Regular Meeting on 06/28/2021

001man good evening welcome to the regularly scheduled meeting of the jefferson county board of education on monday june 28th 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 which it stands one nation under god indivisible with liberty and justice all right good evening before we start our official meeting this evening i would just like to take a moment to congratulate dr gibson on her recent wedding and we wish you many years of happiness to come so congratulations thank you very much and we're glad to have you back in town so thank you all right now we have a presentation on attendance good evening my name is kelly wolfe i'm the acting director of safety at the moment my

002primary responsibilities are in the attendance office so i wanted to speak this evening to present some recommendations made by an attendance committee that was formed recently you go to the next slide in january of this year the state attendance policy 4110 was updated and as a result we need to take a look at our county attendance policy and to determine what procedures we need to put into place so that we are in alignment with policy one thing that is required by the committee or by the policy is that we seek input from teachers principals the attendance director parents and guardians and community leaders so we formed this attendance committee with representatives from each of those groups and i'd like to take a moment to thank those who participated and gave their feedback and input next

003slide the committee met in june to discuss three specific areas one we wanted to define what is meant by meaningful contact that needs to be made when students start to accumulate unexcused absences secondly we wanted to define what is meant by excessive absences which may require that a home visit be triggered and lastly what we wanted to make recommendation of how the enactment of the policy may differ for virtual students in the upcoming school year next slide first i want to talk about meaningful contact the policy states that if the student has three unexcused absences during the year that there be meaningful contact with the parent or guardian to ascertain why the student is accumulating unexcused absences to talk about what measures a school may employ to assist the student in attending and not incurring

004any additional absences furthermore if the student continues to miss and have unexcused absences meaningful contacts should again be made at five days and in 10 days a complaint may be made before the magistrate next slide in the past the school would make contact when the student began to accumulate unexcused absences and that was typically done by a teacher and or administrator and at five days the school and the county office would mail home a letter and it would ask that the parents contact the school and go into the school with their child to meet with the administrator to talk about attendance um the revised policy has replaced some of the verbiage um written notices are no longer required um they don't specifically say that the guardian needs to come in for a conference um they

005replace those with meaningful contact at both three and five days next slide so the committee felt that at three days the meaningful contact should be made via phone and they recommended that a school designee reach out to the parent or guardian to discuss why the student is missing and being marked unexcused and how we can prevent the student from continuing in that fashion and the goal of the contact is to change the behavior and increase the attendance we also felt that it was very important to document any attempted phone call and whether a call was returned in what the outcome of the conversation was if the parents did not call back the number was bad etc and the committee discussed several ways that we might want to document that contact and for in-person students there

006is an option in our wevas system called tag and they can make attendance notes and that way other administrators in the building can also see what was done and it's easy for us at the county office to look into that without having to look into shared one-drive folders etc next slide at five days we wanted to define meaningful contact as a letter from the county office it was highly recommended that we use a friendlier version than the state form letter that is currently used and as is done now we would send a copy to the school for this tenant's file and the letter needs to include pertinent parts of the attendance policy as well as a request to contact the school to discuss absences emphasizing that we just want to make sure that everyone's doing

007well and is safe and that we're trying to turn this behavior around secondly at five days we felt that it was still important to have that student assistance team meeting in the file we would include what happened at three days and again the goal of the meeting is to change the behavior and increase attendance next slide the committee's rationale and what we considered they really prefer the phone call at three rather than five or rather than a letter um they felt that after three days um a student may not have time to return with a note especially if the absence has happened three days in a row um there may be delays in the postal service and the key intent is to talk about the issue and try to fix it so they thought that

008a phone call would be the best method at three days um we spent a lot of time talking about the difference between consecutive absences versus scattered throughout the year the conversation would be very different if a student missed five days in a row versus one day you know in one month a couple of months later another day and so on we also realized that at the large schools might be difficult to make the phone calls so it's recommended that they have a dedicated person to make those calls and be responsible for that and during that phone call to offer resources and to use discretion to see if they do think that the parent needs to come in with a student for a sit-down conference and again this needs to be documented well next slide please

009the rationale of sending a letter they wanted to send a letter from the county office just for good documentation and in case there is an issue with the phone and messages not being received we have that documentation that the parent was notified and that would be sent whether the absences were consecutive or scattered the committee felt it was redundant to also send a letter from the school again the key intent is to have a discussion with a parent or guardian about the absences and we would still document that in the student assistance team file it is in a onedrive folder that's shared with the attendance office so that we can monitor what's going on especially if it does go to court um but during that sat process the key is to talk about appropriate interventions

010and determine if they're they're effective at 10 days the school administration would contact the county office to discuss what kind of contact they have made and request action and that could include a home visit or complaint before the magistrate next slide so in summary the proposed changes the parent would still receive automated calls daily after attendance is put in by the office um the parent would still be contacted after three absences the letter would be sent from the county office after five and that student assistant team process would begin um lastly the committee recognized that the county was more lenient with truancy charges last year due to covet but they truly may be pursued after 10 unexcused absences okay the second point that we discussed was um what is meant by excessive absences the policy

