001good evening welcome to the regularly scheduled meeting of the jefferson county board of education on monday april 26 2021 if you please join us for the pledge i pledge allegiance to the flag of the united states of america due to the republic for which it stands one nation under god indivisible with liberty and justice for all all right madam superintendent do you have any comments for us this evening um as uh ms harner was discussing graduation um i just wanted to ensure that the board was aware of all the efforts that we're making to get out information regarding graduation and all of the different events that we are holding um just because they're slightly different this year and um so for parents to be aware we've sent this information uh out we also have on
002our website of documents that answer those questions a q a as well as a video to show parents how the ceremony is going to proceed but essentially each high school is holding number one a drive-through event the student government bodies at both schools said they very much enjoyed that last year as you all know anytime you do something that kids love you just you keep doing it um and that will include the same signs with their you know pictures and congratulations graduates they'll conduct the parade and then we'll give them those signs uh afterwards for their families to put in their yard um in addition to that we are also holding live graduations for both high schools at shepherd university uh utilizing the same safety protocols that shepherd university is using and that were approved
003by dhhr and those involve the elements of a traditional graduation in a different configuration so uh this the ceremonies are really uh split into two separate portions uh portion one is the traditional ceremony in which there are speeches by the president there's the poem there's the music there are the students sharing is seeing from their classmates all of those elements of graduation the students are physically present for that event and for parents it is live streamed to them so that they can watch the ceremony with their child remotely once that portion of the ceremony is done every senior is provided a timed ticket for six people in their families so they will proceed from the the first portion the commencement portion of graduation at butcher center we have two separate uh locations either frank center
004or wellness center people are assigned to each one of them they are both handicapped accessible they both have the same setup they are set up with diplomas and the stage and a professional photographer their families will enter with them on a timed ticket they will see them pick up their diploma they will walk across the stage they will get those pictures and then we'll have a staging area where families can get their pictures with their graduate and their diploma in their robes regalia cords um there is as we stated there answers to uh questions folks might have on the website i've gotten a couple of emails about handicap accessibility about just timing and location please feel free to email us if there's anything that's uh unclear and we're very very happy and excited that we're
005both going to be able to do the drive through graduation that they enjoy as well as a live graduation and again i can't say enough kudos huge kudos to shepherds university for supporting getting this done facilities logistics and the staff support that they always provide us for security and parking and cleaning all of which is invaluable so thank you thank you all right next we have the report of the deputy superintendent of operations ms joyce white oh miss white i believe you're muted you would be correct do you think sorry about that good evening board members and dr gibson the good news is we're zooming a little bit less so it's not a habit anymore to unmute i have a great update for you all this evening beginning with our sba needs grant award which
006was decided on by the west virginia board of education last week on april 19 2021 and they approved us for the amount that we asked for which is seven million five hundred and eight thousand six six hundred sixty eight dollars this will enable us to add an additional three million seven hundred fifty four thousand three hundred and dollars to each of our new schools at ransom and shepherdstown elementary school the next steps in the process late last week the sba let us know that we may now advertise for an architect so i will be bringing that before the board on the next board agenda we may be able to choose one architect for both schools or to choose two architects one for each school so i'd like the board to be thinking about that as
007we move toward the next board meeting once we have an architect chosen we will begin planning and the design phase for our two new schools these projects according to sba timelines are estimated to take between 27 to 30 months to finish after we hire an architect so all good things ahead jefferson high school turf field the project was awarded last week two companies that were on a national cooperative purchasing contract were invited to bid so this did not come before the board we chose the alternate route asking for a cooperative national contract we did so because there are two major companies that provide turf in the united states and so we selected these two companies as i said the committee reviewed many criteria after we left the planning and design phase and um safety and
008performance were the highest rank criteria in choosing these companies for this field i do want to say it was neck and neck because both companies are good companies the bid was ultimately awarded to astroturf the contract includes maintaining a g g max rating of 130 for the length of the field and the gmax is the safety rating per cube for the turf fields in planning the future for such a large investment the contract was developed to include a groomer for regular field maintenance and replacement of any asphalt impacted by construction at the cost of the contractor astroturf not only won the bid package based on the weighted rubric including safekin performance they also had the added bonus of being the less expensive the two bids astro turf came in at 950 851 and field turf
009at one million ninety three thousand four hundred and eleven dollars wildwood middle school athletic fields continue to show quite a lot of progress this week the game field at wildwood middle school is slated to have the sod installed after the sod is on the game field we'll begin the concrete work and then the bleachers and goal posts will be installed the practice field while we are installing the sod on the game field this week is being brought to grade before we can install the sod there the tennis courts at washington high school which is another bond project and i will add that wildwood middle school athletic fields as well as the turf field arbonne projects the tennis fields at washington and jefferson high school or the tennis fields excuse me the course are due to
010be resurfaced and painted with all new standard post assembly and nets this will occur in july the american tennis corporation was awarded that bid on a national purchasing cooperative contract they submitted a bid for 52 425 for jefferson high school for washington high school they submitted a bid of fifty three thousand four hundred thirty two dollars and fifty cents the job is estimated to take two to three weeks at each of our facilities they'll do one school at a time so we should be finished with that project in six weeks to bring you up to date on our sba project for ta lowry elementary school for the hvacs the west virginia board of education granted a request we made to extend the major improvement grant award and this was due the extension for a year
