understood thank you so much miss ogden i appreciate that reminder just like having extra textbooks in a class i mean that's just standard that a teacher would want extra ipads for kids that might forget especially children with disabilities are really likely to
058forget thank you circling back to canvas the parents will have a log in and the students will have a login is that correct yes so what's special about our canvas login is that each parent or caregiver gets a special observer code that observer code is unique to the student and you can have multiple students in your account but you need at least one observer code to sign up that code is good for one use only so if you have mom dad grandma and grandpa who all want a code they need four coats and it's good for seven days so we encourage you when you get your parent code which is to come out along with our chromebooks when you get your parent code please sign up as soon as possible all right thank you thank
059you that concludes the operations update for this evening thank you thank you miss white and one thing that wasn't on your list was i saw the bleachers were being installed at shepherdstown middle school today yes ma'am so excellent thank you it will be very exciting friday night lights a very exciting yes you have to mention lights yes yes okay we got a good thing yeah we'll get there all right so is there a motion to approve the minutes of the regular board meeting held august 9 2021 thank you mr osborne is there a second thank you miss ogden any question or discussion all in favor of approving the minutes from august 9th 2021 say aye hi opposed thank you all right citizens comments first up by zoom we have monica taylor and then it's going
060to be followed by cindy carter just a reminder that all speakers are limited to three minutes you're prohibited from making negative or derogatory comments using a name or position by which an individual can be identified comments may be not may not be threatening profane vulgar abusive or the speaker will be required to cease his or her comments speakers who deviate from the information provided on the speaker forum will be called out of order by the chair required to cease their comments public comment is not a question and answer period it provides individuals with an opportunity to express their comments regarding the subject matter only all comments shall be directed to the jefferson head board of education no person may address or question board members jefferson county school staff individually and the board is not able
061to reply to comments during public comment so first up is monica taylor good evening miss taylor whenever you're ready says taylor can you hear us hi yes i can hear you can you hear me now now we can whenever you're ready you must start please thank you very much all right good evening my name is monica taylor i'm a first generation american and air force veteran i am coming tonight to say that i firmly oppose a mandatory mass mandate in our schools and this is based on personal experience and facts which indicate children wearing masks are exposed to high levels of carbon dioxide when mass i was prepared to share those studies however after hearing dr reedy's comments on friday from the health department i really feel compelled to share our family's covet experience with
062you i'm a mom of two children a middle schooler and an elementary schooler both of my children attended a mass-free private school in northern virginia last year they did contract covet they did not however contract soviet from the school even though there was a teacher in one of their classrooms who had hoped they contracted covit through a [Music] pardon me when they had a sleepover at a friend's house in the local community when my voice tested positive for coven they were legitimately scared and i hugged them and intended them and cared for them like any mother would of any other sickness that they might have had fortunately their symptoms were not very severe and they recovered pretty quickly 26 days and four coveted tests later i personally never tested positive for coping i'm not trying
063to minimize the virus but i am trying to just share our story and after hearing dr reedy's comments i was actually really shocked he did say that 99 of the time children will recover fully and in spite of that the jefferson county health department has recommended a mandatory mass mandate in our schools not for our children's protection but to protect the greater jefferson population since when are we as adults outsourcing the responsibility of our personal health and well-being to our children i found dr reedy's comments shocking and i'm also shocked that as a community we're supporting the health department strong-arming you as the board of education on this matter it seems to me that the health department's position is that children be masked or that they are going to enforce mandatory quarantines in our schools
064as much as i was ready to really come down hard on you as a board of education for implementing this mandatory mass policy indoors i do see that you are doing what you can to keep our kids in school so i thank you for that i disagree with the how but i do agree with the why our children desperately need to be in school so for the families out there if it makes sense for your personal situation to have your child wear an n95 mask for protection against viruses and other airborne illnesses i think that and of course the board of education would agree with this i believe that they would be supported and encouraged to do so however whenever my children are asked to subject themselves to high levels of carbon dioxide on a