011states that we should make home visits if students have excessive unexcused absences or if requested by the administration next slide in the past the principal or attendance director has requested home visits by the school resource officer they're not available we requested from the sheriff's department and it was regardless of the number of unexcused absences new practice that we recommend if the school is unable to make meaningful contact after three consecutive days they should attempt to get on the fourth day if the contacts can still is not made then at five consecutive absences um that we need to have a home visit and the um committee felt that we could definitely request them earlier if the administrator felt that that needed to be made and again the documentation would be included in the student assistance team

012file the rash now for this student safety is a priority and if we haven't seen a student for a week then we definitely need to check on the student if there are concerns about their welfare if the student is out sick and the administrator has concerns it was recommended that the counselor asked to zoom with the student for a few minutes just to check in and make sure that they're okay and the committee emphasizes that it's important to have eyes on the student so if there is not a change in attendance the student continues to miss consecutive days that we need to check on them something that we need to consider are the different options of who may make the home visits and some of the possibilities are listed school staff could attend in pairs

013preferably with an administrator and or counselor the school resource officer and the school representative or the resource officer and the attendance coordinator could go if the resource officer is unavailable the sheriff's department the attendance coordinator and a representative or the attendance coordinator and an attendance worker or two attendance workers so one possibility to consider is having one worker for each high school in their feeder schools and that's similar to what berkeley county does some things to also consider the school personnel may be unable to go to the home if they're busy in their building in other roles we've had reports by those who have made visits the families and students are more receptive if they know the visitors and safety is a priority so we do need to have visits and pairs and include the

014sheriff's office our resource officer of safety is a concern lastly it is very hard to estimate how many home visits we're talking about if you're looking at five consecutive days but just to give everyone a sense of numbers in our last normal school year 2019 we mailed well over 2 000 10 day letters and filed 68 truancy cases all right lastly i wanted to talk about virtual students so the policy defines absence as students not being present in the facility or failing to engage in their virtual or remote learning and the state does have recommendations for virtual students and it focuses on meaningful engagement and making progress so if the student hasn't attended classes but they're doing all the work independently it's appropriate to code them as engaged and the code v1 is virtual engaged

015last year with all of the difficulties with technology attendance at live sessions was not mandatory attendance for virtual and remote students was taken on monday for the previous week students had until 8 am to be marked present it was very challenging for teachers if the students partially completed the week's work or if they made progress in some classes or not others it became very very challenging to feel confident in attendance and a big concern was that the teachers did not always have eyes on the student as we mentioned especially at the secondary level this students could be doing their lessons on their own independently and never be on a live lesson so this year we have made um some changes to virtual attendance in jva 2.0 so daily attendance is very important and the camera

016must be on during live lessons and assessments students may have a blurred background or a virtual background due dates are defined at the discretion of the teacher a lot of teachers didn't like having everything due on monday for the previous week because they felt like they couldn't move forward until students had done previous work and lastly students are required to participate in teacher schedule check-ins so this would be very important at the secondary level so the committee recommendations for virtual students since our elementary students will be attending daily lessons with their teacher with the camera on they can take attendance the same way as we do for in-person students secondary students will have asynchronous lessons there be they will be monitored by a county teacher who will serve as a facilitator and they will meet

017during the week for homeroom we had some discussion about how often we should have that home room and how often we have should have check-ins the committee was ended up with the recommendation that three days a week would be ideal and if we did monday wednesday friday if students missed one of those check-ins they would be marked absent for that day if there were two then it would be equivalent to three days so for example if they miss wednesday and friday they would be marked absent for wednesday thursday friday and if they miss all three of those then they would be marked absent for the week um the facilitator will be responsible for providing a links lesson and so if we do that one day then there would be homeroom two days a week again

018this would totally align the attendance with what's being done for the in-person students three unexcused absences would result in contact with the parent five a letter and the student assistance team meeting and five without any kind of contact in a row would be home visit at the student assistance team meeting it may be determined that the students need to check in more regularly they may need to go to their teachers office hours they might need to return to the in-person environment and the attendance records and the contact and the stat meetings for the virtual students will be done at the county level we wanted to take that burden off of the schools next slide the rationale again it's very important to have these regular check-ins with cameras on to ensure the safety of our students

019one of the virtual teachers on the committee reported that her students all admit or many of them admitted to struggling with procrastination and they said that they really enjoyed the individual meetings with their teacher or facilitator the committee felt that perhaps daily check-ins might be too frequent especially if the students are taking all these asynchronous lessons but they you know regardless they should be working on their work every day um and the committee said that if they were coming up if coming to class for the check-ins but not doing their work and not progressing that they still needed to have a student assistance team meeting and discuss possibly returning to in-person because that wouldn't be for them okay i know that at least one or two of the committee members is present via zoom so