011was due to the upcoming expiration date and the fact that during the pandemic we had to defer that project uh given that it came in over budget significantly to the tune of four hundred thousand dollars and when it was rebid two hundred thousand dollars so due to this uh reason we have reduced the scope of work and we intend on completing the project this summer uh the project is currently out for rebid another bond project uh the smaller bond projects that we're going to tackle this summer includes um carpet to tile it is out for advertisement advertisement now in select schools bric repair at blue ridge campus is receiving quotes c.w shipley's awning is kind of in a design phase we're asking for rendering so that the awning is safe long-lasting and fits the design
012of the school charlestown middle school asphalt is on the board agenda for this evening we'll be doing some repairs there and the two ransom hvac units are going to be put out to bid this week we're in the process of converting water fountains in the schools it's taking some time to complete this project due to delay in the shipping of the bottle filled patients so it will be an ongoing project all middle and high schools currently have some bottle fill stations three elementary schools currently have them installed so we're going to work to ensure that all schools have some bottle fill stations prior to adding additional bottle fill stations to schools that already have a second place in technology i'm extremely pleased to announce that we've received 1700 plus shipment of chromebooks which have arrived
013since the last board meeting and have been distributed to schools we're awaiting approximately 3 300 more they should be coming shortly and this will complete our one-to-one initiative in grades three to twelve we do have our k-2 devices on order in child nutrition on wednesday april 14th wildwood middle school students along with claire webb and kathy lloyd enjoyed the company of our new child nutrition director dylan bites in a farm to school project the project included the organization and planning of four vertical garden structures the structures were assembled over spring break by ffa students and community members the team was awarded funding from the shenandoah potomac garden council in the form of a thousand dollar grant from vertical garden and supplies this is a small project but the team at wildwood middle school has a
014gold one day soon being able to provide the school's nutrition program with fresh vegetables and herbs from their very own garden so we'll be excited to watch that garden grow mr bites will also be implementing the fresh fruits and vegetables program at two schools north jefferson and ransom students will begin participation this friday and will participate again in may on the 14th the goal of the program is to introduce students to fresh fruits and vegetables to include new and different varieties and to increase overall acceptance and consumption of fresh unprocessed produce among our children finally i want to congratulate heather pindell transportation supervisor on her selection as the new service personnel of the year heather's leadership in our transportation department and community service in jefferson county are second to none i also want to take
015time to congratulate jennifer fogle from shepherdstown middle school who is the new teacher of the year there were excellent staff members nominated this year all deserving honor and recognition that concludes my update for this evening thank you very much miss white and um you just glossed over a little bit the funding that we got from the sba i just want to just reiterate how great that is because of the fact that you know the staff here really worked hard and put a lot of effort over the years doing the cefp and putting the project together and then doing the presentation to the sba and you know being fully funded that's that that's a lot so congratulations thank you all right approval of minutes is there a motion to approve the minutes from the regular board
016meeting held april 12 2021 and the special meeting held april 20th 2021 which was the reconvened march 22nd 2021 meeting thank you miss ogden is there a second thank you mr osborne any discussion on the minutes all in favor of improving the minutes from april 12th and april 20th say aye opposed thank you all right citizens comments this evening we have several citizens comments and the first one up is judy price and while we're bringing up miss price i'll just remind everybody that you are limited to three minutes and i will get my timer ready for when this price gets ready to start and after miss price is karen buck now i've got two questions well you have three minutes to for both of them total yes ma'am that's not right miss price are you
017there can everyone hear me yes ma'am whenever you're ready okay um i would like to ask the board to reevaluate the graduation ceremony at shepherd for both washington jefferson high schools um it's important for the parents to be able to attend the ceremony itself live in the gym with the kids i realized that shepherd has approved protocols in place and we are following those however i'm also not sure when those were put forth because very recently the governor has lifted limitations on social gatherings and the space in the shepherd gym if you take into account the floor space the sands the balcony i believe it would be ample to fit all of the graduates and two guests per each one with mass in place with social distancing in place typically the band the rotc would
018attend the graduation and be on the floor of the graduates if you move those out you'll be able to space out the chairs for the graduates and if each one only invites two i mean i would think that's for the parents mom and dad but it could be anyone it would be limited to you and we could have them sitting in the stands and up on the balcony so that they could watch live um and then of course after the ceremony we would just disperse outside to take our photos per usual plenty of time between ceremonies whereas now i'm a little concerned if you've got six people for 400 graduates and you're trying to squeeze them into a timeline between ceremonies to take photos in other buildings that might be a bit of a mess
019it would seem far simpler to me if we could go back and take another look at the gym itself and if we can have enough room for the graduates and two parents each um i would appreciate if you guys could do that because it is important to both me and my graduate that i can attend live in the room and if something is lost it's kind of empty to just be there by himself and walk across the stage for a photo off so we still have about a month left i think there is time if you guys could talk about that option possibly go back to offer and see if that's something that they would be okay with considering some time has passed so that's it thanks thank you all right next up is miss
020buck yep if you join us at the podium and then after miss buck is brandi musser my name is karen buck i'm a concerned grandparent of a second grader at blue ridge the biden administration has announced that they're going to award grants totaling millions to force schools to teach critical race theory critical race theory critical gender theory critical climate theory critical class theory it's all critical critical theory it's a socialist marxist philosophy originating in french at the frankfurt school in germany in 1923. it's a political tool to divide and confuse the people although schools will deny teaching critical theory they'll call it something fancy like equity initiatives or culturally responsive teaching social justice diversity and inclusion all of which promote the exact same context concepts as critical theory it's the same thing critical race theory