065daily basis for the benefit of the greater good even when it has been documented that it is rare for children to pass coded to adults next up is cindy carter followed by valerie arnold this is my first time here the podium please ma'am okay i didn't i'm just coming as a concerned mom um my husband and i were very disappointed and my daughter i have a daughter who's a junior at the high school and she's hearing impaired and she was very excited to go to school today and came home very disappointed the friday we were very disappointed in the decision about being masked that's our main concern because of her being hearing impaired she misses about she tells me 25 i believe it's about 50 percent of what people are talking including her teachers today
066she told me that the teach that um and i don't know if this is true that the um clear masks i don't know what you call them aren't allowed to be used um for her that matters a lot because she's hearing impaired and she reads lips and she depends on seeing people's faces and um also that she wasn't allowed to use her locker for the second year in a row which i really see don't even see what the reasoning is because they're sitting together in a cafeteria but they can't put their books in a locker which is another health issue because the books are very heavy and she had surgery on her back and that concerns me as a parent with her carrying a heavy backpack for later damage down the road and [Music] i
067don't understand why they can sit in the cafeteria or be or walk around and talk but they can't um you know they have to wear a mask i'm just very upset about that and that's what i wanted to you know voice my opinion about i i want to know when they're are they considering this to re-evaluate this in a couple weeks or is this going to be an ongoing thing for years even though she's got two more years of school i feel very you know upset for the other children because this could go on and on and on at some point it has to cease and when you're vaccinated i think you should have a choice to wear a mask or not and that's you know that's only fair that should be our individual right
068and that's all i have to say tonight thank you thank you next up is valerie arnold followed by karen duck so i'm valerie arnold i'm a jefferson county native for 47 years i have been in healthcare for 31 years i've served as an emt paramedic in this county for 19 years i'm a current nurse 12 years currently working in the nursing industry in loudoun county virginia i'm here to present some facts on covid i'm also a graduate of jefferson high school have a child who graduated from here who's now serving in the military and studying to be a nurse have a nephew who is currently at jefferson high school who plays football and is in fear of being exposed and quarantined because he will not be able to play sports for the season this terrifies
069me and disgusts me to no end this is emotional abuse it's physical abuse it's medical abuse these masks are useless useless okay the droplets do not this does not stop the droplet spread so every time you are removing your mask it's useless dr reedy took a hippocratic oath that he is betraying do no harm he's doing harm physically committing crimes of humanity treason for going against his oath and you all are fear-mongering here this virus is 98 percent recoverable i've seen no pediatric patients with this virus this is abuse of power right here it's very sad kathy skinner i saw you intimidating me or trying to intimidate me with your visual expression you're not you don't intimidate me and neither does anybody else in here okay you all have lied about the liberal indoctrination of
070the critical race theory i called and asked if you were teaching it you specifically said no you are teaching it by doing a segregated math class over the summer time that's pathetic and shameful for jefferson county nobody supports that here every time that they're asking you to get tested with these swabs read the packet it contains ethyl oxide that's a carcinogenic that's that's your type that's why the cdc has removed them as emergency testing they're dangerous they are ineffective give me miss arnold next up my name is karen buck and i'm coming here to talk to you today about freedom of choice wearing this ridiculous mask now isn't that an oxymoron masking children and young people in school the freedom to make decisions for your child has been taken away the simple freedom of how
071to dress your child for school has been taken away by government officials with no accountability the board is blaming the the board of health that help board of health is said we're blaming the cdc it goes around and round and round there's no accountability so this is like the perfect storm for you guys you can really get away with anything now now i'm a a vietnam combat vet widow he had psd agent orange shrapnel peppered through his body he was on 14 different medications of debt he paid the price for freedom my brothers and sister are all military or retired both of my parents were in the navy my navy son pulled bodies out of the uss cole in the year 2000 when it was bombed in the yemeni harbor he has lifelong injuries sustained
072on a chopper accident that was on the tarmac as an american legion auxiliary volunteer i have talked more veterans off a ledge than i care to discuss with you so i know a little bit about the cost of freedom the price of freedom our freedoms are being taken away very slowly little bit by little bit you almost don't even notice it the masking of our children and young people in school without scientific proof or evidence is just the latest freedom that we that you parents have given up now if i have to stand on the side of the road with a sign this is a small price to pay for freedom if i have to humiliate myself in front of my community and my family i will pay this price for freedom if i have