020if anyone is on the committee and listening in and they would like to add any comments feel free to put in the chat that you would like to speak and do we have any questions you're presenting these as uh for something to create a new policy are these gonna turn into the policies do we vote on it well we would need to align our county policies so that it is in alignment with the new state requirements so um we will need to eventually put that out for public comment and implement some changes um i'm really impressed that there's more concern with the student safety than parent punishment is that the state is that coming from the state or did the team both actually both a lot of counties have reported that teachers felt uncomfortable without

021having the cameras on and not being able to see their students right i'm not talking about but the cameras as much as the face-to-face students just i'm just overall the policies just just wondering if um because it you know i'm talking about that case that i brought up i think overall it's more of a committee decision and just realizing the need for student safety i appreciate it it's the only question i have well thank you to all the committee members i know you know when stuff comes down from the state and us having to churn it and work it and you know make it our policies fit the new regulations and suggestions that it's a lot of work so thank you to everybody that did participate in that definitely all right any other questions or

022comments thank you all right deputy superintendent of operations ms white good evening members of the board dr gibson it's my pleasure to bring you an update this evening in the area of operations so i'll start with maintenance uh summer list projects that schools gave to maintenance are in full swing the maintenance crew has begun began the scramble for school year 2022 so they're working their way through various projects that the schools have requested for bond project update the ta lowry mip well let me start with ta lower mip which is not a bond project it's an sba project it is underway they've begun work at t lowry on demoing the old system and they're installing new fan coil units at this time the project plan is to get all the new equip equipment for the

023hvac installed and we're going to need to continue to utilize the old control system the old the new control system has had a delay but the old system is compatible with the new equipment so at a time that is practical and reasonable for the school when they're on a break or over a weekend we'll switch that system out otherwise the project is well underway in all time now for bond projects the jefferson high school turf project due to some rain we've had it's lost some days it's still on time the field is currently at subgrade they completed a concrete curb with the exception of the construction entrance which they'll complete that once they're done hauling everything in there the drainage system is almost complete and they're bringing in stone now and we've had goalposts delivered

024so it's very exciting project that's moving along the right denny roof is nearing completion they've completed the rubber on the roof and the metal work should be wrapped up this week and then they'll be moving on the same company well to blue ridge elementary school and they'll begin that project around the first of july which is probably after the board the blue ridge brick repair that is also bond project is scheduled for completion in july and the floor tile at cw shipley is moving smoothly and should be completed before the holiday weekend so it's a rapidly moving project rants and rtus have been ordered and once they're delivered we'll install those the wildwood middle school fields right now are all about the sod keeping our sod very healthy particularly in the heat the rain and

025the watering the fields though is slowing the other parts of the project but it does protect our investment of the sod mr vines and mr caton have worked very well together to ensure that that continues once the sea allen lanes company moves out and we take that over the goal posts have been ordered and they'll be installed in july with bleachers on the way by early august to be installed bottle fuel fill stations as we're coming out of the pandemic they're on order for months and months so as maintenance gets them in they're installing them in equal numbers in schools so that every school has some but that's kind of a slow moving project that we're just doing over time due to the high demand for those now the tennis courts are targeted for completion

026before the end of july and the track repairs at charlestown middle school are also scheduled for completion in july so we're fairly on time right now with all of our projects which is exciting news technology meanwhile is currently working on the distribution of our chromebooks for k2 in child nutrition we've been supporting five-day multi-meal packs for jefferson county children they're distributed on tuesdays from 8 30 to 9 30 at our summer experience locations which are drizzwood elementary north jefferson elementary shepherdstown elementary jefferson high school in washington high school and this week we want people to know that we're delivering double meal boxes so they'll have this week's meal packs and next weeks because the july 4th holiday falls next week once again this year we're excited to announce that the usda and the wvde have

027granted a waiver that all students in jefferson county will receive free breakfast and lunch for the upcoming year so there we're operating under the same summer feeding pattern that we did last year that will continue transportation is looking for bus drivers we're still looking so we'd like to ask that anyone who knows of someone who wants to work on a great team at the transportation department apply online at jcswv.org under the jcs jobs tab and they scroll down to the new opportunities where they'll find that sub bus operator position we train for free and if they have questions about the process they can be answered by calling transportation directly at 725-7664 i just want to plug the bus drivers because we need them we certainly need substitutes that's my update for this evening thank you

028very much you're welcome now we have approval of minutes is there a motion to approve the minutes from the regular board meeting held june 14 2021. thank you mr osborne is there a second thank you mr cable any discussion yeah i think it's important that my reason for voting against the consent agenda last time is noted because i had said that the position of director of operations of safety and facilities was not approved by the board and we shouldn't have been hiring and the human resources coordinator know her title she said that it it wasn't necessary that it was just a shift or an alignment but i did contact the state department of education and they said it is a violation of code so i just want to noted that that's the reason that i

029said no voted against it all right is there um any interest in adjusting the minutes that were provided to us about the board meeting on june 14 2021. it's my understanding that that's a vote's not needed i thought that if if you're just making a correction that's my understanding i could be wrong well i don't think that's a correction i mean the minutes reflect that you voted against it yeah but i wanted to say why and i'm just making that clear i mean so um i never noticed until most of what i say often doesn't go into the minutes but if other board members make statements it's word for word i see their comments in the minute so that's why i started paying more attention and so i'm not arguing that everything i say go