021is a race-based premise that will attempt to confuse and intimidate the parents from asking questions and exercising their first amendment rights our kids will re uh go undergo re-education in the form of equity and diversity training they'll be taught to focus on race or gender or climate or class instead of teaching tolerance and harmony this agenda will rob our kids of their childhood innocence by teaching them to hate themselves and their country it will damage this community pitting kids against their frustrated parents parents against teachers school board members against constituents and neighbor against neighbor just as it's designed to do we will have to hire and pay tax dollars to consultants in order to promote this in the districts parents in loudoun county have formed a committee to recall their school board for exactly this
022as elected officials approving this critical theory in any form would reveal a complete misunderstanding of your duties and responsibilities as elected officials the school board must not accept the government money to to promote this dangerous agenda we the parents and the grandparents are starting to see things very very clearly and we're starting to really keep our eye on the schools thank you next is brandy musser followed by bobby block good evening this year has been nothing short of exhausting for everyone but we persevered through much of what was thrown to us as educators dr gibson told us at the beginning of the year that we would not have to teach virtually and in person classes but we did with little complaints we were told that we would have the technology and the training to teach
023virtually after we were thrown into it but we didn't and we made it work the expectation of teaching six and a half hours with no breaks and having our classrooms turned into a cafeteria was met with little resistance we have no time to use the restroom no time for collaborative planning due to coaching expectations and meetings that are made during our planning time after the students leave the building and forget about eating anything during the day we do not have the ability to leave our classrooms for those six and a half hours unless we ask someone for a favor and now you are telling us that all that hard work all those phone calls to students and parents that are failing and not attending classes all those after contract hours spent trying to make lessons
024work virtually and in person and all the other concessions were for nothing i say this because the jcs summer experience camp replaces summer school it's optional attendance pass fail attended faithfully didn't attend a single meeting or or turn any work in doesn't matter socially and emotionally these kids just need to move on right this is a slap in the face to your teachers administrators and all the other students who worked so hard to make this year academically meaningful those students who fought hard to earn passing grades attended live meetings when we were virtual and turned work in on time are once again pushed to the side because we're going to cater to those students who did nothing all year and now get to reap the reward those students need to be commended and applauded for
025their achievements passing all students along means that educators have been this school year a glorified babysitter a debt collector and now a liar we've been saying all year that grades count this year the rug has been pulled out from under our feet once again when will we give our educators the level of respect that they deserve all of our hard work has gone unnoticed by so many but our misdeaths have been publicly blasted taking away the summer school is giving all those students who are on vacation this whole school year a past and it's unacceptable your teachers deserve more respect for their work and dedication than quietly pushing an optional experience and calling it a summer school as teachers we are concerned about these students being productive next year after you have shown them that
026grades and responsibility don't matter at jefferson county schools thank you next up is bobby block good evening ms block whenever you're ready yes ma'am we can hear you thank you so much good evening our children are continuing to wash they are still subject to saving toxins next month at sam michael's park saturday may 15 and sunday from 10 a.m to 5 p.m the fact that the jefferson county nonprofit science board will be testing our children for possible baseline toxics including lead arsenic sulfur dioxide magnesium e coli is a sad commentary regarding the toxic greedy behavior of industry you have the opportunity to respond and demonstrate our county board of education with integrity can ensure that environmental justice is a priority again calling the african program proverb it takes a village to raise a child together
027we can keep our children safe the spirit of warning and keeping our children safe greatly appreciate the disability took gui to court the ui had been an enabler of the taxes for our children it was from the playground in north jefferson go check it out your proactive courtship gets to tell that you are advocates on behalf of our children again we are grateful there is additional advocacy your courage is needed more than ever please take action on the help you may risk assessing the hhra but thank you last year it is sorely imagined praying has a wisdom to move forward in the spirit of love technologically personally and beyond rhetoric with open hearts please demonstrate the courage and highlight everything we need to relate to the lack of due diligence regarding the incomplete and two
028i humbly applaud your staff overcoming the challenges that coca-19 are presented and their efforts have been her julian tonight my comments will focus on the hhri and the need for the growing intervene on behalf of the children and families the hhra needs to be reviewed publicly there are key questions related to cases it's an insult to jefferson my understanding is your doing as the responses please vote on the agent before iraq will continue more officially thank you very much your time is up this evening all right next up we have the consent agenda dr gibson is anything that you need to point out or change or anything with the consent agenda and then all the information is uh in board doc all right thank you very much welcome is there a motion to approve the
029consent agenda thank you mr cable is there a second second thank you mrs any questions or concerns with the consent agenda yeah i'd like to pull number 1213 and the staffing realignment list for discussion number 12 number 13 is staffing realignment is there discussion that you want to have about a specific person or position or a discussion that you want a question you have now i believe miss laurie is on i mean if you want me to ask in public the first one well if it's about a specific person um i don't not anybody's name i i'm just number one on uh item number 12 the rip list i'm not comfortable approving that if there are people that have requested a hearing it's um i believe that they request a hearing because they're going through
030the process to have a hearing so they should have that hearing prior to the vote well i believe that what happens is we have to vote on it in order for them to have a hearing and then this evening we have two hearings that will listen to an executive session so their final destination is not determined yet we have to go ahead and approve the rift list and the transfer list and then during executive session this evening will have the hearings and at that point it's decided whether they stay on that list or whether they're removed from that list if i understand correctly well to clarify riff and transfer are two different things number one there is no one who is holding a hearing over a riff because we are not riffing any people we
