001I want to call this meeting of the Montague County Board of Education order I'll rise for the pledge please like start this meeting by first of all so I don't remember in my 10 years on the board ever having three senators in the room so uh and we have three of our local delegates what what a great turnout for this event tonight and I want to personally thank Joe Statler uh Charlie Clements Danielle Walker Evan Hansen Mike Caputo and Mike oliveario for coming tonight it's it's an honor to have you guys sitting in front of us it means a lot to us that you guys thought enough to come here and and talk about our concerns and also to bring your concerns and I also want to make the public announcement that uh Senator Clements
002tonight is wife's birthday Genie's birthday is tonight and he drove in here to meet with us and I do not I cannot uh thank him enough for for that just tells you how much education means to the man sitting there but we I wished her happy birthday earlier and what a great thing so what a great what a great uh event we're going to have here um I'm going to turn the meeting over to uh superintendent yeah [Laughter] so uh okay well uh ladies and gentlemen again thank you for coming but before we actually get things started um I wanted to introduce someone to you um and uh this uh individual I won't say he's responsible for your meal but he oversees all the the parts and Parcels that uh that that got your meal
003this evening Greg Dosh is the principal of the Monongalia County Technical Education Center and I asked Greg if he would he would speak about his program just for about 30 seconds I know many of you haven't visited mtech as we call it if if you haven't had the opportunity I certainly encourage you uh to uh to give Mr Dosh a call set up a a time that you can come visit because it it truly is a wonderful place for our students and the experiences they get there are are unmatched and so I wanted to publicly thank him and uh and the staff that's not here for assisting us this evening they're they're always willing to help us out but I also wanted him just to take a few seconds just to talk about his program
004and again encourage any of you that that really want to dig deeper into that program to get in touch with Mr Dosh so Greg well thank you very much Dr Campbell our would you mind getting grabbing the mic or they won't be able to hear you yeah yep that'd be perfect thank you guys our ProStar culinary program provided the meal this evening uh those students in Chef Covell are currently at the Aquatic Center working an event for a national diving contest and they'll be there all week so they took it upon themselves to to continue their efforts so that we could have a meal here tonight so they're very much appreciated we have 16 full-time high school programs Mr Statler is going to be there tomorrow to check on our brand new EMS program and
005I work super excited about that we also have three adult programs as well LPN surgical tech and our HVAC so we have an awful lot going on over at mtech and we certainly encourage anyone that's interested in checking out the programs that we have to swing by make an appointment we love to show what we're doing our students find tremendous value in the education they're receiving and the community does as well so we thank you for the support thank you for the kind words we're excited where the school is going and we're excited for for all the things that our students are involved in so thank you um so again I would I just want to reiterate uh that what Mr lydo our president uh had said is an introductory remarks we're thrilled to have
006you six folks with us as we begin to uh to set the stage for our legislative session here in a month or so um and obviously it's very important to this board of education and what we do in Montague County Schools we we pride ourselves in the Excellence of our of our school district and this is a very actively involved Board of Education and and that that's the kind of thing you really want out of out of board members and so this is a tradition that we have here that we we try to invite our our legislators so that we can have a dialogue prior to the legislative session it's really twofold for us we very much want to hear what you think you will be concentrating on when when you go to Charleston from
007the educational side of things as well as giving our board members the opportunity to share with you some of their concerns as you begin to approach not only education but all things in West Virginia but for this board education is obviously the priority so with with that in mind what a how I thought we'd start the evening and again we want this to be informal this is a dialogue it's it's set up to be that way um uh you certainly can ask us questions uh we hope that you'll be willing to and open to answer any questions our board members may have as well um but the way I thought we we might be benefited from starting the evening um would be to have each of you kind of expressed to the board what you
008thought your priorities were going to be when you go to Charleston here in the near future and what you think you might be working on or you think is important from the educational side of things so I don't know who wants to start we'll probably just start on this that way now it is important because we as I said we're not live streaming tonight but we are recording so please grab the microphone so that we we get a we get things clear for the uh for the recording so all right Senator oliverio if you want to happen to be here tonight um Mike oliveirio I had an opportunity to serve in the legislature many years ago and want to thank the citizens of Montague and Marion County for giving me an opportunity to return I'll
009be serving on the Senate education committee that's a place where I served 16 years previously so I think I have a lot of experience in this field but always willing to learn and always know there's so much more to learn in the field of public education past 10 months I spent campaigning in this community in the county below Marion County and I heard from a lot of parents I think what they want is a robust public education system I think they want academic rigor we want their students to be able to be challenged they want them to be able to be prepared for the challenges that lie ahead beyond the 12th grade unfortunately just over half of our students in West Virginia do not pursue any educational opportunities past the 12th grade about 54 percent
010do not and that's an area where I would like to see us Focus some of our efforts to try to understand why that's the case and what we can do to incentivize students to take advantage of the types of programs that he just spoke about and many other post-secondary type opportunities I think we're missing the boat there we're not preparing the Next Generation as fully as we can prepare them if their education is stopping at the 12th grade I heard from parents who want to be able to make a decision how and where they educate their children and I want to be responsive to those parents who want to pursue other educational opportunities outside public education I want to make sure that those opportunities you know fulfill the children's needs and help prepare those children
011to be contributing members to our society in the future so I will you know work with you on legislation things that are important to you I always worked on every conceivable kind of issue whether it was bus drivers and cooks and you know I I developed the legislation that created the national board certification so that teachers could pursue that to receive increased compensation to be honest I wanted I wanted Merit pay but I heard from many some in seats like yours that that wasn't manageable and so I thought how can we reward teachers who want to be meritorious in the absence of Merit pay we came up with the compromise of national certification then we came to individual boards like this across the state and said if you have that teacher who wants to be
012meritorious and who becomes nationally certified can you as a board supplement that as well and I thank this board for doing that for providing additional compensation for those nationally board certified teachers I think if we can incentivize people to become better that that improves the quality of education for the children in the classroom so I'm open to to any discussion with you look forward to working with you I consider all five of you on this board as personal friends people some of which I have known almost my entire life to be honest so I look forward to working with you thanks Mike uh my name is Mike Caputo I'm a two-year Senator I served many years in the house of delegates and uh in ran for Senate a couple years ago when my Senator decided
013not to seek re-election I want to begin by saying thanks to Greg and and the tech program uh I'm a huge fan of vocational education I'm one of those uh those students and I talked Dr Campbell about this earlier I knew in the seventh grade I wasn't going to college I just knew that it wasn't for me my brother and I were just cut from different cloths I knew I was going to work for a living I went to votech it helped me it was my career in in the minds tremendously and and now you know I see the opportunities in the Building Trades if you want to be an electrician if you want to be a welder if you want to be a pipe fitter they're a really great paying jobs and and we
