001so good evening welcome to the regularly scheduled meeting of the jefferson county board of education on monday june 14th and if you please join us for the pledge and to the republic for which it stands one nation under god indivisible with liberty and justice for all good evening good evening so miss white i understand we have a presentation this evening we do we have an academic coach review this evening and our participants michelle cantley and caitlin hillman will be joining joining us via zoom miss cantley are you there afternoon board members thank you for having us we are ready to present just as katie gets our screen up we are here to present a coaching overview of the gear my name is michelle cantley i'm the secondary coaching facilitator and we have katie hulman on
002here she's the facilitator for elementary coaches so what we're going to show you today is an overview of our coaching highlights from the year we have emailed you or mr dilling has emailed you a or provided you a link to this presentation because we have a lot of content here but we did not want to spend time talking about all of it so we've included quick links for you to learn about more about any of the topics that you are interested in learning michelle are you seeing the presentation no just your desktop okay hang on one second sorry that's okay now we can see your zoom screen there we promise we do this literally seven times a day okay here we go there we go there we go thank you so like i said we
003are going to present to you a overview of the year's coaching highlight this is our team of 13 coaches so we have a fantastic team that's worked really hard throughout its inception of the program we have two branches we have an elementary branch and a secondary branch so we're going to walk you through some slots that give you the coach's name where they coach their specialties their initiatives and some of their passions hey so i'm katie homan and i'm an academic coach at cw shipley and harpersbury middle school and this past march i also moved into the role of facilitator for the elementary coaches some of our other elementary coaches are tracy brinson she's at dresswood and south jefferson janae dabrosky is at branson elementary paul hoffman is at bright denny and shepherdstown middle school
004we have megan kitts miller at ransom elementary she's the second coach there kelly mckee is at paige jackson and shepherdstown elementary school sharon stickley is at north jefferson elementary we have taylor thomas at t.a lowry and tracy davis is our pre-k coach for the county and now we have our secondary coaches i'm michelle kinley i am the instructional coaching facilitator but i also coach at charlestown middle school we have jeremy knight she is our fantastic coach at wildwood middle school as well as jefferson high school and then we have the wonderful brian mulligan he is a coach at jefferson high school as well as washington high school we make up the secondary instructional coaching team the next slide is a highlight of the response that the coaching team had to the pandemic so on the
005left you'll see an infographic that highlights the work that we did in response to school shutting down in march the coaching team provided over 75 live professional development sessions for our teachers to make sure that our teachers were capable and and confident in teaching virtually from a virtual platform because all of those things were brand new to our teachers we were not one-to-one we didn't use technology all of the time and they had to learn a lot of new things in a very very short period of time almost overnight as we talked about before so the coaching team then created over 100 video tutorials for our teachers to have quick access to and that became a teacher toolbox on the website we also created a student and parent tutorial toolbox to show that students and
006parents how to use the google suite the google classroom meet zoom and the microsoft platform from their perspective we also created 30 training videos 30 plus training videos just on all the educational technology tools trying to engage our students in a virtual platform our coaching team loved over 3 hours with coaching support for our schools and our students and our teachers as you can see we partnered with our county programmatic coordinators our technology director the weavers administrator school level instructional planning teams and and principals the staff development coordinator and pupil services to to package up all of the things that we were finding out that our students our families and our teachers needed as we went forward in the payday when it came august august and september coaches needed to support our teachers as we
007reopen schools coaches provided 187 school sessions 270 tutorials were created by just a team of 13 coaches and then we provided over 370 individual coaching sessions as we opened school this past year to get everyone ready for pandemic teaching this here is an example of what it looks like in a normal school year when we are able coaches are able to use the e-box template and we can go through the school and the template itself measures a lot of things this specific example shows the depth of knowledge that was taking place in the classroom at the beginning of the year as opposed to the end of the school year and you can see that those numbers increased by the end of the school year and that was in part from some of the trainings that
008we did the critical thinking we can problem solve initiatives and weekly department meetup meetings where we focused on best practices you have this a copy of this where you can click through those links see more the next chart shows evidence of the impact that coaches have had on learn on student learning so the chart that you're looking at is a the first the the first 51 percent over there in the pre-pandemic that shows you a baseline of where we were may 2019 on our summit of assessment summative assessment is that end of the year test that we take every year so this particular graph shows charlestown middle school english overall sixth grade six seven and eight and their english scores on that summative test pre-pandemic they were scoring 51 proficient on average now the next
009bar shows you 40 so that that was an interim assessment an interim assessment kind of like it's a benchmark that assesses students on all of their grade level standards but they're assessing them before they've learned all their content so it's like a middle of the year kind of benchmark that kind of lets you see where you are at the time but we always anticipate a lower drop because they are assessing standards that have not been taught yet so we were happy with that 40 that was taken the week that we left school so right before we went out on march 13th for the pandemic so i'm including that as pre-pandemic data fast forward a year to february 2021 we chose to have the students at charlestown middle school go ahead and take that benchmark even
010though we had been in a remote setting for almost nine months we had we were take our students were taking this test remotely from their homes and we were happily um happy to see that the students did not drop 40 percent to 40 so despite all the pandemic um factors and everybody was talking about learning laws we saw through this that our students did not experience learning loss they maintained at 40 the same thing with the same area as the year before when we were pre pandemic we relate a lot of that to the impact of coaching because we spent so much time while we were virtual zooming together as content teams we didn't stop those plc's as you can see in february we got that 40 percent data so we dove deep into strategies
011we wanted to see what can we do to make these students grow so in three short months our students grew five percent which is big when you're looking at these types of standardized testing also including the fact that we had over 130 less students test this may versus last may because the state gave a waiver so we were really impressed with the performance of students at charlestown middle and really happy to relate that back to the coaching program another thing we'd like to point out is we're always looking at recruiting and retaining teachers here in jefferson county because we all know the struggles being a panhandle county with ordering two really high-paying counties well this chart or this infographic on the screen shows you an example of a recruiting we call it a tea time
012open zoom to recruit teachers from maryland virginia and west virginia to try to get them to come and want to work in jefferson county so as we did this open zoom and we talked to two newly graduated teachers from three states we found that they were really excited to find out that we had coaches in every building so that they would have ongoing support through those critical first years of teaching one-on-one co-teaching co-planning and plc so we believe that the coaching program is impactful to recruiting and retaining quality teachers in this county so in 2021 we had to adjust our normal coaching format so this slide just kind of highlights some of the things that we did to adjust what we usually do in coaching so that we can make sure we were still impacting
013teachers and teachers capacity so we held virtual open office hours that's where a coach falls onto a zoom call and just sits and any teacher can pop on and just ask a question but this was really powerful during the shutdown with teachers for learning to use these tech tools as they were teaching so this was really important we still offered one-on-one sessions small group sessions continued via zoom that's with content teams grade level teams we flipped our plcs and we turned them virtual so that people were comfortable but we didn't want to lose that impactful process of a plc which is a professional learning community so we turned those virtual we were all in the same building from our own classrooms and offices just zooming together we also implemented coffee chats those were district-wide zoom