031do have positions that people have left that we are deciding at this point based on reduced enrollment not to fill those positions hence the number of people we have on transfer so that depending upon how many of those come back and where they come back at we can move people around to meet those needs right so we made the determination we make a recommendation to you that these are the positions that we believe need to be on transfer these are the positions that need to be uh and then we have two individuals that do not wish to be on the transfer list so you place them on the list you approve them because they have a hearing to disagree with their placement on the list until you vote and place them on the transfer list
032they're not on it does that make sense so you have the opportunity after you've heard everything in their hearing to remove them from that transfer list and and they they've nothing's changed they you haven't abrogated any right of theirs the other question i have about the transfer list is my concern about some of these positions if you are transferring a person out it's not the position or is it what happens to that position are you transferring a person because you don't want him in that position anymore or it's just i'm trying to understand certain positions that i guess i shouldn't say in public but i don't know should i well uh that's a that's a great question so uh to your point instead of talking about individual people let's talk about let's say we have
033a second grade teacher at um school x ransom and i'm completely making this up and uh that teacher is placed on the transfer list what we are looking at is we've seen the numbers at each one of those that we have now and we're uncertain whether or not there will be let's say there are three second grade teachers at one school we think there might only be two classes we will place one of those on transfer and then we'll look at the numbers of our second grade are across the district and we'll move people around anyone placed on transfer we're guaranteeing them a position we know we have enough kids to cover those positions we may end up they get enough kids we do this every year with kindergarten because we're very uncertain about our
034enrollment there's a much higher number this year because we're uncertain about our enrollment much beyond kindergarten this year k-12 um the uncertainties between them and virtual impact it's safer for us because we can place a lot of people on transfer and then to your point rescind their transfer and say okay you we did have enough uh folks here we don't need to move you we re send your transfer as the numbers come in for enrollment and verification we were seeing transfers as soon as we know we've got enough kids at each one of those spaces to cover them yeah i understand that but i'm not talking about this i'm talking about specific positions that are definitely needed and so should i mention it or should we talk about this if the position is needed if
035it is not on the rift list that position is still there it may simply have to operate in a different location or operate um in a different uh program or program level than it it is right now for example okay athletic director i i'm concerned that are we moving that position somewhere else is that the issue or is it the person that is a great question previously there had been discussion on the board about that the possibility of having a county level athletic director and two assistant athletic directors and right now because one position isn't filled there's an interim there we only have one person in that position the board hasn't approved a budget yet should the board come back and decide to follow that structure this individual has a teaching degree and we're promising
036them a position so they would be provided with a transfer into that position now it seems unlikely based on the last meeting and the staffing discussion that the board had but as a safety for that individual and for our needs in terms of certified folks again a transfer we are legally required to notify staff by the may first they don't have in front of me that they could potentially be transferred we rescind the vast majority of transfers vast majority of them it is simply a safety mechanism for us as a system um and then on the next one the the rif i'm trying to understand so you're wanting to eliminate the coordinator of votetech position and then you're later asking for this other position and it's going to be joined with this coordinator position correct
037and it's a new title as director so it goes from coordinator to director well as we had presented in that previous board meeting when we spoke with the board and we got input from staff about an effective way to serve students we got a lot of feedback that our social emotional program had been very well received that it had been more efficient and that we had had a lot less frustration with our families and our staff about funneling kids through a program where it was one point of entry they presented all the alternatives they staffed all of those out and we could see whether or not we had gaps and then we came to the board for positions and programs to fill those well that's the emotional side of things we also have and it
038is particularly important now after the pandemic we have alternative education programs where the instructional side of things we have a lot of different options with those programs and the idea was for us to realign our instructional programs the same way that we did our social emotional programs so that director position is responsible for the new virtual program that gets added on continues to be responsible for all the cte programs becomes responsible for olc becomes responsible for apex becomes responsible for three to five becomes responsible for all of those instructional programs that the child needs something different our regular you know vanilla go you know straight through kindergarten to 12 that works for most kids for kids that it doesn't work for just like somo responsive education is i have a need that i need you
039to respond to as a as an organization kid comes in we stack them out through that uh that process that multi-disciplinary team process so that's what that was intended to do um these all these middle school chairs these positions are being rifted correct so these is that that's correct the the teaching positions no in discussion with the middle school principles regarding how they wish to organize the administration of their schools they did not feel that that structure served them best in terms of having department chairs particularly when all of the schools now have instructional coaches who take up much of the work that was previously done by department chairs but these people are losing money they're losing that income so it's well they are no longer performing the work that that income paid for i'm
040just trying to understand because you said there were no risks but it it seems to be that if you're losing your income you're not going into a new position um these adult ed instructor positions um i why are they being eliminated that is a again very good question uh every year we are required from the west virginia department of education they fund in totality that adult education program it is uh from from their passage to us a grant funded program on their contracts it says every year if we don't get this funding we won't have this program so the state requires us to notify them we place them on the rift list and remember this is a safety we have to legally notify them by a certain date as soon as we're awarded the grant