014can train our students who are not looking for that four-year program to get out of school get trained be a productive citizen make good money to to provide for their family and it's stuff that's really really needed but I got to tell you uh I am concerned about public education and what has been happening to public education last few years in the legislature I you know I don't care how students or how parents want to educate their children if they want to do it properly I just don't believe taxpayer dollars should be used for that I think the taxpayer dollars should be used to benefit the masses and not few I mean I voted against Hope Scholarship I don't know what we were hoping for whether we were hoping to destroy public education I don't
015know where that name came from quite frankly I I at Charter Schools I think is going to be a disaster for West Virginia but again it's more money coming out of the system less money for you folks to operate your sis your school systems with so I think we've got a real balancing act on our hand and we may not see the the real effects of this for a few years but it's coming it's absolutely coming I'm concerned about the classroom vacancies we have in West Virginia and quite frankly uh if we don't find a way to pay our teachers more that number is only going to get larger and larger and larger so we can't recruit we can't retain and I think we can all figure out why that is it's not rocket science
016by any means so I'm concerned and I'm also concerned about the future of peia for our people uh you know we've been kicking that can down the road for a long time and fortunately we've been able to hold that cost down but I'm afraid if we don't deal with that somehow some way that's going to explode so so that's just my thoughts in a nutshell and I thank you all for having us here tonight and I appreciate the fine meal that you can thank you sir my name is Evan Hansen I'm starting my third term I represent the district that includes downtown and the nearby neighborhoods and we haven't gotten our committee assignments yet so I'm not sure if I'll be on the education committee or not but in general I would say you could
017count on my Unapologetic support for public education and opposing policies that divert funds from public education similar to what Senator Caputo just mentioned um and I would also continue to support pay increases for our public Educators and school service personnel we've got budget surpluses and uh there's nothing more fundamental to a well-functioning democracy than having a good education system a good public education system so those are some things that I that are important to me and that I'll continue to vote on in that manner thank you delegate Walker good evening everyone thank you for having us I am delegate Danielle Walker so I started writing notes and I was like okay there's two other people that need to speak after you and I know that we are on the same Accord and that's one of
018court of supporting public education not just the Educators and the Personnel but most importantly the students and that's where my passion is with these students what I have been getting is a lot of calls of students who are in our public chartered schools who once had an IEP in public education and it's not being followed at the chartered schools these kids are not being allowed to go on field trips they're not getting what they need in those classrooms so I will be looking for legislation to make sure that these things is happening I'm currently working with four families that is going through this and it's heartbreaking to tell your child the morning of the field trip that you can't be allowed to go because someone is not in place um I will also be exploring
019a comprehensive sex ed bill for K-12 they've done this in Nebraska I'm working with Senator hunt there and across the state not just in our County the racial disparity between suspensions and expulsions in the state has to be addressed diversity equity and inclusion should be a verb across so I'm also working with the black policy Coalition um in different bills across the board in education and we see what is going on in our Foster Care Systems we need more mental health providers in our schools and I understand you need funding for that I understand the vacancies but we must also celebrate those persons who are in the classroom those persons who pick up their children every day whether they're a car rider or a walker we are a community and there is Unity especially in
020my county and they look forward to us and so that's what I'll be working on this session thank you thank you for having us here today I'm Senator Charles Clemons I have served the past six years in the state senate and now have four years ahead of me one of the main things that concerns me in public education is I want to really dive into is our retention of our teachers of course I understand pay is a part of what we're doing and I know a major expense that the boards of Education end up with is the cost of substitute teachers one of the things I want to propose this year is it returned to what we did before the teachers could retain their sick leave and turn it in when they retire for retirement
021credit I think that is a big retention thing for a lot of teachers I think it's a tremendous thing to keep our classroom teachers in the classroom because then they have an incentive not to use those sick days for other than sick days and it could be a tremendous savings for our boards of Education throughout the state I also of course want to see our teachers pay improved and I believe that the governor is going to propose another Statewide pay increase for all state employees but we still are fighting the battle along the borders with other states and it's difficult to keep them in West Virginia we're going to have to somehow have figure out a way to have some type of locality pay so that these people will be stay in West Virginia especially
022when they're sitting on another state and I think that that can be important one of the other things that has concerned me that I want to try to figure out a solution to is the fact that we have students that are graduating from high school with high grades and high honors and when they walk into college the first thing they have to do is take remedial classes I think we've lowered the standard and I think that when we're using a graduation rate as a yardstick to measure our school systems I think we have a problem there because we're graduating people I think that are not ready for the next step and I will work to try to do that I don't know whether it have been cursed or blessed but I have been appointed as
023the vice chairman of the Senate education committee and in that position I want to invite every one of you any of you that have legislation coming before the legislature show up it means a lot and I can get you on the agenda to address any issue so make sure you don't sit back and wait for it to happen you need to come and make it happen when you see things you don't like let us know when you see things that you do like come and support it I think that's important and my door will always be open to any of you that want to come by all right well I will tell you to start with thank you for inviting us here tonight and this has been going on for many years and I appreciate
024coming back I will tell you throw me somewhat of a curveball here I didn't come to to give any type of speeches looking for a vote I think we had those votes behind but uh certainly will tell you that the one thing that I always appreciate is I have most of your numbers on speed dial that I can dial you up pretty quickly to get answers when I can alert you to any legislation I feel you may have an issue with here in Montague County we have to represent the whole state but I will tell you that we've already met on education uh the leadership on the house side and started mapping out some things that we want to look at moving forward a lot of them has been mentioned here tonight pay is one
025of them that were actually had staff and are looking at it now to see what is the the disparity of the surrounding states and what the pay is starting out in West Virginia for all employees whether it be teachers custodians bus drivers whatever we're looking at all of it is there a way that we can enclose that Gap and come in closer and we're certainly finding uh some things there that we think could be handled and looked at and issued I can tell you right now I will Proclaim this is going to be the year of Education I believe in both sides in the Senate and in the house I believe there's going to be a huge Focus that's put on education coming out this year and I hope it's good that comes out I