014calls that were just informal where people could pop on sometimes we had live music hey helen's husband popped on some of those and played guitar for us we had different people join in but this was a way for our teachers across the county to network together share tips tricks and hacks that they were experiencing or they were having success with we also offered coaches offered administrative sessions for our administrators so they could learn and become familiar with these educational technology platforms and tools so that they could better keep it all in instruction because again we had never done this virtually so those are just some of our coaching formats that we offered over the past year this is an example of coaching venues and each coach within the program creates their own with their own
015little flavor but they're all based on gem night's impact cycle and you can see from both of these menus there's a lot of the same components as far as you know professional development feedback modeling support with differentiation data analysis things like that now with when i took over my role in march we started holding bi-monthly meetings with the coaches the elementary coaches and i had each coach kind of share their area of expertise in one area that is huge with the elementary coaches right now is that we are researching and finding information on the science of reading so we had sharon sigma sigley and kelly mckee do a presentation on that you can click through there and see the other presentations that we're given but one of the big things is the science of reading
016with that we have the county literacy team that another elementary coach leads and that team is looking at our ela curriculum adoption for the upcoming next year to the adoption and we are basing it on something that aligns with the science of grading we have the orton gillingham training that we had one cohort that just finished and a second cohort that just started this past week we also keep current with our technology based professional development and you can see those trainings there our secondary coaches have been participating in a half day session every single month so the first monday of every month the secondary coaches meet and what we're doing through this both of these sessions in the elementary and the secondary is we're trying to build coaching capacity because our coaching program is new
017and most of the coaches are new to coaching so we spend a lot of time talking about coaching cycles impact cycles effective coaching conversations to get teachers to to feel comfortable with you share their their concerns and their goals with you and we also work on learn teaching our coaches how to run effective professional learning communities within those schools you can click through and see all the details about those later so the coaching cycle that we use in jefferson county katie just touched on that is the gem night coaching cycle uh we we pitched jim knight's coaching impact cycle because the west virginia department of ed had launched that to the state coaching cohort about three years ago so we went ahead and went with his model it's a great model of simply identifying the
018problem picking a strategy learning that strategy and then we're observing or reflecting on whether or not that strategy works and it's just a cycle so when you hear us say the coaching cycle or the impact cycle that's what we're referring to so the scope of the impact of the coaching program on instruction in jefferson county schools is impactful you can see up at the top we made this little graphic to show you the core foundation of all of this is the county coaching program in the county coaching program we build capacity and our coaches we establish county level initiatives we set big picture goals and common area common practices across the board so that we can stay as a system we can see these specific things happening in all classrooms or math classrooms or science
019classrooms so the core of that is our county level coaching team and then we roll around the cycle to the bones the bonus is what we like to call the school the school is the bones of all this instruction so at the school let the coaches take their coaching practice and they implement it into a way that's differentiated for the building they're coaching in and at the school level coaching program that increases teacher capacity so that's where we increase student engagement we embed database reflection practices and we foster a school within a school model so the teachers are learning the students are learning so we call that school against school the administrators are learning in a well-rounded coaching program you'll have everybody coming to you i'll tell them this morning our counselors come down for
020coaching we've had the students and cooks come down for coaching and then once all of that is in place you'll see evidential outcomes the evidential outcomes are what we can see with our eyes we see increased student engagement we see teachers are more confident with their curriculum they design better pre-planned lessons that have pre-designed best practices built in and students are increasingly positive about their school experience so that's our the scope of the impact and the impact of the coaching program that we hope to continue on professional learning communities like we said we call that plc so we run two types of plcs in jefferson county strategy buddies plc's and database plcs strategy-based plcs are where we look on a walk-through and see what practices we need to start seeing across the board most of
021the time that's around student engagement we want students to be more engaged we want them to find their content relevant to their life and their future so that's where we launch strategies that help teachers learn how to connect those dots and that's how we see system-wide certain things happening or school-wide and then we have database plcs that's where we break teachers bring in student work we look at evidences of student learning through regular everyday work common assessments we also look at formative data as well as some of the data which we just showed you on that chart and then we start to dissect and dive down and find out root calls a root cause analysis and then we create action steps to mitigate those deficiencies here are some examples of the plcs that we have
022done the first chunk obviously this past school year the plcs were all virtual so you can click through the those on your own we also included some in-person ones that took place free pandemic so we had data sessions learning new strategies math teachers participated in an escape room the olc they had professional development on vocabulary and you can see all the teachers collaborating and working together so these teachers were learning and growing together we implemented a peer-to-peer professional development model which status shows that teachers will are better most likely to implement a strategy that they've learned in a peer-to-peer model versus going to a conference you can see teachers observing teachers teaching teachers in the classroom teachers teaching teachers so all of these pictures are teachers teaching teachers not teachers teaching students and it looks
023they're all actively engaged like we want to see our students so we're really excited about those models that we've brought to the county with the different content areas coaches stay current on best practices and we work with our teachers at the secondary level you're talking about the different departments and in elementary the general web teachers with all of the different subjects you can see the work that we've been doing in each of the content areas for k-12 also as i said before we stay current on the technology this past year you know we learned the g suite and our microsoft products we also have all of these other platforms that help increase student engagement and speaking of student engagement this coming school year we're going to be moving to a one-to-one and again the coaches
024coach teachers using unplugged and plugged strategies you can see over here a lot of the on the right hand side a lot of the student engagement activities that we have launched and taught our teachers we also have the teacher toolbox here as we talked about before all of those tutorials that the coaches created last full year are housed in that teacher cold box so you be sure to check that one out another key component this school year with everything being virtual were the class collaborative google classrooms and the coaches facilitated those and then teachers across the county worked together collaborated um creating lessons to help lift the load of everything going digital so these were some really great resources um with the google classroom and that collaboration we were also able to launch the cs
025repository which michelle will talk about yeah so we're super excited to launch the jefferson county school lesson repository this was created by jefferson county teachers and we are so proud of the end product this is a website that that's a google site that they can click on click on a specific grade level a specific content area and you can click there on that little link later and browse around but they we have lesson decks which are as it's basically sort of like a template and lesson design launch and you can edit and make it your own but you don't have to start from scratch the teachers in this county have already given you a skeleton of good lessons so the coaching team played a huge part in this we had to vet through a best