041funding we rescind their riff and they're back in their positions that that is a requirement and again we do that every year yeah that's annual for those positions so you know that understand it and anticipate it and then the other questions were about these position creations the assistant superintendent it sounds like again this is a consultant position needed somebody that will look into creating this program the day treatment center or whatever you're calling it not that it's not necessary but i'm just trying to understand how you need a superintendent who's going to be a permanent position if really the main goal is to create or look into the creation of a program and why wouldn't you just you know look at hiring a consultant i know that people said on the board they want somebody
042that cares that's committed but you know we are losing three or four hundred students every year it seems that the board office is growing students are leaving we ought to be focused on bringing students in and the teachers that we have you know making making them feel appreciated and respected and putting investing more in the classroom i am all for these new special ed positions the autism teachers and the mm special ed teacher the nurse physician severe special ed teacher social studies to from half to full time i'm just concerned about creating these board positions when it seems that they could wait i mean if it's about the budget either you have the money or you don't so why does this all have to be done now when we're trying to already create the virtual
043school and it it just seems like a lot of um you know hands in different fires or however where you put it just a lot going on and with it being unstable of not knowing how many students we're going to have and the fact that um we've lost i guess three million dollars um because of students leaving does this all have to be voted on today don't mean to interrupt but i do believe that we went through the whole discussion about the assistant superintendent for special ed at the last meeting or the meeting before but you know we've already had that conversation and i think we you know had moved on from it no that's that wasn't my understand my understanding was that dr gibson was going to come back with you know she supposedly
044heard our ideas and she was going to come back and present again after you know one thing that we mentioned was not eliminating the athletic position left um well the athletic director but it sounds like this is indirectly going to eliminate the athletic director we still have to vote on you know the athletic director but the budget is coming soon and that's where all those positions are going to be determined as dr gibson explained the riff and transfer list this is something we do every year it's always you know a big list it's something that people anticipate they understand it they're normally you know removed from it as we go along between now and august so you know i i don't think having somebody on the rip and transfer list is a bad thing at
045this point it's a normal thing at this point do any other board members have any questions about the consent agenda all right hearing none we have a motion on the table to approve the consent agenda all in favor opposed thank you okay next up we have um unfinished business request approval for recommended vendors for select bond roof projects welcome back ms white thank you this evening before the board to ask you to approve some bond roof projects the first being the blue ridge elementary school projects with a recommendation of blackstone roofing to be awarded this contract we will be accepting roof area one through ferry two and roof area three bids for a total of eight hundred and nineteen thousand dollars this second being uh wright denny intermediate school for the flat sections of the
046roof at a bid of 289 000 after your motion i'll await that and then take any questions the board may have regarding these projects is there a motion to approve the recommended vendors for the roof projects at blue ridge and right denny thank you mr osborne is there a second okay thank you mr cable any questions for ms white about the roof projects miss white have any of these companies done work for us before blackstone is being recommended in both instances and they have done a roof for us before and they've done an outstanding job he does have the crews to support both jobs thank you you're welcome all right thank you all in favor of approving blackstone for the roof projects at blue ridge and right denny say aye aye opposed all right thank
047you action on approval to purchase learning management system good evening miss rowan whenever you're ready actually me starting up the stadium good evening board members we are asking this evening that you approve the committee's recommendation for canvas as our learning management system this platform will be a crucial component of fulfilling the board's goal of moving jcs towards a one-to-one device system the lms will allow us to consolidate a number of functions currently being served by multiple platforms and improve the learning experience for our students families and staff the committee considered heavily the following factors in making a recommendation the general overview and offerings of the system great book and attendance features communication features system integrations course creation data analytics for administrators and teachers differentiated instruction offerings and support for students with disabilities multicultural lens and
048appeal professional development offerings accessibility features in ada compliance add-on features and recommendations of other users currently using the project as well as the overall cost of the uh management system based on the recommendation from the committee we are continuing to explore some additional add-ons as programming as well as some staff development that will support the enhancement of our educational technology however tonight we have to board approved the base program of canvas for the total thirty eight thousand seven hundred dollars with an annual reoccurring of thirty three thousand two hundred dollars the committee for the board's benefit was made up of this evening academic individuals who represented academic coaches cultural unity elementary students and caregivers elementary teachers high school caregivers instructional coordinators middle school students and caregivers middle school teachers school administrators so team member special
049education staff and leadership technology director and systems support specialist i want to thank the many team members that were involved in this at this moment i'd like to turn it over to dr rowan to share some a little bit of additional information hi everyone um good evening board i'm here to talk a little bit about this wonderful committee that we put together um and i don't even have to talk about it because i have my wonderful colleagues here who would love to share their experience because i think it matters more from their perspective uh the different i mean i'm the technologist of course i'm going to love technology and of course i'm going to advocate for that that's my job right so what i um what i'm excited about tonight is the share what some