026can tell you right now wouldn't make any promises there'll be some crazy bills come out there always is always will be it's just a fact of life we can't stop them all but we will try to look at them and try to make them somewhat that they can be usable across the state so wouldn't make you promise that there won't be any changes there I can tell you that early childhood educations being looked at very hard what's going to be done we're going to look at the foundations of the reading of mathematics that's going on out there we see that across the state and we want to see improvements in those areas probably going to run the bill again that would put AIDS and I know you're all setting up here saying how are we
027going to get the people when we can't get them now I'm not sure we have the answer to that but we do have to look at the ways to help and decrease some of these class sizes I listened to Ron he asked me to look when that legislation comes out that if this County wants to do something different than another County if we could just the money that would be used toward those classrooms AIDS could we allow you some flexibility to look at that that was put out there when the bill was there I asked could that be included in it somehow that we don't make a one-size fit all for everybody we truly can give some local control across the state and allow it to happen now how that will happen I'm not sure
028we're looking at not only that but we're looking at the bus drivers I see you have it on here the issues we're looking at can we allow people that retires to continue to work the full time if they choose to do so in other words not penalize them against what is it 140 days I believe now can they go the 180 days is there a way of doing that we're looking at that to see if that's possible because we know we have to have somebody in the classrooms and we know that most of those peoples is retired if they want to come back and continue to do they are already skilled at what they do and so that will help tremendously same thing with bus drivers custodians aides Cooks you name it why do we
029limit them and I'm not sure we have the answer to that yet but the main thing that I'd want to say to you tonight is and what I appreciate the most is I don't have all the answers I don't believe anybody up here at this table has all the answers but I know myself and I think everybody else is willing to try to do the best we can and I want to hear from you guys what you want and if you see something that's going on down there that you clearly see is going to be detrimental to what you think you've got my number call me anytime day night doesn't matter I will take your call and try to move those concerns forward can't promise you that we can always address all the concerns but
030we certainly can listen to all the concerns and try to make your voice heard and I agree with Senator Clements there's nothing better than when you guys come down there and put your uh voices to what's being done and on the education it makes a big difference and we always have time for that and those committees that we can make that time to hear that with that thank you thank you Mr Style um I want to reiterate something that delegate Statler mentioned that I truly appreciate in the way he has operated since I've been superintendent here in Montague County he's correct I'm on his speed dial and he never hesitates to call me in the middle of a session in the middle of a of a hearing in the middle of a testimony he'll call
031me and he'll ask me what I think and he's always been receptive to me calling him as well and and I know all of our board members feel the same way don't ever hesitate to reach out to us if you want our thoughts as far as how something might impact Monongalia County or education in general so if you don't have my cell phone number I certainly am willing to to give it to all of you and I'm sure our board members would would do the same as well and I truly appreciate you always being open to those to those calls and and calling me as well delegate Statler so I I took the liberty and I want to make sure our board members have plenty of time tonight to engage with you but we've been
032having some dialogue about legislation uh over the last the course of the last month or so and and I I took the liberty to kind of digest some of this and and I it's it's posed to you I think you've got a hand out there that has some of those things and I just wanted to run briefly right through that so you'd have a clear understanding of what we meant by that and I'm sure our board members will want to dig a little deeper into those things but just working down through that list I know it was mentioned Joe you mentioned about the flexible funding for personnel we really think that's really important especially in Monongalia County the idea or the concept of a one-size-fits-all model is is really not the answer especially in a
033county like ours where we've shown success we've shown levels of success we've shown that that we understand what this County needs in particular to our County to be successful and and so if there's any way to be able to do some of those things to provide us with that flexibility uh when you're looking at doing things like the AIDS in the classroom it's a wonderful idea I would guarantee that nobody up here nobody in our system thinks it's not a it's not a good idea to put more trained Professionals in our classrooms but I think the Joe hit the nail on the head I have vacancies every day every day I have anywhere from six to a dozen vacancies of just AIDs that I can't fill and I'm talking I'm not saying that somebody is
034not there and I got a sub I'm saying I don't have a sub to fill those positions so the the thought of having to put an aid in every classroom up through second grade is kind of daunting to be honest but what could be very helpful is having the flexibility to say instead of spending that money on an aid in the classroom let me hire an interventionist let me hire a retired teacher who I can bring in and they can work six hours a day and they can work with small groups they can work one-on-one we have been extremely successful with that model in Montague County in fact I think you have a another a handout that's called learning forward and one of the things I think you'll notice on there this is how we
035spent our federal dollars our coveted dollars one of the things you're going to see about halfway down the page are 40 part-time Elementary interventionists we hire we use those dollars to hire 40 people to come in and do just what Mr Statler was talking about when he was talking about lowering class sizes getting additional so we're able to take kids in those small groups one-on-one and have them work with a certified educator these are certified Educators former teachers retired teachers that don't necessarily want to work full-time uh but we can we can hire those folks and bring them into our schools and it's a fantastic model we've been very successful with it so please keep that in mind when you're looking at that idea of the AIDS nobody objects to it but we certainly would
036feel so much better about the opportunity to be able to use those dollars to continue with the model those 40 part-time people when those federal dollars dry up those 40 people leave our system we don't have the ability to do that and uh you know part of the reason why we brought these folks back in was because of covet and trying to get these kids back on track especially at the Early Elementary levels there's nothing more important right now because uh our second our first and second graders are struggling with reading readiness and it's because of coven they haven't been in our system like all the other students who are above them and that's where we're seeing real problems with our kids and having the ability to have these interventionists work with these kids is
037going to be very very important when those dollars dry up and those people have to go away it's going to have a big impact on our our elementary students and getting them ready as they move through with especially with Reading Readiness and early childhood so that's a that's a big stress for us in addition to that just look at all those other positions we hired using those dollars and I just want to re-emphasize the idea that when those federal dollars dry up those people go away the idea was that that you know these this was going to help us kind of catch up from the impact of covid in our system but the reality of it there's a great study from Harvard that just came out on the effects of covet in education and if
038you can get your hands on that or let me know if you want it and I'll forward it to you but it really has shown us that we're still five years out from being able to make up the difference and the impact of what covet has had on our young people at this point in time when those dollars dry up these people have to go away we're not going to be where we need to be yet so it would be very helpful to have that flexibility for us to be able to use those dollars in ways that we think is important for for our school system and so we we truly would appreciate that that consideration moving forward the bus driver shortage goes without saying this is the first time in my career as a