026practices quality check rubric and we spent probably three days looking at every single lesson that every teacher in this county submitted and what we came up with we're super proud of so that just launched to teachers at right before break so they can spend the summer looking we also offer payment for teachers to submit their lessons for um four lessons per year we add it to the repository so they're getting paid for work that they're already doing so everybody's bought in we're really proud of the jcs lesson repository um technology department jennifer rowan played a gigantic part in in this she created the website she was in the trenches with all of us also our programmatic coordinators that's tara mahoney maryland joel silver and kathy farrow they were there vetting lessons alongside of the coaches
027so a lot of people put a lot of work into this repository that we have now we have um i believe you've already heard about the lms adoption and how everything's going along with that but the coaches did play a role on a stakeholder committee of the proposed platforms three of the coaches uh we created tutorials and kind of led those teams through each of those platforms we have schoology desire2learn and canvas and as you know canvas was the one that we should switch off you have heard about that and you'll hear more about that as we go so we would like to thank you board members for your continued support of the coaching program we'd like to thank mr dilly for always attending all of our meetings he sits through our weekly meetings every
028single week and collaborates with us and it plays a huge role he always supports everything we try to do so we want to thank you board members and our co-workers and our coaches and all the teachers for all the support and um in your link we have added more slides so that you could click through and see more evidences of coaching and examples that we've provided for you you all have any questions i have a question or two questions okay did you only do benchmarks at charlestown middle so this year the state did not require us to do benchmarks so at charlestown middle school i know i think we were the only middle school to do a benchmark this year because we just wanted to see how we're done because we've put so much work
029into working with the students and working with the teachers so i think this year because it was not required charlestown middle was the only middle school that took it so we don't have data to compare it to county to school at school within the county so we're above state in um in our scores of the people who took the benchmark in the state as i said before it wasn't required so not everyone said okay so how how will you evaluate the effectiveness of the program objectively this new new year coming up we always look at the data then some of the data the formative data we also in a normal year we have district level instructional walkthroughs that we were not able to have this year what that means is twice a year the superintendent
030assistant superintendents programmatic coordinators and then other principals go around to the schools and they do what we call an instructional walk-through so they get random classrooms just to get a check on what's happening in the buildings they do a debrief with the schools and they give each school two to three things to work on so i have the coach is always involved in that and then the coach will take that along with their strategic plan and align all of the professional developments and professional learning communities to um to try to work towards those targets a little bit hampered because they didn't do the general summative assessment last year with the initial implementation of our full academic coach program but we are looking at also including that along with some additional measures such as dar but
031then we're also looking at i think the more meaningful piece which is the qualitative component of what the coaches do so much of what our coaches do are really involved in the support elements of making sure that our teachers feel that they have the resources and the tools to be effective in the classroom and as we all know the very big challenge that we have is associated with teachers leading the profession or never arriving in the profession and then with all of the alternative methods for licensure and certification nowadays it's more imperative than ever to have resources and tools to support folks in their first few years as well as both learning new initiatives and i think it's important to note that our academic coaches as an investment really pay off because we utilize them
032a great deal in our train to trainer models and they come in and do a lot of the training and support for the work that we do within the district thank you any other board members have um i just had a question do you guys have um like the coaching platforms as far as what happens um do you guys do the same things at every middle school have you worked on a you know kind of a cohesive every coach teaches this that not teaches the same way i mean i know they have their own flair but um have we gotten those platforms settled michelle yeah so we have like in our monthly professional development sessions that we talked about those are the times that we launch the things that we want to see happening in
033the buildings and then the coach will take that back spin it to meet the needs of their particular school because different schools might be at different levels as far as readiness for certain things but yes we that's what our goal is to have systematic every classroom every school has xyz in place so yes that's definitely something we do and that's our continued goal everybody also we meet with the cni department so the coordinators and school admin all that we're all kind of on the same page working together for a common goal yes so the coach katie and i attend the weekly cnn meetings the county leadership meetings we meet with mr dilling twice a week actually we'll pray three times a week maybe four times a week if we count all the meetings that we're
034in together so we're deep in the trenches with instruction in all aspects so and because we lead the coaches we make sure that the coaches get all the same information and we roll out through initiatives in those ways yes and to follow up on dr joy's question did charlestown do just ela data or did we do math and ela as well we did math in ela as well but we just added that spot a few hours before so i didn't have time or want to burden mr wink with one more data collection so we can provide that for you all at a later time but i didn't have time to get that ready for this presentation okay but the benchmarks do assess they assess math in english and then i'm pretty sure in eighth grade
035they assess science okay and then my last question was when you looked and showed the slide about the evidential outcomes um i think you did mention at the end that those evidential outcomes do do actually connect to data so that it's not just you know looking at what we're doing but if we have the goal at you know say the goal for the county is that all math scores increase by 10 or 20 percent or whatever do we have a way then to measure the data of how that's changing by number by number by number frankly per classroom that we could measure from the beginning to the end and check that to see if those outcomes are actually happening or if somehow maybe it's not getting through to one you know at one school or
036it is to the other how are we going to do that we have those things in place to begin from now to to catch that data we do so we click trend data um that's so that we can see over time how students do at that particular same group of students so at the middle school level for example we start looking at the kids when they're in fourth grade and then we see that they grow to fifth grade and then we get them at sixth grade so we wanna make sure that students are growing not just those average numbers we wanna see that individual students are increasing each year so if we start diving in and we start to see that say a specific grade level in a school in a specific content area is
037year after year after year scoring low then we know we need to go target that specific grade level give better strategies for that or if we see specific students through we so we have we will go and do um intervention for certain for those students so we have a wide range of data that we collect in responses to data that we go through at the school level so the principles dive really deep into dissecting that data and the coaches are alongside with them coming up with the action plans for that i also wanted to share some of the next steps that that we have in the works that um that coincide with the one-to-one initiative and our lms adoption is we're looking at a tool in the near future called mastery connect which would actually
038allow us to do a lot more tracking of data beyond just our math and ela because we have we teach a lot of different subjects but we know that those others have important roles to play as well so as we kind of get a little further along in our adoption and implementation of the lms we are looking at adopting that tracking tool and then developing benchmark assessments associated with our pacing guides and so we do have kind of a couple year plan here to try to really increase our data saturation to the point that we can really make some well-informed decisions and contract a lot better the performance of all of our students and all of our subjects following up on that mr dillon my last question would be then um i know several years