050of my fellow colleagues have you know really worked hard and um just took a lens that was really important because this decision is going to impact every student every teacher across our county um so the first person who's going to speak tonight is joel silver who is our wonderful middle school coordinator joel if you could tell us a little bit about your experience absolutely thank you dr rowland and good evening board members and dr gibson first i want to say it was a privilege to serve on the different rounds of committees for the lms uh and first thing and foremost we wanted to make sure that our caregiver caregivers our students our teachers were not overwhelmed and we really liked the canvas system because it allowed us to have a slow release and roll out
051and i believe that at the base model that we are asking you to adopt tonight we'll definitely meet all our needs but at the same time as everyone and all our stakeholders become more familiar with it we definitely can advance uh with the different options uh second thing in our department in the office a lot of the different platforms that mr billy mentioned come from us and it is a blessing to be able to adopt this lms and so we can streamline all of those different platforms canvas also offers some of their own features where we will eventually be able to eliminate some of the platforms that we're using and solely go with the canvas system and then lastly i was thrilled at the number of stakeholders that we were able to involve uh from
052our teachers to our caregivers to our students our admin uh i think we had a very transparent process in this adoption and i think that speaks volumes from the very beginning canvas seemed to be the favorite of everyone that was involved and so to get to the end of the process and it seemed that canvas was the one that you know we possibly are adopting tonight uh that is definitely exciting because if we have the buy-in from those using this system uh it will only help our county so thank you for your consideration and like i said it was a pleasure being one of the different committees thank you so much joel um he touched on a lot of important elements where we all kind of got together and took the rubric and everyone had
053an opportunity to mark on the rubric where they were what they thought and then we averaged all of those different things we came back together and then based on the average responses that's really where a lot of our quantitative data came from as we made this decision but then i also wanted to have a conversation with different stakeholders and work through some of the questions or some of the um the the needs that they have that they didn't get when they were working through this uh very robust rubric and michelle phil cantley here one of our lead coaches is here to explain a little bit about her process and what she did over the course of this has been taking us around six months so michelle can you tell us about your experience good evening
054morning dr gibson the instructional coaching team is very excited that the stakeholder team reviewed and recommended the campus learning management system for jefferson county schools i'm speaking to you on behalf of our hard-working instructional coaches the coaches continue to play a critical role in our county i would like to thank the board for their continued support of our coaching program during the learning management system selection process a few other instructional coaches including myself katelyn hillman and brian molina explored all three learning major platforms in order to present demos to each of the stakeholders the teachers students and parents were excited about the instructional abilities canvas provides through their features and functions that mr silver spoke about and that our administrators and teachers will speak to you about after i finish now that you've heard some
055of the background of the selection process of the learning management system i will give you a glimpse into our plan for implementation after the second round of stakeholder teams dr revin and i created a roadmap for the rollout of professional development for teachers coaches administrators and families for the 2021-22 school year we vetted that plan through the professional development committee and our curriculum and instruction team at central office the plan for professional development begins this june 2021 where coaches and ambassadors from various grade levels and content areas at each school will be trained by the canvas trainers these school level advisors will play an important role next year as peer-to-peer support for their colleagues and their building level coaches throughout the whole implementation process the professional development roadmap offers personalized learning opportunities for teachers to
056learn as fast as they want exploring all the features and functions that the lms has to offer but also provides a slower paced personalized learning path for teachers who choose to follow the monthly minimum signpost leveling system that we set up the monthly signposts mark the minimum expectation of implementation for all teachers the minimum signpost timeline allows teachers and students to go slow and become comfortable and confident with the platform but also prepares them just in time for our remote learning days for faculty senate and weather days we've designed a gamified level up format where teachers can earn badges for successfully completing each level of the professional development centers during our monthly professional learning days built into the 21-22 calendar with this plan teachers will feel confident comfortable with canvas through fun and engaging professional
057development opportunities facilitated by fantastic instructional coaches in each building our coaches will offer several minimum signpost sessions and several advanced sessions at each monthly session to differentiate professional learning to meet the needs of all of our teachers wherever they are in their personalized learning path for implementation now we'll pass the mic to one of our fabulous teachers alexi nor at washington high school for a teacher's perspective thanks michelle hi guys um good morning good evening sorry it's been a very long day um currently in the process of finishing grades up for interims to be printed in about a short day and a half here so i'm sure that you can understand that things are a little bit crazy but i wanted to kind of talk to you guys a little bit about the experience from
058the teacher's perspective i was originally a part of the focus group that went through and took a look at each of the different learning management systems that the county was considering for purchase which was between of course canvas schoology and desire to learn and some of the things that we were able to do within our groups of high school middle school and elementary level teachers was to actually get to play with a sandbox version of a lot of these different platforms to see for ourselves firsthand exactly what kind of features were available and i can say just based on personal experience from that opportunity that sometimes it really is the hands-on experience that sells you the most so having the opportunity to get to work a little bit with the canvas platform honestly did help
059to kind of sway my decision a little bit more toward understanding the benefits of canvas when i was approached by dr rowan about the possibility of joining the stakeholders group for the rfps i was very excited because as i'm sure you could tell i'm a particularly vocal individual whenever it comes to technology and getting to see exactly what kind of materials and features that canvas offered was extremely reassuring to myself as an educator as well as to a friend of many teachers who i know are not necessarily technologically savvy i really really loved getting to see the idea that we are going to be combining everything into one i cannot express how frustrating it has been in the last several months to have to worry about transferring grades between google classroom and live grades even