039superintendent that I have had to send messages to parents in the morning and say I can't transport your kids to school because I don't have a bus driver I can't educate kids if I can't get them to school and although we ask our parents to make sure at least we apologize and we ask them to bring their kids to school not every parent can do that not every parent is in a position to be able to do that because of their work schedules and so finding ways to get more drivers into the the pipeline I think is is super super important I know Mr Kelly's done a lot of work recently and and has had a lot of discussions and we've kind of summarized some of his thoughts uh in another handout that we provided
040you with and I know he's going to want to talk to you more about that so I don't I don't want to dig too much into into that but it's a serious issue for us we have probably parked uh 12 routes already this year where we just don't have a driver to to drive kids to school in the morning and as I said we can't educate them if we if we can't get them to school so it's vital that we try to work on that and that's not just Montague County that's Statewide that's National but trying to find creative ways to to get bus drivers into the pipeline is going to be super important for us and I mentioned the the attendance issue boy we'd like to get some teeth back when it comes to
041attendance and having kids go to school right now we don't have the ability to force is not the right word but we don't have teeth to enforce our attendance policies right now and anything that that you can do at the state level to be able to provide us with the with the teeth necessary to enforce our policies from an attendance standpoint would would be super helpful for us because again if they're not in school what can we do with them we need them we need them here in front of our excellent Educators to be able to get them where they where they need to be and so we need to get to get back to where we were several years ago where we had wonderful cooperation with our judicial system to help us enforce the
042policies that we currently have there's nothing wrong with the policies that our legislature has created there's just no ability to enforce them once we're outside the school system and getting that cooperation back from our Judicial System would be extremely helpful to us as Educators and as a school system and one other thing I want to mention and then I'm going to let our board members go I don't know how familiar you are with weavis 2.0 as we so generously call it weavis is our student data system that the state operates on we've used it for years and years and years and and just this past year it has been updated to a new system whether you know it or not it's an old dos based system and so we've reconverted that for our student data
043management um I can't tell you the fits that our schools are going through right now for attendance this board has made attendance a priority in our school system they have tabbed me as the superintendent with the goal of improving student attendance getting us back to where we were pre-covet I couldn't tell you right now what our School attendance rates are because we can't get the reports we need from attendance I can't give these five board members any kind of reliable data about student attendance because of the weeva system now I know they're working on it at the state level and I'm not blaming anybody it's just the fact that when they made the transition from one system to another all the pieces aren't falling in place and I don't know what we can do legislatively
044to try to push to get this thing better quicker faster but we certainly need some assistance in that area because the the information that we have right now is so inaccurate and it's just not fair to try to operate and our administrators to try to do the things that we're asking them to do if we don't have reliable information about whether our kids are coming to school whether they're coming to school more than they were last year or less than they were last year because of the the data management system that we have so if there's anything that you can do to help us along those those lines we certainly would appreciate that as well so again I was trying to be brief with that overview certainly if you have questions about that we we
045can try to answer those for you but I I would like to turn things back over to Mr lydle and and he can he can handle things from here on as he would like to with his board well I was just going to open up uh to to the board members and I just think we'll just start down with Dan if there's some things you want to talk to talk about and bring up this evening uh and and yeah thanks uh I know Joe and I have talked about the 140 cap removing that and enabling retirees to work like I said it's one of the few professions you got to beg to work and uh you know get those retirees because they usually run out of days about the time teachers start to take a
046lot of time off in the spring which even you know exacerbates the problem of trying to find a substitute um also I think a good plan it's been done it's not my idea it's been done in other states it was done in Maryland about 20 years ago 25 years ago to keep all the Maryland teachers from crossing the border to Virginia for higher pay is to allow them to retire and then rehire them as a first-year teacher so they collect their retirement and I think I'm not a numbers guy but maybe you guys can look at it and perhaps I could put an Ease on peia because when one teacher retires you have to hire another one so that's two people on peia but if you let somebody retire in their mid 50s they've got
047about 10 more years to teach then they can that's just one person on peia and they would just start as a year zero teacher with whatever their education they have Masters plus 45 bachelor's plus 30 whatever it is so they would get their retirement and be first year teacher and I I think it worked for Maryland for a while um and that that you know we talked about losing teachers to Pennsylvania because we're so close to the Border even Maryland is what 35 40 miles away so um I think that's one plan that you could look at and I don't know how much I don't know how much it would cost would it cost the state that much to to let a teacher retire and come back as a first year teacher I don't know
048so those are those were two things like the one Joe brought up about the 140th cap and then allowing teachers maybe when they hit that magic number what is it 85 years uh retire with uh combination experience and age which for a lot of teachers about mid 50s get back right and just not even skip a beat that way you don't lose that teacher to Pennsylvania my turn yep okay oh yes you all know uh one of the biggest things I think we always need to have is open communication we have a full contingent of staff that will be able to answer any questions and possibly look at some of the bills that are being created to see what unforeseen consequences are in there because I don't think anyone goes to Charleston writes a bill
049thinking oh geez I can't wait for the gotcha for this person or that person but unfortunately sometimes the way the legislation is written it prohibits things you wanted to do just because of language so uh you know we have experienced staff experienced superintendent and we would like for you to use us as a resource I always say that's one of the most important things we can do these positions on this page are making a difference in the students lives every day our summer programs are making a difference in those lives the meals being paid this year and next year are making a difference in students and families lives especially with inflation so our challenge our job sitting up here is to make sure we're going to be able to continue these things and they don't
050go away in some fashion so I think that I would like for you to really consider how are we going to be able to have flexibility to be able to do that um I because I am not against extra uh trained individuals in the classrooms to help with classrooms they located through to Aid proposal we do not have space if we say we're going to reduce class size and open up new classrooms or new spaces we are one of the counties that does not have space Provisions that we thought we were going to be able to make years ago and I spoke to the senator about when we first went into the pilot agreement it was so we would be able to update and increase our physical space if we needed to in Montague County
051all that changed we don't have those pilot funds anymore to be able to do some physical things we need to do so we have to be creative we are forced to look at how can we best serve these students and I will tell you I've seen been able as we have visited schools to see some of these interventionists people say I don't want my child pulled out of the classroom a lot of the children consider oh you think uh you that I am so special that I get to come out here and work with three people in one retired teacher as a retiree myself I can tell you I don't want to work full-time I only want to work uh the hours that I would like to give to the institution so these part-time interventionists