039ago we had looked at that and actually helped the teachers work together to create those pacing guides that we did not have before to be able to make sure that again we have the sameness in the school so if we have a student that moves from one to the other their learning is not interrupted have we been able to with the coaches make sure that those are being followed have they gotten have we gotten a little bit more detailed with that has it become a little bit more seamless it has improved we this year unfortunately obviously the primary challenge is just making folks accessible via virtual so we'll be picking that baton back up and making that a much more larger focus moving forward and that's where we're hoping to also connect the uh the
040master connect tool as we get forward that attaches with our lms so that we can also communicate to our parents as well with their performances and information as we move forward so we're hopeful that'll help pick up that uh piece and and moving forward back where we were headed prior to the pandemic sort of interrupting that work that we were headed on because we were working heavily towards trying to make some uniformity across the district with the pacing guides that this year we just sort of became sidetracked unfortunately all right thank you very much and thank you miss cantly to you and your team i know i've been over in your room at charlestown middle school and what you guys are doing is pretty impressive and it's a great support system for the teachers thank
041you thank you so much thanks thank you next up we have the deputy superintendent for instructional support yes uh good evening again i just wanted to just thank those two ladies those ladies go well above and beyond uh their walls to to help and support as well as many of the academic coaches and uh just have a couple quick announcements this evening uh that this will kind of also reinforce that message and the quality of work that they do on june 8th we initiated our implementation of the canvas program with our initial training for our academic coaches and what we're referring to is our canvas ambassadors and those include teachers from each school represented in the district and there were roughly 80 participants involved in the training and i want to thank those folks as
042you can imagine it's been an exhausting year for our folks and many of them stepped up and had a desire to jump in and get this training underway and so those 80 participants completed the three-day training and uh are actively engaged in building supports i want to commend them for uh now leading the construction of what they're referring to as a canvas tool box to support the full rollout here in the fall for our staff the campus toolbox currently is has supports and information and tools for teachers about setting up their courses and course layout course features and functions creating assignments creating modules creating a quiz creating the discussion uh grading and grade books advanced features and functions they also recorded nine of their trainings so that folks would have those accessible to them as
043well and two sessions on step-by-step guides and all they've already created since last week 33 tutorials available for our staff to be have access to to start beginning their summer they want to explore the new tools so we think they're going to be very well prepared in preparation for the initial implementation for canvas in the fall i also want to congratulate them on that work and know that they're going to do an excellent job and the final announcement i have this evening was just that we successfully kicked summer school experience off this morning with 777 students in attendance 424 were elementary and 353 or secondary students i just want to thank all the people involved in that setting those programs up and getting kids to and from and schools today and fed and from the
044schools that i visited today there's been a lot of very positive feedback seemed like a lot of the kids were very excited and happy to be participating in some more school this year so thank you guys thank you and um mr dilly really quickly i ran into somebody that went through the canvas training and she was really excited about it and you know all that it's going to do and this is going to replace live grades and you know a bunch of other things is it user friendly for parents that's my only question yes that is that was one of the criteria that we had when in the selection rubric we wanted to ensure and part of the focus groups as well as the teams that helped select the lms included parents and students so
045i think they're going to be very satisfied once they get through the basics of the program because one of the things it's going to do is simplify them with not having to go to multiple locations to get grades as well as communication from the staff so it should be simplifying their experience a great deal for them thank you and then just a quick shout out thank you to all of the staff because 777 children means a lot of teachers and bus drivers and janitors and aides and everything that goes with school those people turned around and came back after having the you know year that we've had so just thank you to all of them for finding it deep down to to come back and do this because it it's a lot so thank you
046to all of them all right next we have approval of the minutes and um just as a reminder that minutes are a record of board actions it's not an actual transcript of the meeting so we have on here action on approval of minutes for the regular board meetings held may 10th may 24 2021 and the special meetings held may 12th and june 2nd 2021. is there a motion to approve those minutes thank you mr osborne is there a second second thank you miss ogden any discussion all right all in favor of approving the minutes from may 10th 24th 12th and june 2nd say hi hi opposed thank you all right next up we have citizens comments and just as a reminder the purpose of public comment is to hear from the community about the work
047of our school system it's a forum for ideas about what's best for kids and to speak to loftier ideas this forum should be a safe and professional and kind space and please remember that each speaker is limited to three minutes so first up we have ken lowe followed by sandra christian and if you please come to the podium when it's your turn i know she's very timely don't thank very much allow me to be here as a believe sixth generation lifetime member of the shepherdstown community with two wonderful sons tripp and andrew three of us attended shepherdstown elementary shepherdstown i did in the middle school shepherdstown several grandchildren following the same paths i offer the following suggestions for consideration the elementary school near town means a great deal to our way of life in shepherdstown
048especially for these youngsters believing that many of the students attending to live within the town or close to the thought of busting these kids out of town raises concerned questions regarding preparation or preparing to leave home earlier and arriving home later coupled with weather and safety issues is this a logical decision it's one thing to drop off the kids locally as compared to driving them two miles twice a day or if they don't ride the bus perhaps they can get there some other way and i believe there are fifth graders it might even be possible to walk to school if it's where i tell you i think it should be as a developer a real estate broker has been involved with numerous projects around the town i might suggest build a new middle school first
049on the proposed flowing springs road site then retrofit the middle school to accommodate the new elementary facility where there's already an existing gym which you need or you'll have to build cost a lot of money and also osborne field is already there plus room for expansion place the valuable real estate property where the elementary school currently is located on the market for sale and use the proceeds for remodeling the school or whatever is needed for money or funding i'm estimating considerable dollars could be saved a new shepherdstown elementary school would remain close to town in a location that benefits all especially our youth as before if asked i would consider offering my experience and time to assist this matter again this is not criticism but merely a suggestion and perhaps public opinion could be welcomed
050going forward these youth are our future and if the reason for not wanting to consider this concept is because the bonds are committed for elementary school already i've been around enough projects to know that anything subject changed there's always a way to do it and as i understand from what i've read the architects have been chosen yet there's so many things you can do if you stay right where you are and if you do the infrastructure is already there the water suit there's no lift stations i think you can save millions of dollars if it's done this way and let me say this to you well you think things don't change you think things don't happen and you get you know not erupted you stay the same way that of course you're going let's think
051of three things that shepherdstown has happened has done been involved in history first of all the true birthplace of the steamboat the american in the world's industrial history was affected by what james rumsey did in december of 1787. he did that in our town on that river george washington formerly endorsed romney as the first successfully application of steam for navigation the second event that was made i'm sorry but that's your three minutes that was three minutes but thank you very much what you can do is leave the comments with ms martinez in three minutes i think you're watching fast complain to apple on that one is that what i thought somebody's going let me i have if i can say i have these in my able assistant uh mostly since andy kutcher has attached a