030in the minutes but i think that something where the board is violating the code and um i think that's important and this is a legal document and we shouldn't be relying on videos because the videos can be pulled or spliced or who knows what but the you know the minutes are the documentation and if we are audited i would like you know the auditors to know that i did not you know agree to violate state code so that's where i stand all right so there's a motion on the table to approve the minutes from the board meeting held june 14 2021 all in favor all right all right i'm sorry i'm sorry which one are we voting on to approve it without the changes you mean correct oh then no okay all right next up

031we have citizens comments and citizens comments um we're slowly returning back to normal meetings and we need to go back to our normal policies and our normal policies used to be that speakers would sign these forms and i don't think everybody's been signing forms since we're doing zoom and in person it's just a mix so i'm just going to go over this briefly with you the speaker procedures number one speaker must arrive and complete a copy of the speaker form no later than 10 minutes prior to the start of the meeting number two the completed speaker's form is to be submitted to the superintendent or clerk of the board of education prior to the beginning of the meeting and that's this form that i'm reading the instructions off of number three all speakers are limited

032to three minutes number four speakers shall not engage in negative or derogatory statements that use names for positions by which persons can be identified and number five speakers who deviate from the information provided on the speaker forum will be called out of order by the chair and required to cease their comments now let's revisit number four and five briefly we always talk about our number one priority being student safety it's also our duty to protect our staff safety recently we had a meeting where one of our employees was verbally attacked and this behavior is not acceptable and i apologize to ms tanya lewis the employee and promised to be a better steward of public comment we also recently had one speaker who veered off topic and will also prevent speakers from deviating off the relevant

033topics that they've signed up for just a reminder that public comment is an opportunity to hear from the community about the work of the school system and should be relevant to the school system so first up this evening is mr christopher sedlock if you give me just a moment to get my timer ready all right whenever you're racer congratulations to the jefferson high school baseball and washington high school softball teams for advancing to their respective state tournaments in charleston last week coach lowry's record of success with jefferson baseball is truly remarkable and washington's softball team deserves special commendation as the only team to qualify for the state tournament without a senior on its roster all high school athletes learn how to overcome obstacles to their success but washington softball and baseball student athletes are annually

034disadvantaged because they attend the only high school in the region without lights on their home playing fields no lights for washington's baseball and softball student athletes mean that they play more away games than home games ride more buses and miss more class and study hours no lights require that home games start at 4 30 or 5 to complete play before dark those early game times keep many tax paying washington softball and baseball parents from seeing their sons and daughters play and fewer spectators result in fewer dollars to support washington baseball and softball 12 years ago this board approved funding for washington high school when it was constructed the conduit and electrical wiring for outdoor field lighting was installed but after 12 years the job is still not fishing finished in june of last year the

035superintendent and district leadership held a zoom call with parents to discuss items for inclusion in the november bond call at that time i noted the lack of baseball and softball lighting at washington and the superintendent said to an assistant write that down in the name of equity it is long past time to stop disenfranchising the student athletes that play baseball and softball at washington high school please find a way to light their fields and show them how to finish a job once it is started thank you thank you next up we have carmen bratton and after carmen we have a santa moore good evening i am coming to you again to reiterate the importance of our education in our county for all students especially for math the last time i spoke i explained that our

036state is tied 48th out of 50 for the lowest math scores we must stand with unity and our community to make this happen for our children black math genius is offered to all students our children your child matters your child matters and my child matters therefore our children deserve the chance to do better may god bring us peace in our community and as i said before unity thank you thank you next up miss moore and i believe that's by zune and after miss moore we have karen buck i'm here can you hear me yes ma'am whenever you're ready thank you superintendent dr gibson deputy superintendent dr tilley tanya dallas lewis tara mahoney joyce white board members parents and other community members my name is asada moore and i'm the creator of the black map opportunities

037program i have a mathematics degree from michigan state university educational leadership and effective communication training at harvard university and was a leadership fellow at the university of chicago for two years i was involved in numerous studies conducted by the university of chicago consortium on school research i also have a degree in comedic scholarship from the university of petty suit for my training on egyptian mathematics i have been an educator for 27 years i know about educating children specifically i know how to contribute to the success of black children as evidenced by the success of my students if i were small-minded i would be offended that with all of my experience expertise and decades of success my program was taken down by two individuals that know a miniscule amount about educating children when compared to myself

038however i am a problem solver that knows how to have a laser focus on goals the goal here is to raise a math performance level for black students however if asked i would have gladly prepared a plan for all students in a recent study by reference that breaks stakes based on educational detainment and quality of education west virginia came in as the second worst in the country with that 75 of your black students are twice as bad in mathematics so i ask how long has this educational cancer been allowed to permeate your black community without a remedy what initiatives have been implemented over the past few decades to address the dismal math scores of your black students even if they were to double their performance they still be last look at what your students are