060in the last six hours particularly where i've been working on doing the same exact thing rather than having to go back and forth between the two platforms to actually get the grades into where it matters for the students everything would be all in one place which is really a major major time saver in terms of the planning and other things that we have to do during our days and even after those contracted hours another thing that i'm sure we're all very aware of is the fact that this year obviously was a very very big challenge for a number of us from march of last year when we were somehow able to survive the trial by fire that was switching over to google classroom in under two weeks honestly i know that a number of our
061teachers are probably going to be a little bit hesitant as with any change but in this particular circumstance if we can survive a rollout that happens in seven days we can absolutely handle learning a material over this course of two to three months before the students come back that is far more reasonable and far more manageable for us in the midst of everything else that we are being asked to do and i know that michelle had mentioned before the idea that we don't necessarily want to lump a lot more on for the teachers to have to do given all of the changes and responsibilities that have happened over the past 12 months and honestly i do believe that canvas is the platform to help us have to do a little bit less it's nice though
062that we do know that we have the support from customer services and other representatives at the company level as well as from our own technology department if there isn't an answer they are quick to respond which is fantastic because i know that with a number of my students specifically i teach two classes in the jefferson virtual academy this year both of which are upper level english courses and one of the biggest struggles for those students has been dealing with some platform technology errors that have been things that the tech department can't necessarily address and it would be something that would probably be a lot more easily approached and fixed at the company level but of course as i'm sure you can imagine google's not really a company that's super easy to get an answer from
063they're very large whereas canvas kind of has a little bit more accessibility to the teachers to the technology departments to allow us the opportunity to get that training to help these students out with understanding the material a lot better and a lot faster plus we also have the idea of just straight up saving the time on logins i know that even just in my courses i teach advanced placement we use google classroom live grades office 365 ap classroom khan academy and that's five logins just there so the fact that we will be able to pretty much roll out three of those things into one compiled login it's really going to save a lot of time i know just from speaking to parents that they were very frustrated with having to deal with multiple logins and
064after a while it started to get extremely confusing so to save a little bit of time and a little bit of frustration on their end as well it's definitely a very encouraging thing i think the last thing that i really really enjoyed about this platform was just the fact that it is allowing us to do cloud-based saving which means we don't have to worry about losing any information losing a flash drive if you have all of your files on that one drive it's all being saved to the cloud at basically immediate response time and we still have the ability to integrate a lot of the systems that we've been using for the last several years such as office 365 such as google and the google drive that many of us have spent countless hours creating
065materials to find out that we are switching systems into something that i'm sure a lot of people were nervous would not integrate well into uh the different devices and things that we've been using but it's wonderful to know that we do have a platform that has been decided that does have the ability to access all of those materials seamlessly and that's i think a really big confidence boost for a lot of teachers including the ones who may need a little bit more time to get to learn the platforms so i think that's pretty much it from the teacher's perspective sorry for rambling on so much you need such wonderful information alexia i really appreciate it you really hit the nail on the head about the importance of having more time and even though we're going
066to invest in this product what are we going to get on the back end and of course spend more time with our students that's more time reviewing so that we can give poignant feedback um that's the integration you know that's that's really important so thank you very much we have one last person here today who's going to tell you about the perspective from the administrative standpoint one of the the barriers to using google classroom all the time is we didn't have analytics that really allowed the administrator to look through different courses so brian mr bauer from harpers ferry middle could you please uh tell us a little bit about your experience absolutely thank you board members and dr gibson for having me tonight i just want to kind of share from the administrator's view um
067you know there's basically two areas that i want to focus on uh first off um you know looking at it you know i'm a parent in jefferson county also as well as an administrator um and my son was actually on the committee as well that reviewed the lms and you know i think from the administrator's point of view dealing with parents students teachers this year um i really think that the parents and teachers and students are all really going to enjoy this new system i know one of the big complaints when i call and have stat meetings with parents is the jumping back and forth between google classroom and live grades currently and trying to figure out which assignment matches which grade things like that and i think having all of this into one system
068next year is really going to make that easier for parents i think they will enjoy being able to log into one place see their students work see their students grade not having to try to play a little game to figure out what matches up with what um or call the teachers or school every time to try to figure out what's missing so i think it'll make life a lot easier for parents and students as well my son really enjoyed the ease of use of canvas just because we were able to log in and play with it as well and he really enjoyed the things like a calendar and then it shows you exactly what's due when and it shows your grades so it's really an easy system i think student and i really think they'll
069be able to grasp it pretty quickly as we start to roll it out to the students um second office uh dr rohn was saying the date the analytics that are available for administrators in this new program are way above and beyond what we currently have um in my grades now you know as an administrator if i want to go in and look at students grades student performance i can log into live grades and i can see you know how a student did each nine weeks what their grade was what they earned on different assignments but it really doesn't give me a full picture of the students um i still have to log into google classroom to go see if they've turned assignments in or how often they log in but with canvas as an administrator