052business resume that's with us it shows on the project he's done so next up we have sandra christian and after miss christian we have daniel grant let me hand this to you sure i i won't take up all of my time and i'm going to yield the balance of my time to my parent uh miss branton um i don't think we're allowed to yield time are they on i'm sorry ms grant she's on youtube she's miss branton and this grant correct okay whenever you're ready um so my name is sandra christian i am the mother of a alumni from jefferson high school mother and aunt from jefferson high school alumni and i'm also the grandparent of jefferson county students so i feel what i say today i have a stake in the decisions that are
053being made here so i'm speaking on behalf of the black math genius program that the board had some issues with and i do want to correct one thing um there was a speaker that came on may 24th that spoke about the executive order 13950 i just want to remind her that that uh executive order was rescinded and so that is uh combating offensive and anti-american race and sex stereotyping and scapegoating so that's been rescinded and um so as she quotes it um i i just want her to make sure that she's quoting the the right thing so the question is how do we make this right and the numbers are not going down as far as the numbers affecting our students and if they who just happen to be african-american and i brought along my
054grandson here because it directly affects him one of the things that we need to understand as we're making decisions decisions have consequences consequences carry emotions so when the when the decision to cancel the program happened the students said i'm not surprised as board members that should trouble you uh we fear what we don't understand um and then we have a tendency of filling in the blocks blocks with our own biases and i caution you because as you say no to something that you don't understand that is abuse of power um but if if you bring us a problem we bring you a solution and that will shut down i just want to remind you our children are watching how we handle this and how we move forward this will reflect on their future the math
055numbers speak for themselves and my parent will speak to those numbers in in a moment but um people remember how you made them feel so as you sit and you make these decisions remember that there's oh behind these decisions there is a face there's a child that this affects several children in the community that it affects um that's all that i have yes and after daniel grant's heather murray all right well good evening my name is danielle grant and there was a board meeting that took place on june 2nd i was planning to attend virtually however i was unable to attend because the link i was given was no longer correct it's to my understanding the link was changed however the meeting has not been posted on the jefferson county board of education site will
056this information be released to the public since we're not given the up since we were not given the updated link to attend it is important to have this information shared because of the pertinent information given about the black math genius program and the history of jefferson county as it relates to educational segregation which would shed light on the current achievement gap we have in our county is there anyone anyone who would be willing to shed light on why this meeting was not made available to the public next the communication that was sent out about the black math genius program was not consistent nor made available to every student certain schools chose not to share the information because of their own beliefs on the program which is doing a disservice to the students who we help
057communication about the black mass genius program professional development was not shared with parents either therefore they missed the opportunity to learn more about the program this could have provided clarity on what the purpose of the program was and why there's a need for it it was interesting to me that we had no members of the board present at the professional development yet i have read in media outlets that certain board members have a problem with the program in order to have a better understanding we must educate ourselves on unfamiliar topics unless we are not concerned with getting clarity and understanding as a parent i felt highly disrespected that the people who are supposed to make the decisions for my child's education did not care enough to be in the room to learn the benefits of
058the program for this particular subgroup of children who are performing extremely lower than the other subgroups in the county once the decision was made to abandon the black math genius program we were not notified as parents i was made aware of the decision on jefferson county perspective facebook page june 9 2021 which shouldn't have happened because this is a media outlet this raises my concerns for me because as a media outlet was privy to information that'll affect my child prior to the school board counting me contacting me so i asked who on your team would have been given this information and carelessly share it with the media without regard for the children and parents that the program was designed to help the members of the school board have an obligation to provide services for every
059child in the county and when one particular subgroup is performing substantially lower than the others whose job is it to step up and say hey this subgroup is struggling and we need to get them assistance i know that we as a county can do it because it was proven to be done when we offered the english learner summer camp in the summer of 2018. the 25 participants in that program were also able to participate in stem related activities as a parent i'm having a hard time understanding the difference identifying the need to provide assistance to that particular subgroup and the need to get additional assistance for the subgroup who's doing the worst in mathematics when i was finally notified of of the board canceling the program or postponing the program on june 10 2021 i
060was disheartened to know that it was because of legal issues this is what was stated by dr sean dilley at the professional development i'm confused as to why this would be a legal issue considering there was no legal issues when the program rolled out for registration i have also heard things circulated from other parents about particular subgroups not feeling the advertisement was inclusive to all students ma'am yes i'm sorry that's your time if you want to leave your statement with ms harness i did okay thank you so next is heather murray followed by carmen bratton good evening everyone i'm heather murray public school educator and mother of five three of who are current students with jefferson county schools i'm here this evening on behalf of my children and any child who looks like me as
061an educator we're trained to make database decisions and to deliver data-based instruction we collect we analyze and we respond to data on a daily basis to meet our students needs the data for jefferson county schools it shows that our african-american subgroup are underperforming in the area of mathematics and i believe that this is an urgent area of need in education we have ieps they address the needs of students with learning disabilities or behavior disorders we have 504 plans they address the needs of children with medical concerns we have el programs and they address the needs of our students who do not speak the english language all of these initiatives provide equity and education an opportunity for students to access a free and appropriate education in 1937 the supreme court declared that the concept of general
062welfare is not static what's critical or urgent changes with time the black math genius program was a response to a critical or urgent need and due to social media posts and commitment to misunderstandings our children now have to be put on hold so how are we as educators being responsive to the data in a responsible way how are we giving equity to a subgroup with an urgent need furthermore as a parent i'm going to share with you my own personal experience with my son who was a 2020 graduate as a senior in high school he had an extremely difficult time passing math my husband and i had to hire a private tutor the instructor she was mathematically genius however she lacked the ability to make math relevant to him an african-american male this school year
063my ninth grade daughter as a freshman started in jva had the same exact teacher and she struggled more than my son did until the black teacher association paired her with mrs ragambi that's when math began to make sense to her because she was being educated by someone who understood her unique struggle and her needs she improved and she ended the school year with an a lastly my youngest son is a fifth grader he had veronica morris at drizzwood elementary school a person of color who he could relate to personally and she challenged him appropriately and held him accountable so for the education i just want to ask you how are you serving my children or best meeting their needs by postponing or delaying the start of a program that data shows is an area of