039saying through the behavior data because this is not about adults when you look at that data you will see black students more than any other students are disruptive in class disrespectful and skip the most classes this isn't because they have no morals as one person stated it's because they don't feel respected or part of the learning they don't see themselves any lessons so they act out very similar to how the adults responded to the black matter genius program because they didn't like it or felt apart i want to make sure that i am clear this is not about adults and how they feel about something they know nothing about this is about the success of children and right now the children that are suffering the most are black children what some of you have done

040and allowed to happen as it came to saying what about children with asthma when trying to solve medical issues for children with lupus the black mouth changes program was never about being anti it was about being pro it addressed no issues of racism white supremacy or right privilege it does not address critical race theory which should just be called american history no matter how unpleasant that may be for some i hope to get back to the mission at hand soon and i'm available to help your district achieve the success that all children deserve thank you for your time all right thank you next up we have karen buck followed by barbara fuller my name is karen buck i'm a concerned grandparent the black math genius program the website states a program that is more of

041a traditional way of teaching it attempts to build confidence in the student and it's really not a bad curriculum but here's what it's not it's not common core which is what all the other kids are stuck with our black community saw the declining test scores and were allowed to do something about it the rest of the kids are still stuck with common core so we're second worst in math in the country our superintendent was hired in 2015. she's had six years to address the declining test scores but she has chosen common core black math genius and biden money for critical race theory and no advanced placement math programs in school for the kids what better way to decrease the achievement gap than to give to one and take away from the other that's pretty slick

042parents do you see how this works in a few minutes this board will vote on a revised budget showing an additional revenue to jefferson county schools the amount of 3.9 million dollars from the biden administration and earmarked for the black math genius program there it is on the budget this will be voted on without any discussion do you really think we believe that it cost 3.9 million dollars to teach a math class i mean come on uh do you really uh who's really getting the money who's getting the rest of the money the biden rules are if you take the money you have to teach critical race theory black math genius is part of critical race theory and it's meant to divide the people as you can see we're divided if you give special privileges

043to a group of people because of their skin color it's discrimination no matter what color the people are that you pointed at it's still discrimination so our children will now be re-educated to learn that discrimination is okay they'll be re-educated to feel ashamed of themselves and their country is this the kind of world god wants for our children so we don't want this thing it's being forced on us and they're using our tax dollars to do it they're laughing at us parents do you see how this works we the parents and the grandparents will not back down we will not be quiet we will continue to fight this every step of the way and in fact we have just begun to fight thank you next up is barbara fuller followed by deb hale good evening

044my name is barbara fuller thank you for allowing me the time to speak i'm here to address the board regarding black math genius program i've reviewed the program and believe it's a great tool and option for the the children of jefferson county however your marketing of this program has created unnecessary divisions whether intentional or not my questions are why do we need a summer math program and why aren't the children learning during the regular school year i was advised that the numbers that we were provided with do not accurately depict our county standing the numbers that were shared did not break out the special education children i'm not sure why it didn't but i could only assume that including it would make us look more dire why do we not fully explain why a group

045of children are not learning during the course of a school year why are we looking at color as a factor instead of looking at the facts first being absenteeism this has been a long standing issue within the county as we all heard a minute ago you can't learn when you don't attend second our ever-evolving math curriculum this new math has done a repairable damage not only to the children of color but to all children in this county this black math genius program should be taught to every student we are educators in our own right because we have children we should be lifting our children up instead of tearing them down saying that they are less than that is what you are doing by targeting a group of children i know plenty of children of color

046who have attended ap classes honor classes one this year who graduated magna laude who not one mention of that young man those children many of them who are now adults what are you telling them that they don't matter well they do stop instilling racism in our children and teach them as one there was a press release from you guys back on june 9th that stated that there would be community forums about this program why haven't they been scheduled and why are we considering even approving a budget for a program without these forums being held i'd like to remind the board of education that they were elected by this community and that our tax dollars pay your salary you work for us and if you're not going to listen to your community we will have to

047do everything in our power to remove you from office and replace you with people who will listen thank you next up we have deb hale followed by sandra christian thank you my name is deborah hale i'm a mother and a taxpayer in jefferson county ever since hearing about the summer program black math genius i have been skeptical on its face such a class separating children by race and skin color sounded blatantly racist to me but i have other concerns the june 9th edition of the spirit reported that black math genius summer program would cost the school district 83 000 59 students were reportedly enrolled meanwhile an online course of the same program is listed at 199 dollars per student do the math the difference between the two programs same thing comes to 71 thousand dollars

048why would the school district waste so much taxpayer money when a virtual program is available at a drastically cheaper rate but wait now there's that black math genius line item in the current school budget for four million dollars where did that figure come from what's it to be spent on the school board needs to explain i don't think the school district should spend one penny on this program and here's why the head of urban intellectuals a marketing partner with the creator of black math genius program publicly provided false information about our own jefferson county he said our district is quote 90 95 percent black unquote and then referred to two local white women who spoke out against the programs as karen's the term karen is meant as a derogatory indeed racist term for a white