073to be admonished by the naacp in public i will pay this price for freedom but there's one no there's not much you can do that scares me one thing that does scare me is a group of a small group of government officials making bad decisions for many people with no accountability that should scare the hell out of everybody if it costs me everything that i am if it cost me everything that i own i will never stop fighting you people for basic god-given freedoms like not wearing a mask many parents have decided to homeschool their kids this year you can't blame them and they've had a revelation omg they don't need the board of education how about that they have learning groups field trips play groups and no government covered harassment parents this is your
074time to stand up and speak up for your kids the time is now you must conquer your fear and speak up for your children it's time all right next up we have the consent agenda are there any changes or anything to the consent agenda yes ma'am on the um superintendent approval on line 17 julie perky has been previously approved a while back and so that is a deletion from this board agenda thank you all right so is there a motion to approve the consent agenda with the adjustment of deleting line 17 under superintendent approvals thank you ms ogden is there a second second thank you mr osborne any questions or discussion all in favor of the consent agenda say aye opposed thank you all right next up we have unfinished business request approval of the
075draft of the attendance policy good evening i'll come before the board this evening to let you know that the draft attendance policy has concluded public comment with no public comments so i would ask that you make a motion to accept the draft attendance policy as written and there were no public comments new man you buried it you couldn't find it and these include the changes that the board made recommendations to is that correct from what i read no ma'am when we put it on public comment it is put on public comment as is and if you would like changes to it then you can certainly make a motion this evening that would include changes to the language time to talk hang on one second um i just want to so i make a motion that
076we accept the policy um as written all right so we can get on the floor thank you miss ogden thank you mr arthur okay no discussion yeah um when i checked i think it was last sunday you couldn't access the um the survey so you do also have the ability this evening to put it back out on public comment you do not have to go to that confusion some people i think it sounds like some people couldn't find it but i know when i checked and i took a picture of it to show you that it wasn't working because but um i i opposed putting it out to begin with because of all the issues that were already stated so um but i think it's only fair to the public that they get a chance
077to comment there there was an issue with the system where you couldn't pull it up that much i do know so i'm not sure how long that went on for two days from friday to sunday and on monday it was corrected but certainly we're not under a time frame if the board wishes to put it back out and certainly would take any feedback and it would be helpful even with board members if you have any feedback to give that to us in writing so that we can write policy recommendations feedback for what the policy as it is yes ma'am i believe um it was miss pearl and um yes thank you um last time was taking some notes on something she does have those notes yes ma'am okay so um i think to add those
078types of changes for sure um can well miss ogden would you like to amend your motion to put it back out for two more weeks all right so we're going to vote down this motion right now just to clean up the table here all in favor of approving the draft attendance policy as presented opposed all right so would you like to make a name yeah i think we need to make a motion that we put this back out for public comment for two more weeks to the next meeting and also that we get the uh yeah the editorial changes that we asked for um before it gets put back out and then we can add more to it if need be um does that sound fair to everybody editorial changes all the different pieces that
079we talked about last time so we can at least see it with those changes and then next time we meet we can look at those changes and see if we need more of those absolutely sure i just want to clarify that everybody's i mean because i i was the requiring students to attend high school for four years um you know i just i didn't know if other people agreed with me that was one that was one of the changes yeah i just didn't know if that was good or if it was just your changes that you recommended so no because everybody's changes were written down is that correct miss pearl yes we have all of them yes okay so miss ogden is your motion to make the changes that the board recommended last time and
080put that out for public comment for two weeks correct all right is there a second all right thank you all in favor of that plan say aye aye opposed all right thank you thank you computer glitches when they they glitch they glitch so thanks for giving us more time all right and we have no other new business superintendent's comments no ma'am i'd simply like to reiterate um my appreciation follow my parents um both parents who came out and seeking to which is um all the parents who brought their kids today and the staff for a great opening day of school so thank you and do we have any additional executive session this evening my apologies uh yes ma'am apparently you're going um you have medical leave to consider an executive session i apologize okay so
081is there a motion to go into executive session for personnel i'm sorry thank you mr osborne for a second thank you all in favor of going into executive session with the personnel thank you [Music]