064critical need [Music] next up is carmen bratton followed by george rutherford good evening my name is carmen bratton and i want to thank jefferson county for creating the coaches program that we just heard about however our proficiency rates especially in math are low as we all know it will be very nice if your coaches that we just heard from could come together supporting our black math geniuses program as well as our board and our community because in community we have unity we need this unity we need to come together because this math program is not only for our black children but however it was created for our black children because of the low numbers here in the state of west virginia for our math numbers we are tied 48th out of 50 states for low
065math we are 49th out of 50 states for low education and poor education we all know this this is everywhere we look the numbers are there the these numbers came from the board proficiency rates for blacks in jefferson county is 25 percent asian is 53 percent hispanics 32 percent multi-racial is 36 percent native american as 53 percent our pacific islanders as 57 percent whites or caucasians or 46 percent and the in this proficiency rate white students are performing 80 better than other students in our county so as we can see these numbers none of these numbers are good so please don't think that because we have some some that are at 57 or 46 these numbers are not good because that means on the other side of those numbers we have that many students who
066are not performing at standard really so once again i would just ask that we be able to come together for all of our children to make this happen because once again there is no there is no unity in community if we can't come together and show our children that this is what is needed and it and it was said before and it is true this is an urgent situation this isn't something that we should uh sit around and marinate in for the next four five six months this is urgent we need this now because just like the parent before me said i had a son who graduated in 2017 who struggled in math from the 7th grade through the 12th grade i'm almost finished and it's and he he actually graduated from berkeley county where
067he still struggled so it's the state of west virginia so we need to come together thank you thank you next we have george rutherford and he's virtual and after mr rutherford we have richard urban mr rutherford can you hear us mr rutherford if you're speaking we can't hear you can you hear me oh now we can hear you okay all right whenever you're ready i am here to support the parents to hear the children sign up for the black mass genius program that was cancelled at the last minute it's a shame and disgrace that the parents were unaware of it until the last minute and then they have to find out about it through someone else's facebook page there is no excuse for this to happen it claimed it was a legal problem since the
068program has been in use in other counties why didn't the legal staff check this out they had plenty of time at least four weeks they knew about it and nothing was done about it the naacp feel that some board members are intentionally sabotaging to providing a fair and equal education for our students in academy and i repeat that as president of the jefferson county naacp i feel that some school board members are intentionally sabotaging the providing of fair and equal education for all of the students in the county the same as in 1954. we believe strongly that there was a program for african-americans funded by the county to learn how to store football to shoot a basketball or make free throws there'll be no problem at all funding it and supporting it i just want
069to make sure that the nwacp support these parents and we do not believe that all of the school board members this way thank you next up we have richard urban and he's virtual as well mr urban can you hear us mr urban we can't hear you if you're speaking okay can you hear me now yes sir whenever you're ready okay all right i'll get started okay i'm richard irvin i'm the here in jefferson county i'm the father of two children yeah i'm also one a comment of the black med genius program the four-week program is to cost some 63 000 plus dollars that's over 1100 per student and the cost that parents can purchase blackmail genius program online is 249 so it's less than one quarter of the cost taxpayers are paying there are however
070several issues with bringing the black matchings just kind of public schools first recruitment for the program began before the school board approved prior to the program teaching positions for program were posted without school board approval there's little input from the community with only one virtual special school board meeting for discussion program the founder of the black man genius program assata moore has said that black children are intentionally not taught math properly it's highly debatable that black children are intensely singled out receiving peer education in a video on facebook she says that the school public schools are systemically racist it is true that in some school systems such as if columbia for instance black children often fear poorly but is this because of systemic racism if so we must conclude that the mostly black teachers mostly
071black administrators in district columbia are systematically racist he's clearly a false premier we see that the jefferson county school board we see them working to introduce programs not only very expensive but where the program founder believes in systemic racism these ideas are the same as those of critical race theory and derived from a marxist communist point of view hai where formerly the workers who pit against capitalists now one race put against another jefferson county school should stick to teaching subjects in a way it does not introduce mark's ideology critical race theory this theory is false we're all created by god a service from penn state we're down by a crater with certain enamel right or are we to go back to the segregation no let's catch up categorically reject that approach let's not forget that
072the intact family structure and parental support not rape is the most important factor in student success the jefferson county board of education would be well advised about policies that recognize this fact those of you who graduate from high school get a full-time job and don't have children before marriage before age 21 are 10 times less likely to live in poverty mr urban please um let's just stick to the topic here and not well i'm talking about students anyway they're 10 times less likely to um you know grow up in poverty so that's an important thing for students success and well-being you know emotionally children living with their prince of mother and boyfriend or six sons or like these physicists mr urban you've really gone off topic and your time is actually up but thank you
073for joining us this evening let's reject this okay moving on to the consent agenda yes ma'am is miss luring with us this evening miss lauren is with us this evening and we do have some changes to the consent agenda we need to delete number 48 number 91 number 101 number 124 number 138 as it's a duplication and i do madam chair when you're ready have some folks to introduce to you this evening [Applause] um um there was one other one that was to be determined is that filled in on this copy there is a tba position and i do have a candidate to introduce to you this evening for that position so mr flooring would you like to make her introductions right now i'm going to make the introductions it will just have a little
074change in the room and then she can come join us would you like that name now that would be great okay number 47 is going to be brandon caton this evening the first introduction i'd like to make is for the deputy superintendent of instruction our recommendation is mr david banks it is my pleasure to introduce mr banks who earned a bachelor of science in secondary education from wvu in 1989 and a master of arts in education administration in 1993. in his and i believe i have this right 32nd year of teaching for educating he started his career as a teacher with experience in michigan wisconsin morgan county and i believe you have some experience in jefferson county schools i do yes he began his career as administrator as the principal of warm springs middle school
075in morgan county under his leadership the school earned the distinction of a west virginia school of excellence and obtained the highest sat9 scores in the state at that time mr banks was responsible for developing a student mentoring program utilizing community members during his tenure as principal he then moved on to the morgan county central office where he was director of curriculum instruction child nutrition and attendance working in this capacity he began coordinated community efforts to address truancy developed a new teacher academy to help minimize effects of excessive teacher turnover and increased meal participation while improving the nutritional value of meals he then became assistant superintendent as and the director of personnel in morgan county schools and in this role he organized a community group that addressed the issue of teacher retirement and retention or recruitment
076and retention pardon me maintained appropriate certification for employees and supervised all directors in that central office in july 2017 he was named morgan county's superintendent his successes while superintendent include improving student achievement despite declining revenue and increased poverty rates he created a k-12 program to address student social emotional and mental health needs developed an administrative training module for future school administrators and passed an excess levy after it had failed previously at the end of his 10-year superintendency mr banks was selected as west virginia superintendent of the year in 2017. with his wealth of experience and kid first mentality mr banks comes to us with many skill sets to share in our districts it is my pleasure to introduce you to mr david banks we'll have him say a few words it is an honor and