052that are highly trained individuals with good track records They Like These interventions uh positions they do not want to take a full-time job on now some may but there's a lot that like being an interventionist and be able to see the growth of the students that they're working with in these small groups so I would ask that we're that think about that as as we go to this legislation I know there's a lot of counties who have space available in their schools that they would be able to divide out these classrooms we are not a county that will be able to do that so that would be an unforeseen consequence of saying everyone's going to reduce their class sizes we're going to have you this AIDS and we're going to split everything out we do
053not have the space and uh especially as programs are added and we have a lot of special needs children and special programs and IEPs to me that we do not have the space available um I want to say that we're all working hard towards the same goal and I think we are and I think you guys have the ability to help us with that so when you look at Montague County's plan I want you to know that the state department when they reviewed this everything was put towards teachers and classrooms and ways for children to be more successful we did not take the funds to do physical improvements we did not take the funds to not make a difference and one of the things that we've done I think very well uh through the administration's
054efforts is summer programming when I first got on this board that was one of my key interests was people wanted to year-round school I wanted our Traditional School year and then I wanted a lot available in the summer and that is something we were have been able to do and we're committed to and I think that has made a huge difference our principles created lists of students they thought needed individual help they contacted those families contacted those people and it's made a big difference and that was a head start we had to try to get back some of the coveted learning deficit bus driver shortage I'm going to leave that to Mike the state Computing system I do not know if they need more support if they need more money or what exactly they need
055but we have purchased systems to be able for parents to be able to access all the information on their students they want they do not interface with some of the updates on the Weaver system we tried to create a good communication system because that was one of our parents number one requests and some of the hiccups in the weavis have made things more difficult for our teachers for our staffs and for our families so that is something that I'm hoping as you go to Charleston you at least are aware of it and we'll see what they say about that I'll remove all that let me ask you and this is the first I've heard about the the problems with the weave is did they put a new computer program in all together and the reason
056I'm asking is last year we was having a problem with the EMS uh EMTs paramedics and everybody else getting to be able to be retested we had I forget how many million dollar system that we had put in and a system was working in every state but the state of West Virginia I don't know why but we did bring secretary crouch in and started the first thing they done was brought the programmers down that had written that program for the state and I'd say and part of it was with the new classes at mtech probably within a month to a month and a half a lot of those issues were taken care of just because of the mistakes that was being made with the new system do you believe that could be the same thing
057here because we could call tomorrow any of us up here and ask the state board if that new system is the people that done that system have they been brought in to assist the people in making sure the system is doing what it's supposed to do is it at the level of the state or is it the level of the schools the counties and that's the first thing you got to find out where is the communication failure well and I'm no technology expert but I have one here and and she may be able to give some better insights than me but what I know is is that we have we had an Antiquated system to begin with it was a dos-based system it was transitioned over into a web-based system and in that process whatever
058whatever process you go through to make that happen um there's things right now that we don't even know that are wrong with it we find something every day that we used to have that we don't have now reports that we used to have that we no longer have that we don't know how to get and so when we communicate and we believe me we communicate daily with the Department of Ed and their technology people about what about fixing the bugs but there's so many bugs and we don't know what they are until we actually go in to do something that we were able to do before that we can't do anymore special agent education it is a nightmare right now IEPs just as a real just a brief example personal example I stopped getting all
059the communications from my son's school and after about a month I called the principal and I said how come I'm not getting your messages anymore aren't you sending them out and she said no we send them out every week and she went into the system it had my address and phone numbers and contact information from when I lived in Tucker County it when they transferred the system it replaced all that information so that mine wasn't accurate and there was no way to know it unless I contacted the school and told them imagine how many thousands of parents are experiencing that same thing right now but Chris I don't know is there anything else you want to add as far as you know that I mean in my painting an accurate picture okay so that's really
060what we're dealing with from that standpoint and I don't know that that they know how to fix it but it might be worth a conversation to say is there more resources that now they've been really really great to work with they have a help desk set up it's it's 24 hours I think it's seven days a week it's like seven eleven never closes um but uh it it's still the fact that we're struggling really to get on par to where we need to be to operate efficiently as a as a school system I mean it's an uphill paddle for sure Chris if you would give us the information tonight of who that would be under under the state department down there so that if we will make contacts we can contact them to give us
061a personal update on on what's Happening and what's going on because it's simple if if we paid and I'm sure millions of dollars for a system than we expect it to work and if it's not then we expect somebody here telling us we're making this mistake or where they're making a mistake or do whatever we have to do to to make that happen I'm I'm not throwing her under the bus I know she'd be okay if I told you this my former colleague who's now the deputy superintendent of State uh Sarah stank it's Dr stank as oversees the operations now that's part of her role so she would be a great go-to person uh uh and be able to direct you to the folks in the technology so that you could have a a better
062detailed conversation with them with some of the issues that they're dealing with but Dr stankus who's the new Deputy superintendent would be very helpful I can tell you and I'm not throwing anybody but I can tell you Vice uh chairman of education on the Senate side and working under a teacher that's going to be the chairman of the Senate side we know that they should realize what the problems are and make a call I know you can take care of it sir well that's the thing if you all I mean and I think it took a while for everyone to realize how how devastating it was to not have everything interfacing I mean I I think a lot of people think oh well the school can just deal with it the teachers can just deal
063with it and and they were for a long time kind of on their own and I don't think everyone around the state really realizes how it's dragging everybody down I mean it's just another it's another frustration that the staff should not have to deal with or the state department for that matter it's Paul's from the shoes within within the schools and we kept hammering the superintendent we need more information on this we need to know what's happening in our schools kids are having troubles in the schools we need to know what's going on I simply can't give it's none of it how many behavioral referrals for bullying in the schools we want to know and we want to know my next meeting then he just can't it's just it's an impossibility let me just add
064this really really there's a really critical thing for health and well and mental well-being for our students especially with some things we're tackling the I.T within the state is not very good we have computers down there that don't talk to one another so I'm sure you're just part of the overall problem Secretary of State doesn't con doesn't compute it doesn't necessarily talk with DMV that they don't talk with the tax department and things like that create problems within the capital itself so you know this is something we'll try to work on and get that going I know when you mentioned attendance when we had our last committee meeting they brought up in their and they had some of the deficiencies in the counties and I think attendance was listed on every County wasn't it Joe