049woman who disagrees with the liberal message that is unacceptable he also said nobody on this planet has ever done black and african people any favors as people you have no friends unquote he solicited radical supporters from across the country to phone our school board office to protest what he sees as community pushback to stop the black math genius class he clearly employs unscrupulous and dishonest tactics tactics to promote his business but that's not all the creator of black math genius claims that public schools are quote systemically racist she says public schools suppress black students they don't allow them to be great unquote the two go on to say that quote every day is war and the public schools are waging a psychological war against our children unquote really this is the enlightening message that these

050folks want to teach our kids are you kidding me this does not sound like math at all in fact it sounds like pure radical political activism i've never learned any history in math class and i have not heard of any racist incidents in our local schools rather than straight math which i agree our kids could use more of and at a more rigorous challenging level this course is flat out racist propaganda why on earth would the school board deliberately invite outside agitators into our school system who in their own language call out our public schools for being systemically racist the progress we in america have made over the last 50 plus years has been amazing after all americans elected a black president served for eight years and more recently a black vice president america is

051one of the least racist countries on earth we don't need destructive segregation in our jefferson county schools please keep political activism out of our classrooms black math genius today means critical race theory tomorrow please don't do this to our children thank you ma'am next up we have sandra christian and i believe she's by zoom and following her daniel grant yes ma'am whenever you're ready yes thank you um so last time i spoke on black mass genius and that didn't go over so well so today i'm going to speak on another issue and there are families in west virginia from other countries and they represent hundreds of children within jefferson county they are beautiful blonde blue-eyed wonderful children and these children struggle with english and i am asking for the community and the board of education

052for assistance and what type of support would they be willing to give these children so the next question becomes if we replace those children with these young african-american children and change their location from being right here within the and within the community would they would you still feel as generous would you still feel like supporting them we clearly have a problem in our community if you replace the struggle with english and replace it with math how are we going to help the needs still exist so if you're still feeling generous how are you going to help why the change apart if you're not the only thing that changed was the location your color and the subject so it would not be classified as discrimination so far the birth word for 2021 has been critical race

053theory is important and i do not want to take away from that however it is not pertinent to this situation responding to black masculine it does not apply there is a problem in our community and it needs to be fixed so we all when are we going to fix it every time the critical race theory is used in this particular setting you have to lag because it is demonstrating the lack of knowledge responding to critical race theory it's like asking someone if they speak spanish and they say yes taco bell really so the question remains on the table when are we going to address the problems that clearly our students have a problem with math in this community there is a solution on the table and everyone is finding excuse all across the board as

054to why they cannot support this program thank you next up is daniel grant followed by thomas miller my name is danielle grant and i spoke at the previous board meeting at the conclusion of the meeting it was stated the black math genius program would be postponed my questions are what is the plan for moving forward why do we need public meetings to discuss the program and will the board issue some type of formal statement since i attended the last meeting i've done some research and discovered the west virginia department of education has an equity clause that needs to be upheld they also have a partnership with the herbert henderson office of minority affairs which in the press release quotes we have a duty and responsibility to all students to provide an education that meets the

055need of the whole child this has not happened and it shows in the data that continuously has been presented the african-american subgroup is not receiving an equitable educational experience the program was postponed on the basis of not being inclusive of all races this is not true because the students of other races were registered for the program which proves this was not a blacks only program title vi requires no one to be excluded and there was no student turned away it is also being stated that our taxpayer dollars are paying for this program which again is a fallacy because the program was to be funded from federal money i bring this up to say there are many falsehoods being spread about the program and the school board is not stepping in to state the truth as

056to why the program was needed based on the data i'm asking where is your dedication to the black student subgroup that needs assistance not based on hearsay but based on the data that has been reflected for years when will these students be important enough to have a program that is tailored to their needs as taxpayer as a taxpayer in this community i feel as though my opinion and needs should be heard and met like any other taxpayer we are not asking for an advantage we are asking for equal educational opportunities these students need assistance they need it now as parents we should not have to work this hard to get resources for a program the federal government has already agreed to fund these numbers did not get like this overnight but it is your job

057to recognize the disparity and make changes but before i end let me explain critical race theory on an elementary level because it keeps getting brought up i found this from an online source and wanted to share imagine a guy who hates disabled people builds a hotel and he bans all disabled people from coming building in a way that specifically makes it difficult for them he later sells the hotel the new owner and staff does not have a problem with disabled people but the hotel is still designed in a way that does not accommodate disabled people so although the current owner is not actively discriminating he's operating in a system that is designed to discriminate and needs to fix it even if he's not to blame for it racism is the same way the discriminatory practices

058of the past still have ramifications today even if we aren't to blame for them we must recognize them please don't continue to fail these students they need you to show them they matter just as much as any other subgroup thank you next up is thomas miller good evening sorry a little late to the game i had just seen this on the in the news the um the other day and hadn't been following but i found it really alarming you know there's a problem with students that have with their math proficiency and we should certainly help them right but i see we have a program that targets a specific a specific group as if there are other people that don't need it or maybe this group of kids that this is marketed to have some special