070i'll be able to go in and view different data different graphs things that show how often a student is engaged in a classroom it will show how often a student has logged in when their last login was when they submitted assignments so to really give administrators a full picture of the student and their performance which will really help us greatly as we meet with parents for staff meetings and other interventions so that we can really tailor you know a student's education find what they need based on the data that we can get from canvas so i think it'll be really a great benefit to jefferson well thank you mr bauer and with anything of course this is the all the paperwork at this point is pretty much done but now the hard work i i
071like to say really begins and we are going to start talking more in depth about are we going to train what are some of the packages available because we had a a skeleton but now we're going to put some meat on those bones um now that we know what the program is that we're going to go with and we've had lots of discussions with our stakeholders and focus groups um so i just have to uh thank uh mr jelly for his um his wonderful leadership throughout his experience and also our wonderful committees who have put time um and really thought through all of these different things that i i've asked for them to do to go above and beyond at this time in the school year and to do to take on this project was
072um just incredible so i thank you guys so much all right thank you very much is there a motion to approve canvas as the learning management system thank you mrs is there a second thank you mr osborne any discussion or questions from the board members so miss dr rowan it does allow weaves integration is that what you're saying on this so we will not have to go back and forth and the teachers will not have that to deal with um yes so they were talking about more of the integration of microsoft 365 um jcl google and yes we just will be integrated as well so all the rostering will be completed teachers don't have to do that themselves it'll be on automatic um saying that they will do um so we just have to meet
073with an integration team at this point so once we get all of these this information approved then we take this and we work with the company's integration team and the state department to make sure that they uh all of our integrations will work but yes we did talk to the to the state and this is one of the lms's that does integrate with leaders you said that they said it does integrate does anybody currently use it in the state yes i believe it's jackson county that uses it as well um and so i just reached out to them today we did ask for recommendations as part of the um rfc and that was one of the recommendations um on the rfc um so and they've already been in contact with them to talk to us
074about attendance and how they're taking attendance using the lms and even so i do believe there's going to be a good relationship there excellent thank you all right so there's a motion on the floor to approve canvas as the learning management system all in favor opposed all right thank you good luck yeah with that immigration all right new business this evening first up is consideration of and possible action on a supplemental resolution of the board of education of the county of jefferson in connection with its public school bonds series 2021 approving and authorizing the form of the preliminary official statement prepared in connection there with and other related matters written by an attorney all right so um is there a motion to approve the supplemental resolution that was attached to the board packet thank you
075mr cable is there a second second okay thank you thank you miss joy all right and i believe we do have joe nassaf and tom piercy available if anybody has any questions good evening to the board president skinner and superintendent my name is tom pearson with boyle price um i've had to answer any questions about this resolution for the process in general so i'll turn the review at this point do any board members have any questions for mr piercy no i would just say thank you very much for all the work that you know you and dr gibson have done and for them just to go through this incredibly tedious process and and do it well thank you hopefully it all turns out in the end we're honored to represent ford on this matter and
076it's been great working with uh president skinner and superintendent and the board of staff so we really appreciate the opportunity thank you mr piercy and mr nasa for joining us this evening all right thank you all in favor of approving the supplemental resolution for the bonds all right oppose all right thank you very much all right next we have request approval to solicit bids for an rfp for the charlestown middle school asphalt repair bond project ms white is that you again good evening again yes that is me uh and we are going to complete another bond project this summer the charlestown middle school track is in need of repair so that will require an rfp and if you would like to make a motion i can answer any questions you have about the repairs to
077this truck all right is there a motion to solicit bids for an rfp for charlestown middle school asphalt repair bond project and that's the track correct that's the truck all right is there a motion certainly thank you miss ogden is there a second thank you mr osborne any questions for ms white uh is this something we're going to have to look at every 10 years or are we going to have to resurface this track like we're doing the other ones or this track on the inner and the outer parts of the track in certain sections has just cracked for whatever reason so i am not certain that it will be in every 10-year thing every once in a while yes tracks do need resurfaced so we should take that for all of our tracks uh
078in this particular instance i don't know the history or how old i'm happy to find that out for you but it is not uncommon that tracks do need resurfacing you might look at it if it's just in place too some of it might not have a very good base underneath of it some of that ground up there is up and down and some other kind of weaker than the other so it might be might be a good idea to just check what what's underneath as well as what the surface is right our intention for this track for safety reasons and just to make the project last for many years is to actually mill up the sections outer and the inner loop of that track one we want them to be even with the other sections
079of the track we want it to look look we want it to look good but we want it to be safe so once we mill that up we'll be able to give you a little bit more diagnostics about what's going on on the ground but that is a good thing mr cable all right thank you so we have a motion on the floor to approve to solicit bids for an rfp for the charlestown middle school asphalt repair bond project all in favor say opposed all right thank you very much thank you um going back very quickly to the uh learning management system i forgot to mention i'm sure that miss rowan dr rohn will do it but uh including videos for and training purposes for parents online i mean she's so good at doing it
080the last time and i'm sure it'll happen i just forgot to ask yes ma'am thank you all right um so now possible executive session we do need to have an executive session this evening to conduct transfer hearings and discuss legal issues and i assume there's going to be action at the end is that correct perhaps that will be the board's decision on the transfer hearings yes okay is there a motion to go into executive session thank you mr cable is there a second thank you mr osborne all in favor of going into executive session thank you very much you