065attendance so you're not alone in attendance it's all over the state with that in itself that in itself when they brought that up to the last enter meeting and looking at the attendance and I don't have that sheet with me tonight because we did see mon County it was surprising and I know covet brought some of it on and it's not returned but it was in every county attendance is now an issue where I thought that issue was whipped four or five years ago they had come down giving awards out to schools for 96 97 98 attendance rates and that's not what we're seeing now so it's it's not okay it's like you're trying yeah I feel like these guys are in a bag trying to find their way out and you can't you can't
066get the no one can get the information and who knows if the attendance is really that bad there's the other question I I that I keep saying I feel like they've got to put a big white board up and everyone's gonna have to start putting marks like it used to be who knows I mean it's so I I think that's just it's just not helpful especially in the post-covered world so I'll be quiet now okay I'm gonna pass it on to uh people remember Kelly and I'm going to use the restroom quick because I have I know what he's going to talk to specifically about bus drivers Segway we have with throwing everybody on the bus I want to talk about bus drivers I want to get out I'm under the bus and get them
067in the driver's seat can I make a groundhog comment sure about 25 years ago very esteemed very distinguished retired educator and retired principal from this County by the name of Dan Berry came to me and asked that we increased the cap from 100 days to 120. and we were able to do that and now we have another retired distinguished former educator wanting to raise the cap even higher so yeah we did that on the recommendation of your father many years ago and I'm happy to support that again thank you and interesting time I know we wanted to keep you guys only an hour so I'll eat this kind of quickly we kept talking about the bus driver shortage so I'm I'm in a business and I'm around a lot of truck drivers from all different
068types of Commodities that they're they're hauling explosives fuel whatever and I myself have my CDLs and I've got over a million miles of accident free on this I just started kind of an ad hoc question and I would just ask them why aren't you driving bus I didn't ask them would you be interested or whatever it's surprising and you have the handout of some of the comments but the pay was not at the top of the list when I would I mean some of them did but for the majority they say the students and I said what do you mean this and basically again I'll kind of summarize this that it's hard to drive when you're looking in a mirror back there paying attention to the students what they want to do is get in
069the driver's seat do what they know how to do I mean there's a lot of drivers that know how to drive but they're not school teachers they don't know how to handle the students and and all of that and and we can try to train them which increases their workload and their responsibility so bottom line is most of them did not want the responsibility of the students and so I said how would you feel if we had an aide on the bus and the aid took total responsibility to the students and they loved that and so anyway again and I and I talked to some truck drivers now there used to be bus drivers and so some of this information is kind of a blend but too but and they like the idea of having
070the aid in the back of the bus so that they can see everything in front of them um again it wasn't so much the money and I did get kind of an idea of what they were expecting and it's on number four down there and talk about benefit package again some of these were former bus drivers so I asked them about benefits back they said yeah that was they were fine with that there wasn't any issues with that they liked the idea of having the Summers off and being able to take extra trips you know student trips to earn the extra money but the problem we're having now and just before I came to this meeting I got a call of we needed a bus for a after hours and we didn't have the bus
071driver so we don't want to get to the point where we look at these after hours programs sports events you know we just don't have the people but I think we need to start looking at this because none of this other stuff makes any difference if we can't get the students to the schools and we as a society have created that over the previous years consolidating all the schools I mean and I'd sit at another meeting I walked to every school that I went to and we don't have that now it's just it's not a situation with it but I think we need to look at that and figure out how to make the bus driving the premier driver in other words we want truck drivers that are hauling you know explosives or whatever say
072hey I'm going to go over here and drive the bus and not have to worry about the students somebody else would have that total responsibility which I think takes a lot off the plate of the drivers and I personally I mean I'm licensed to all explosives whatever and Hauling students would be my last my last choice I would not point I'd rather go all the stuff that blows up or acids need to hold through the bottom of the concrete those types of things because of that responsibility so I think if we can take that part off the shoulders I think would go a long way to helping that and then again we can't feel the AIDS now with still but is this a different you know type of a Walk of Life so to speak
073within the age so again I I'll gladly answer any questions either before Canal or after the meeting I know some of you would like to go and I know and we don't want to miss the birthday so so anyway that's uh that's kind of my ad hoc but I just think that we need to ask him and I think we need to sell that product I don't I don't think that we really advertise as a state and as a national uh we don't talk about enough about bus drivers and and what that job and a lot of them would not know that we're looking six hours you have to pay them like it's an eight-hour day but they're only driving six hours a day for the most part so that's all these incentives that look
074pretty good but then when you put the responsibility on it all of a sudden it's not not dead pleasurable so to speak so again sake of time I'll pass this one so and I agree with what they've said up here by the way I was going to ditto and I do I like the idea there retired teachers coming back and I think it's a One-Stop shopping as you said I agree with everybody as well and just to add to the bus driver idea and I don't know if it's an option but it'd be nice if I know people who would drive the bus in the morning but then go to another job in the afternoon or drive the job bus in the afternoon but have a job in the morning so if there's some way
075that we can do part-time bus drivers not just substitute bus drivers that might be a way to help get some of these bus routes run even if somebody was sharing this my morning is your afternoon being flexible with that position I know that might be difficult but think it would help because I know people who could do it in the morning but couldn't be available in the afternoon so um that and back to Reading Readiness Early Childhood definitely a passion for me um and I and I think it definitely feeds into our attendance issue it feeds into our discipline issue it feeds into our graduation rates because if we don't get them in K2 and I think you all know this which is why you'll you're working on it but if we don't get them
076in K2 then we start to gradually lose them and I taught third grade for a long time when they come to third grade and they're not ready for third grade they start to struggle there but then when they get to middle school and I was an assistant principal at the middle school level once they get to middle school they start to recognize that they're not as proficient at what everybody else's proficient at and they start the behaviors start to show up the attendance starts to decline not saying across the board and just saying it does account for a lot of our kids and then by the time they get to high school they have checked out they don't want to hear a thing you have to say so they're either a discipline problem or they're
077a Dropout so that K2 is definitely essential I would I mean I think our interventionists do amazing things we have watched them the kids have no idea they're doing something different than anybody else is doing because they rotate in those classrooms so much anyway the one thing I would like to see the flexibility for is even if our K2 model looked something like you have to meet a benchmark to go on to third grade even if it means you stay an extra year in the K2 whether it's kindergarten or first grade or a whatever maybe we have some extra teachers in there picking up a class of kid not a class of kids not putting them all together but keeping them in that K2 for an option of four years because maybe they're just not