059need that others don't you know i heard joe biden say that that um black kids are just as smart as wealthy ones like pretty racist um you know so we're talking about looking at this later down the road you know we're going to discuss this a little further in suicide i think the question is is really is this racist or is it not is this a racist thing to do to say to pick out something by the color of somebody's skin it doesn't matter what they are and give them some sort of thing to do it's like okay so it's open to all people but you tell me if you saw a poster that said something was for black kids for black for this black fat right and if you were a white kid that

060maybe needed some help in math would you think that that was for you probably not uh you know so we are leaving these kids out and i guarantee you there are plenty of kids out there that have problems with math that come from all races asian kids too like this you know i know it's uh it's like a preconceived notion that all the asians are good at math but that's not true so i think that if you have come up and you have supported something that is that this that is so racist it's it divides people by the color of their skin that you're going to offer something to somebody based on their skill color or at least just make it look like it then this is a problem and you know it's time to

061move on and get somebody that doesn't believe in this stuff because we have no room for racism let me close by quoting morgan freeman you want to end racism stop talking about it thank you and that concludes public comment for this evening all right next we have the consent agenda are there any updates or changes to the consent agenda um not in the human resources section um however i would clarify as several folks have pointed out that in our finance department um they labeled the three the three point nine million dollars that is actually rps or funding which is basically the federal covert cares funding that is round two of that funding and that funding uh provides for a whole host of programs it is not solely for the black math genius program that is

062one of many summer programs uh technology and um other items that are within that srf2 funding so apologize that that was not made clear and that it was confusing for for folks understandably that's on us so um to date we've actually spent around 13 000 on the black math genius program uh and where we go from that is going to be as yet to be determined based on the public forums and the feedback that we get but i wanted to clarify that in the financial approvals thank you and just to clarify that 13 000 i mean that was for licenses and training and that kind of thing it wasn't you know based on first students so once it's purchased it can be used however much we need it whether it's one student or 20 students

063or 100 students is that correct yes ma'am okay thank you all right is there a motion to approve the consent agenda ask some questions about the budget um sure we should probably get a motion first first oh i'm sorry is there a motion thank you mr alvarez there a second thank you mr cable now questions or discussion yeah um i i had asked through an email earlier about that that one for four million and then the one million for the soul program and my understanding and this is a lot for the public to understand because i it took me a while and i'm still not sure if i understand but it sounds like this is money that's being transferred because it's got a t and the key says transfer so it's being transferred into an

064account to be used for various things whenever it says the e-serve that's what that means so the 1 million um may 10th that for seoul that's a separate summer school program is that right no ma'am that's that is our summer school program and i can um ask miss marone who's uh actually she's via zoom but that is the she has a coding system for each of the programs so that when we have to report out on the use of federal funds that she can track those and seoul is our summer program and whether or not she's breaking that out by a designation for time or by location um i i don't know the answer to that but i can get that from from miss maron if that would be helpful i'm just trying to understand

065and hoping that it helps the public as well so the summer school program is the sole program and the black math genius is part of that other and it's not considered the summer school program that's a separate thing that falls under that four million it sounds like is that right can you ask that again i'm sorry i didn't follow so the school program is summer school that's what that is the black math genius is something separate it's not in the same funding as the summer school program that is correct so it would be that 18 or whatever you said thousand thirteen thousand that's coming out of that four million approximate four million uh it's coming out of federal funding yes ma'am okay and this summer school is also federal funding anything that says east serve

066is federal funding yes and that's um actually that's we have title one federal funding we have a lot of different categories but if it says esurf it is specifically one of the funding rounds for covert cares act money that has um restrictions on how we can spend it so there's another three million well 2.69 million and that one says arp eserf 3-25 25 and then there's another we surf two which is 1.6 million i'm just curious like these are all being transferred and earmarked for something well um we did a presentation uh earlier this year on round one um which was a little over a million dollars and um was devoted to covet mitigation uh and technology round two of that east surf funding was the 3.9 million and uh we did a presentation to

067the board and that was for reduced class sizes we maintained lower class sizes so that we could do remediation support for students this year safety mitigation strategies us maintaining all of the higher level cleaning protocols and the supplies for those remediations support us supporting the vastly increased number of students who both are showing lower test scores and who need to be remediated for their next level of classes coveted leave support which the board generously voted for through the end of the year so someone wouldn't have to use their personal leave if they had to be quarantined code would contact tracing the technology one-to-one project came out of that child nutrition for us to supplement for summer feed programs compensatory remediation services specifically for special education students uh jefferson virtual academy services so all of those