077a privilege to be standing in front of you tonight i did start my teaching career in jefferson county as a teacher at shepherdstown junior high i filled in for a teacher who had left at a point in the year came in and taught seventh and eighth grade science uh absolutely loved that but i always promised myself that when when i graduated from college i was going to see the world so i moved to michigan and tennessee and eventually came back to west virginia my wife and daughter still live in berkeley springs and i've been doing the math and it's about seven more miles of a commute so it's definitely worth the the additional miles i i just am very excited to be here i am uh just 100 percent about doing what's best for kids
078and i know that this district is that's that's what you're about so i appreciate uh your confidence in me and i hope that i can continue to do what you're already doing in jefferson county i know that uh mr dilly is a hard one to replace and uh hopefully we can spend some time together prior to his departure to the other side of the world and i think that's all appreciate it thank you very much welcome home thank you thank you very much all right is there a motion to approve the amended consent agenda second thank you mr cable thank you mr osborne any questions um is this discussion time for the whole consent agenda yes yeah i have several um i wanted to pull number 42 and 47 the director of operational safety and
079facilities i don't i don't recall proving that do you do you know when it was approved it doesn't require board approval because it's not a new position the director position was already in the budget it was a realigned position from the attendance director um i think that that was though recreated i mean it was a new position no it's a realign position so the board does not approve realign position because they already exist in the budget so the director was approved by the board when it was the attendance director so it doesn't require board approval to create that position yeah i don't know about that one and then um yeah i don't know um and then number 42 i would like to discuss that in the executive session and then i have a question about
080the uh finance just curious about the workforce is that um unemployment and are these people that were rifted or it's 21 000 for workforce do you know what that is anybody there that would be a beth question and that's probably our page just the unemployment payment that we have to make all them i don't think it's necessarily i think it's just a routine right based on the amount of payroll that we have so um right now there's a motion on the floor to approve the consent agenda and you are asking that that motion being rescinded um yeah i would like to discuss number 42 is anyone interested in rescinding the motion okay so the motion stands as is right now with um including everything with the um amendments that were made initially so going over
081this as i stepped outside oh yes ma'am it was the redlined ones and then number 48 okay number 91. and then the introduction of this banks and then there was a so the motion on the floor is currently to approve the consent agenda with the initial amendments of number um the redlined ones number 48 adding mr caton to number 47 91 101 124 138 138 138 138 all in favor of that motion say aye moving on to unfinished business a request approval for a vendor for carpet replacement and that's part of the school bond project is that correct yes it is a school bond project and this evening i ask you except our recommendation for the carpet replacement in select schools which is a bond project uh the recommendation i have for you is sherman
082williams with a bit of forty six thousand two hundred ninety four dollars and eighty cents and that's the only person we got bids from that is correct and that was been two times that has come in under bid i didn't know they did carpet they're doing they're doing a carpet replacement they're doing tile yes they're doing diet okay all right is there a motion to approve the vendor for the carpet replacement as for the bond sherwin-williams thank you mr osborne is there a second second thank you ms joy any questions all in favor of approving sherwin-williams for the carpet replacement say hi next we have the request for approval for a vendor for the charlestown middle school asphalt track repair bond project this evening i ask you except our recommendation for jefferson asphalt with a
083bit of forty one thousand three hundred fifty dollars to make the repairs at charlestown middle school to the track all right is there a motion to approve charlestown middle school asphalt track repair with jefferson asphalt thank you mr osborne is there a second so again thank you mr cable any discussion joyce they're going to actually grind up some of the base before they put okay they're going to mill that up they're going to build it up thank you you're welcome and can i ask you um were we close or will we not close as far as our um budget for that we're under for the budget okay and that vendor last time had a breach of contract and they've gone through training to properly perform yes ma'am they have fulfilled that requirement okay all right
084so there's a motion on the table to accept jefferson asphalt as the charlestown middle school asphalt track repair for the bond project all in favor opposed thank you all right item c request approval for a vendor for two hvac rtus and that's part of the bond project at branson yes this evening i'm going to ask that you accept our recommendation of shenandoah air conditioning and heating with a bit of 20 960 to replace the two hvac units at ransom that is a bond project as well all right is there a motion to approve shenandoah air conditioning and heating or the replacement of the two hvac units at ransom elementary schools for the bond project thank you mr cable is there a second second thank you mr osborne any discussion or question glad we got more
085than one bid on that me too everybody must be pretty busy you think they are it's feast or famine right now and is that going to be done in a reasonable time frame i know those hvac units actually are going to be ordered and there is a lead time for that this however is a two-day project it can be done over a weekend the units that are being replaced are still operational so it's not there's not a sense of urgency with it all right so there's a motion on the table to exception to air conditioning and heating is the vendor for the two hvac units for ransom elementary school all in favor say aye opposed thank you all right next we have request approval for the recommended architect for the new ransom and shepherdstown elementary
086schools yes ma'am school districts before i make the recommendation just to let you know are required to comply with west virginia code 5d 5g-1 regarding the procurement of architectural and engineering services so once we recommend an architect this evening we're only then allowed to begin negotiations so i have listed our top three recommendations for architects once we would go to recommendation one which is cmm if we're unable to negotiate a contract price with them then we leave that architect we may not return to them we would go to the second recommendation of mckinley if unable to negotiate a contract we leave them can't return to them and then we would negotiate negotiate with a third recommendation of thrasher this evening i do have the recommended architects with us and i would like them since it's
087such a large project and we're recommending them for both schools to allow them to introduce themselves to you and to our public and then ask you for a motion to accept our recommendation i'd like to introduce allegra phoenix and she is the project manager at zmm if you'll come to the podium allegra and with her is bill shelton their civil engineer randy jones sends his regret regrets as he's had a death in the family or he would be with us so i will let them go ahead and jason should be putting a powerpoint up for us here he comes now all right thank you jason you can advance to the next slide please all right um some of you may know us as odopr we were the ones to put your cefp together uh zmm
088eight months ago bought odor pr and so we just said it's still the same great team just more of us zmn was founded in 1959 the corporate office is in charleston west virginia and then our other offices are in blacksburg virginia and martinsburg west virginia and i'm in the martinsburg office our team is built around designing schools in west virginia and we are a full service ae firm and we have 50 plus right now we have about 60 employees with our interns full service and we have everything in house so we don't have to rely on consultants unless it's a special something especially like a food service consultant or something like that and our entire team is focused on building planning design and construction of your projects please advance so a little bit about our
089team we have 12 registered architects 12 professional engineers randy jones who i'm sure you all are familiar with will be the project manager he'll be the face that you will see at board meetings at presentations allegra will be our assistant project manager since she's in martinsburg up here she can be attending meetings and really taking care of the projects well and then the way we broke it down because we have two projects we have two teams we have two architects registered architects hunter and kyle we have our specification writer then two interior designers to help out myself and another one of our civil engineers will take care of site design so we have two separate teams to make sure each project gets the attention that it needs next slide please cmm has designed over 300