078ready maybe they started kindergarten too early because it's based on age or maybe they haven't met the benchmarks but they're not really special ed those kids that don't qualify and end up in a gray area are those struggling kids that we have we see drop out we see struggle so using that flexibility back to the AIDS if it's not just for AIDS if it's for interventionists or maybe it's for teachers that pick up the kids that are that probably should stay there and there's less stigma with I wouldn't want to call it retention but there's less stigma with if we understand that you have an option for a fourth year or maybe it's not an option that money could be used to support whatever the numbers look like there and I know we don't have
079room but we you know we could figure something out I'm sure the other thing that I would like to see that isn't on this and and I know we've talked about it as a board a lot is pushing our technical education path so that our middle more middle schools have opportunities there and grow our high school mtech idea to something bigger so Renaissance School Renaissance schools Mr Lytle I wasn't going to bring up the Renaissance School Mike Mr Kelly mentioned that and for those in the room who don't know what the Renaissance Center is it's it's it's answering it's a facility a public education facility in mon County which is part of our educational facility plan which means it's supposed to be done in the next 10 years which I hope we don't have to
080wait that long uh that's going to answer the needs of of the the job site job force and the workforce of 2030. uh he's going to start with you know kind of the idea started here and start to work out in the community and start talking to um you know those those in the industries that need uh need trained employees coming out that aren't necessarily going to be 16-year plus educated people so that's that's when they mentioned that I it's so important and I want everyone it's all you guys that's in the room especially to bite and and start becoming part of this process of trying to figure out how we can get a facility a world-class facility to train kids when they come out of the 12th grade like uh senator oliverio said that
081they're ready for the workforce and they're answering the needs of a David Goldberg at mon Health you don't have to be an RN or an MD to work at the health system you can be someone that takes care of the x-rays and the technology and the and the different things within and we're and we're doing so much in technology and m-tech currently imagine what we do if we had a state of the art facility that would start answering those needs and start partnering with with industry within this community which which are begging us uh to answer that name um I think that's that's something we can bite on uh David McKinley was big on it I had a conversation with him he said what a wonderful idea and I asked him for what we were
082budgeting is 80 million dollars now he acted like that wasn't that big of a deal if it's going to answer the needs of the next five years the next next 15 years and actually transform education and and getting kids ready by the 12th grade so that's something that's total aside when they mentioned this I wanted I wanted to talk that a little bit to give you guys a little bit of an idea and like to start seeing you guys start partnering with us on what we're calling the Renaissance Center I mean it can be called whatever some generous donor wants to give us we'll call it whatever it could be the uh the white paper Center if that's what we want to call it if somebody's selling white paper to help us out but no
083it's it's a great opportunity it is what education needs to be and start thinking forward and that's what we need to do graduation rate senator is the biggest joke you're right of a it's like saying how good are you doing it's like me doing my own punch list on a construction site I'm guaranteed that we'd be pretty good if I was doing my own punch list you're right that is that is a bar that just doesn't make sense we need to have kids coming out and graduating that are qualified for the for the degree that they earn now I'm not saying we don't do that but you're right that that is uh uh it's just not quite ready all right not quite I was reading my next thing uh somebody mentioned the charter schools and
084and I said that that's the first time I've said charter schools in this boardroom uh in quite a long time and let me tell you why it's just none of our business it simply isn't any of our business we don't we as a board in this Administration have 11 650 kids I know I'm offered by a couple that we need to worry about and we need to focus on so uh Charter Schools Des Moines County Schools when a kid comes out of charter schools we take them back 100 take them back but as far as fighting that fighting private Christian education fighting private uh education you know we had the Montessori School on the other side of town we focus we want to focus on public education in Long County I want to make sure
085if we if you guys don't hear us complaining about the charter schools it's because I've kind of made a rule and these guys have really went uh it just we're not going to talk about it and that's the end of my talking about charter school so I've said it about eight times here in the last five minutes so we're working on what's going on here um retention of teachers and I've had conversations comes down to one thing they want respect they want respect from the students they want respect from the parents they want respect from the administration they want respect from the board of the from the board members they simply want respect now how do you define respect we can work back and forth on that is respect more money it sure is if
086you guys can get them another five thousand dollars this year get it but let's let's work at UH respecting them in the classrooms let them run their classroom let them plan their time let them tell you what's better for them I'm a construction worker I knew about I could do this building I can listen to people I can represent people but when it comes to educating people in the classroom I'm not the guy so what I would like to see is trying to figure out how to get respect back in the classroom and that's respect with teachers when I when I where I grew up if you as a teacher that was a respectful position in our hometown it was a position well I'm a teacher wow that's really that's good now when someone says
087their teachers disrespect by a lot of people and that that needs to stop that absolutely needs to stop so retain teachers what I'm hearing uh respect now you define how you want to respect them whether that's more money whether that's taking care of peia whether that's uh telling them just every once in a while just just tell them how damn good of a job they're doing and that's what I try to do every day I mean they're just they're really really good at what they do we have we are blessed with the best teachers this state has we're blessed with the best school system in the region there's no doubt in my mind if you want an education lawn County Schools is a place to get it and then going back to one thing that
088he's talking about because I do kind of want to talk to the strings we're talking about here a the retention of the uh continuation of positions by the art funding I've talked to delegate Statler a bunch of times what we need our responsibilities the school system is to prove that the positions we have are making a difference we'd like to have a computer system to be able to prove that but we need to be able to prove that what we're doing is making a difference so over the next five years as a superintendent said we can catch up to where education was but if those positions are making a difference now to catch up they're going to make a difference to help us get ahead so let's not be short-sighted let's start looking at education
089uh as something we're going to do over the next five years and then also to catch up with what covet has done to us and if it's working to catch us up it'll work to get us ahead so let's look at investing in education I've been talking I've taught for a couple years about untimed high school because the stigma of a kid that says it took me I got four years of high school and I'm just going to go drop out and go do something else I thought untimed High School and the fact that you could take five years to get out of high school I thought what a you know that would be a really good thing for us to do as a society as a school system but then we started talking as
090a board about the fact when they get to high school it's over if a kid's gonna drop out after four years they're going to drop out after five it's not going to make a difference so we started talking about untimed and and Jen spoke specifically to this untimed K2 call it what you want kids at that level don't know after they go out of kindergarten if they go to kindergarten Plus or if they go to something else and it keeps going back in my mind that a kid that's that the kid that's born August 31st are they really ready to go to school for their kindergarten year more than someone that was born one day later September 1st whatever I don't know what the question [Music] exactly some of them are ready to go and