068are within that e-serve funding what would the three million intra fund transfer what is that for what does that mean and to get i can't speak to why um it's listed that way transfer 3 million just straight 3 million intra fund transfer i don't know it's just there's a lot of big dollars on this budget and it's um hard to make a lot of sense of it well and we can certainly uh miss marone uh can come back as she did the last budget meeting and um we can do another one because we're given one specifically on the round two expenditures she can come back and give one on how the finance office is tracking that so it can make it easier to interpret those codes because to your point if it's difficult for someone

069to interpret it leaves a lot of room for misinformation out there for folks so we can certainly have her come back and do that i think that's that's my only questions all right so there's a motion on the table to approve the consent agenda any other comments or discussion all in favor say aye all right thank you unfinished business none new business 12a is the superintendent's evaluation and that actually gets done in executive session is there i'd rather not go into executive session while everyone's here and then have to come back out and make everyone wait so is there a motion to move the superintendent's evaluation to the end of the agenda thank you mr cable is there a second sure thank you mr osborne all in favor say aye hi opposed thank you all

070right um 12b request approval to solicit bids through an rfp for annual fire alarm inspections this evening we'd like to ask the board to allow us to go out for an rfp so that we can get our fire alarms inspected we're looking for a company before you make a motion today we're looking for a company that is able to do the variety of alarms we have in a system because we do have different alarms so i'll await your motion is there a motion to approve the solicitation of bids for an rfp for the annual fire alarm inspections thank you mr cable is there a second second thank you any questions or discussion all in favor of approving the bids through an rfp for the annual fire alarm inspection say aye oppose thank you all right

071um c request approval to solicit biz through an rfp for playground mulch we're just asking for annual requests and we have mulch on the playground to keep the kids safe all right thank you mr cable is there a second second thank you mr osborne any question or discussion all right all in favor of a um approving to solicit bids for rfp for the playground mulch say aye all right opposed thank you all right moving on to number d action on approval for outside organizations within jefferson county to use jefferson county school buses this is the same request we had the last board meeting on we have two additional organizations that would like to utilize our school buses around our summer school soul schedule all right is there a motion to approve the outside organizations within

072jefferson county to use jefferson county school buses thank you mr osborne is there a second job thank you mr cable any discussion or question this way do they provide their own bus drivers no they ironically they don't and mrs harner kindly pointed out to me that there was one listed not too so just for full clarity and disclosure she keeps us straight okay well maybe they can provide us with some bus drivers for during the school year we let them lose our buses during the summer all right all in favor of approving the outside organization within jefferson county to use the jefferson county school bus to say aye hi oppose thank you all right moving on to superintendent's comments superintendent do you have anything for us this evening um actually the only thing that i

073have is uh to say thank you to everybody who's here who took time away from your family and your busy schedules um no matter what side of any debate that you're on i think that it's that these are good things to wrestle with and i think it's important that we all assume positive intent i think everybody is here because they really care about kids and they really think it's important that we do the right thing um and i for one am glad if we're gonna have a discussion if we're gonna have a debate we're not having it about whether or not kids deserve for us to serve them we're we're having a debate about how to do it and that's a that's a good thing that's a good thing to wrestle with so um to

074your point we had i don't know who made that point but about holding a series of forums we will be releasing this week to all of our parents links for you to go in and sign up we'll have a series of dates uh different times different dates to do small group forums where we are going to look at and review the data for all of our subgroups and their performance over the years talk about what programs we already have in place and then get feedback from people about here or all of the because there's lots of programs out there that that purport that they can help kids and we'll go through them and say okay give us your feedback right this is this is what educators are saying this is what we have research on

075this is the data and if we if we can build a better solution together i'd rather take a step back all of us look at it together and agree to move forward together so um we have that commitment and we will be that will be out before the end of this week all right so this evening i believe we do have an executive session for um the superintendents of annual evaluation or personnel and you have a personal hearing right and a legal update and we do anticipate action with at least the personnel hearing correct yes ma'am all right is there a motion to go into executive session thank you mr osborne was there a second thank you mr cable all in favor say aye i i have a i think it's called a point of

076order but i have a concern i just keep bringing this up and we need to list for the public what we're possibly going into executive session for and again it's against state code that we're not doing it and i did check on it again through a third source and they confirmed that we need to give some general idea when we go in an executive session we're going into executive session for the superintendent's evaluation and a personality nobody's supposed to be in writing just so you know that's what the state has told me so because i mean i can tell you all the reasons why it's important to have it in writing um but i'm just letting you know i mean i i did ask the attorney for the board west virginia state board association in

077front of the whole board you know she confirmed it that you have to have something in writing and i had mentioned that i previously asked the state and so then again last week i went to the state and it is part of the code that we need to start listing um something just a general idea whether it's personnel matter legal matter you don't have to say what it is but the public you know has a right well i believe we're doing it according to the last guidance we got but i believe we also had a sudden check into that guidance to see if there's any updates so we can certainly have her come back and advise the board if there's thank you man question all right so there's a motion to go into executive session

078all in favor say aye oh i don't want to miss it so i don't know can i say no and still go i don't know how it works but i just want to make sure it's clear that this is documented that i want you know the board to start letting the public know but i i'll go in okay all right thank you very much you