090educational projects and i thought i found it interesting that in the last five years yemhim has designed 15 new elementary schools so on average we're doing a new three new elementary schools each year so we're lucky to have jefferson county have to let those be two of them in the surrounding counties of berkeley frederick county virginia warren county virginia we have designed over 14 new k-12 schools and completed countless other renovation addition projects and we have an extensive experience working with west virginia school building authority next slide please so in our next steps we hope that tonight will be approved to begin negotiations and if those are successful we've already been working some with the design teams for each school on the educational specifications if selected we will continue and finalize those for each school
091with their appropriate design committees once we have those specs that becomes our framework or the skeleton that we'll start to build from then we do a concept design start to put some some meat on the bones as it were and once the each design committee feels comfortable with that we'll bring that to a schematic phase design which is about a third of the way through the project and then we would bring that to the school board for you all to look at and review and get a good comfort level with if there's some changes we need to make we'll do that and then the next step would be to take that to the school building authority for a schematic design phase and that would be repeated for each the design development which is about two-thirds
092of the way through and then construction documents ready to bid we also have construction administration in-house and also our engineers and architects who do the design also gets come out to the project on an as-needed basis for example i would come out as their breaking ground getting things going just to make sure that the design is being followed to assist the project managers assist allegra and doing the construction administration to make sure you get a good product at the end and you get what you're paying for and what you're asking for so thank you for your consideration quick question on that last slide we do have a few extra hoops and loops to go through because of the fact that the school building authority gave us this extra seven million dollars towards our project is
093that correct yes and they are well versed in taking those steps with the sba so we have partnered our our sba representative is joyce van gelder so she has been with us uh through this process of hiring an architect and she'll continue to be with us and with cmm and work with all of us in um as we pursue in new schools okay thank you good question yes ma'am um miss white i i was wondering why you chose zn then i didn't see anything a committee a committee chose zmm and our committee chose cmm first of all i want to say that we had very qualified architects we were very fortunate that to our soq all of the architects were well qualified and it was a difficult decision because they were so well qualified we
094chose zmm for the very reason that they've told you that they are a full-service architect meaning it's one-stop shopping for us so if i want to talk to a civil engineer i don't need to talk to the architect who calls the civil engineer who tells the civil engineer to call us back because bill is already on board so that makes it much easier because they're able to coordinate they're able to work together and plan together as a team they're large enough that they are able to provide us two full teams to be able to work on each project for each school are the costs comparable because there's none listed we can't list the cost per the west virginia code that i quoted to you we are not allowed to enter into negotiations until the board
095recommends an architect and then we can enter into negotiations and if we can't reach them then zmm has has a shot at it and if we say no deal then we would go to mckinley that we chose second and if we can't make a deal with mckinley in negotiations we go to our third selection thrasher so per west virginia code i can't give you a price because i'm not allowed to ask for a price until they're approved and on board thank you you're welcome it's a crazy way of doing it it is and once you move on to one you can't you cannot go back so it's it's crazy but all right so is there a motion to approve um the recommended architect for the ransom and shepherdstown elementary schools as cmm thank you mr
096osborne is there a second thank you thank you mr candle any other questions or comments yeah we're going to get a better deal because we're doing two schools at the same time it would behoove [Laughter] [Music] going at the them time and it's close together you're not gonna have to travel a lot every day from berkeley to virginia i i trust miss white and her team to negotiate and get us the best deal possible indeed just you know keep saying bogo just slip that in whenever you can i will i know we have your back all right so there's a motion to approve cmm as the ransom shepherdstown elementary school architect to be negotiated with all in favor say aye aye opposed very much thank you all right next new business action on approval for
097outside organizations within jefferson county to use jefferson county school buses yes we're coming before you tonight to ask that you know every year outside organizations asked to use our school buses this year being no different but we have worked with outside organizations and our contract with them to make sure that that does not interfere with any of our summer experience programs so uh the names that you see on the list tonight all understand that they need to coordinate with transportation mr willingham in order to take trips so i bring these names for you tonight and await your motion on the recommendation all right is there a motion to approve the outside organizations within jefferson county to use the jefferson county school buses thank you miss ogden is there a second thank you mr cable any
098questions or discussion all in favor of approving the outside organizations within jefferson county to use the jefferson county school buses say i i oppose all right thank you all right number 12 were there any superintendent comments this evening uh mr dr dilly and i do have some comments for you this evening and i'll start with a great comment we want to congratulate the jefferson high school girls track and field they are 2021 state champions so congratulations to all the ladies on the team for their hard work and i just want to echo what dr dilly said about summer school and the kickoff uh everybody had a heavy lift coming out of pandamic for summer school and i just want to say that there was a lot of teamwork around here last week and a lot
099of teamwork this morning many of us at central office went out to schools to make sure that it started successfully and the children were well the staff were well they were excited to begin and we had a great kickoff today of that program and then dr dilly has a few comments to make in his area yeah just i think it's important to address one of the primary concerns that was brought out this evening and i heard some misconceptions and i think it's important that we address those quickly there was a i know we have unfortunately made some missteps in supporting a specific subgroup of our population and our with our black math genius program but i think it's important we share our commitment to serving that community and serving them and we are planning to
100get that right i know this evening we heard the terms canceled and abandoned and we haven't abandoned or cancelled the program we are just looking at ways that we can move forward that it supports us in a way that we don't run into some of the same challenges that we've ran into currently because we do recognize the numbers that the parents count about and those those numbers equate to children and we have an important point piece that we want to make sure that we find the right ways forward so that we are playing the long game on behalf of our kids here in the county and as we have these courageous conversations i would just say that being kind to each other is very important and i appreciate the citizens and their comments very much
101as do you and uh just the reminder to be kind to one another and speaking of being kind not to take anything away from the jefferson girls track team but i do believe that washington high school had a first place male pole vaulter frankie amore thank you so much we do not want to slate them congratulations frankie what an accomplishment and i don't know unfortunately if there were any other individuals that did well but that i did see that one out there so i wanted to make sure we caught that one and if we do miss any we'll come back and absolutely recognize them next meeting absolutely and hopefully at some point we'll actually be able to have the students here to recognize them in person at some point that would be wonderful it would
102we do have an executive session this evening regarding property and legal we don't anticipate or there will be no action okay thank you very much is there a motion to go into executive session for property and legal with no action anticipated thank you mr osborne is there a second thank you mr kavan all in favor say aye um