091some of them aren't so if you put a kid into school system and they won't be able to be ready for third grade in three years why punish them for the rest of their lives because we didn't quite get their educational age right based on some the date that someone picked out of the year so how can we as a school system and we'll we'll find whatever if it's better for kids education we'll find places to put them if we could Define a smaller class size as the as the option when senator she's a Pete Senator capito who's at Suncrest with us and speaking of Suncrest the principal Gaithers here with us tonight uh Senator was there Shelley was there and then Dana Perino was there and we walked through the schools and we saw
092interventionists sitting one-on-one with kids in the hallways and if you think it stigmatizes a kid to pull him out of classroom and put him with a teacher that is absolutely not the case every one of those kids unless they really did a good job fooling us which you can tell kids won't lie those kids were enjoying that one-on-one time with those teachers with the teacher sitting in that hallway and it was going to make a difference in that kid's life so and then it's just it's we have so many ideas here and we have we this this group this this building we're sitting in filled with people that care about education every day every single day the people sit here and the people sit in our schools more so than even the ones that are
093sitting at this table anyhow besides superintendent um really care about education if you guys want allies in education we'll do it we'll be with you and when Senator Clem or Senator Clement said about coming down and visiting he might regret that often because I'll be sending I know how fancy his office is I'll be down there hanging out with him so and then I've been in in the past with uh delegate Statler who who's working very hard in education also so we have a pretty good connection here in mon County with education and you guys have good Resources with the people sitting at this table and especially with our with our uh with our administrators we get requests our administrators get requests to go around the state and go talk to people within the state
094what are you guys doing to succeed the success is here well I can tell you what we do we let the teachers teach and we let the people in the classrooms do what they do but uh the the things that we want to do and the things that we're going to do over the next three or four months or you guys are going to do in the next three or four months are going to matter in education and if you guys will need someone to talk to I'll talk I'll I talk too much maybe maybe even right now I'm talking too much but education is so important it's the backbone as Evan said of society it's public education system so help us out listen to us use us let's work together and let's let's make
095it better for not only us but everyone across the state so now anybody have board members anything else and and also representatives please if you have something to come up and you scratch some notes down please speak to us and and let us know what you're in even I mean open and floor up right now for you guys one thing as I want to clear up tonight what was the K2 program last year is K3 this year so it is looking at K3 and extending it out one more year and so that is where the focus is looking at now it can change before we get down there next month but I can tell you both sides of the of the Capital down there is focusing in that area not saying that we're not going
096to look at other things going on altogether in education but certainly we're going to put a lot of focus into those areas and I just wanted to um well thank you all for your ideas and pass along regrets from John Williams delegate Williams he was planning on being here tonight but he had a last minute Child Care responsibility that he couldn't get out of so he wanted me to pass along his regrets I appreciate you inviting here as well it's been very informative I love your idea of part-time school bus drivers Mike and I were had a little sidebar about that and you know as a business owner he I'm not stealing his Thunder I hope he said I could let maybe one of my employees go do the morning run and then come to
097work it's a great idea I don't know if it's been discussed I I don't recall any discussion about that maybe you guys have served on education May uh may have had some discussion about that I think it really really hit home Dan I love your ideas about you know the retirees and moving on but the problem with that is we we just moved the problem too you know we got to find a real solution but for the short term I agree I understand I support that and I would vote for that I really would but we still got to focus on right on the longer term and you know I just think everything was very informative that I learned a lot I learned how you feel Ron I respectfully disagree with you on the charter
098school issue because it is your problem because of sucking money out of your system and someday it will be your problem but other than that I mean just a respectful disagreement I hear you you've got to focus on what you have in front of you and and how you move forward with that so so I do agree but that that's my problem with it it sucks money out of the public school system so I just didn't want to leave here without saying that because I feel strongly about it but but again thank you all and thanks for having us and my phone's always answered and my door is always open as well you always want to stop by my office yeah very much thank you all for the ideas and look forward to working with
099you um I I like that concept of potentially four years to complete three at younger ages so we don't let students fall behind I love the concept of the interventionists I think I think that's a great idea I know this board went through a lot to get there uh and and I was supportive of superintendent devano's efforts to do that because I think if we could have people in our community who have valuable experience still have some time they're willing to give my next door neighbor is one of these people we're talking about that is willing to come in and work in our schools and raise the bar for our kids I think we ought to do that and uh we're talking our sidebars here along the way about the problems of the behavior on
100the school buses and you know maybe there are ways collectively we can solve that problem but but that we shouldn't we shouldn't be there in 2022 you know we should have kids in a place where they're able to get on a bus and ride 20 minutes to school 30 minutes to school without causing a bus driver to be so distracted such that he or she could wreck a bus and it's unfortunate that we're there and so we need to we need to figure out a solution to that and we're willing to to work on that together to try to help you there honestly I'm going to say one other thing I forgot to mention as a side note the state has problems with snow plow drivers allowing our bus drivers when we've called school off
101they can jump over there and work for the state and I don't know what that you know why we're not allowed to do that now but I just think you know that would give them another income and I think Barbie because they get paid for the snow day but now they're getting paper so it might be States not allowed to Pace yeah it's something to look into with that because that that would kind of because that's when it really gets suppressing we don't have enough drivers to plow snow well we've got drivers slowing them today if they want to do it I mean I'm done now I do like the concept of third grade particularly in math I asked the superintendent one time why do you promote children out of the third grade that cannot
102add and subtract and the answer was reflected in graduation rate and once you promote a child out of that third grade that can't add and subtract he's finished he's done for you can't multiply you can't divide and I think if we it doesn't become a stigma for some people because they spend an extra year before they go on that'd be the greatest thing we could do because if we don't we're going to lose them anyway right and on the bus ride I do want us to compliment one thing for Martin County I got behind school bus six cars behind him as soon as he hit a wide place he pulled over let everybody I'll never forget that that I mean that's very complimentary a lot of places they don't do that but this has been
103a good evening we hear what you've said and like I said the biggest thing I can communicate to you at this time is don't be a stranger we need to hear from you need to see you I think I appreciate you guys being here I know it's that we kept you longer than maybe what we planned on doing it but it was a great conversation great dialogue Senator Clements thank you for the invitation and I would extend it to you as well please never hesitate to reach out to me or my office if you have questions or concerns about anything I have opinions about lots of things and I'm willing to share them with you so thank you all for being here this evening and and we look forward to working with you thank you
104board members okay