School Board Meeting - October 9, 2025

001Good evening everyone. This meeting of the Almural County School Board is now back in session. Do we have a motion, Miss Lee from close session? >> We do, Cherry Auff. I move that the board certify by recorded vote that to the best of each board member's knowledge, only public business matters lawfully exempted from the open meeting requirements of the Freedom of Information Act and identified in the motion authorizing the closed meeting were heard, discussed, or considered in the closed meeting. >> Do we have a second? >> Second. >> Motion made by Miss Lee, seconded by Mr. Page. Uh, could I have a roll call vote? >> Miss Osborne? Yes, >> Mr. Paige. >> Yes, >> Miss Prior. >> Yes, >> Miss Spilman. >> Yes, >> Miss Lee. >> Yes, >> Dr. Berlin. >> Yes, >>

002Chair Euff. >> Yes. >> So, moved. >> Motion passes. Do we have a motion coming out of close session? >> Yes. I'll move that we approve candidate A for the chief communications officer position. >> Do we have a second for that? >> Motion made by Miss Osborne, seconded by Miss Lee. All those in favor? I >> I opposed. Motion passes. Next, let's have roll call just so everyone knows who everyone is. Uh why don't we start with Dr. Mclofflin. >> Good evening everyone. Pat Mclofflin, assistant superintendent. >> Leen Cox, Community Lab School. >> Judy Lee Ryana District. >> Allison Spilman at large representative. >> Graham Paige Miller District. >> Kate AOV chair and Jack Jew district. Rebecca Berlin, White Hall District. >> Ellen Osborne, Scotsville District. >> Good evening. Lesie Prior, Rio District. >> Matthew

003Haw, superintendent. Josiah Black, school division council. >> Christine Thompson, clerk of the board. >> Tanisha Thompson, coordinator of office operations. >> Thank you. and the folks in over here. >> Dan Reading, chief HR Officer, >> Chandra Hayes, assistant superintendent. >> Thank you all. Next, we'll have the pledge of allegiance. Let's stand. Those who can, please stand. I pledge algiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands. One nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. >> In a moment, we'll have a moment of silence, but I would urge everyone who can get a seat to get out of the aisles and take a seat. We don't want to um violate fire code. >> There are seats in the front mark reserved. I do not

004believe we need to keep them as reserved. So, please take those seats. >> Thank you, Miss Dr. Berlin. Uh now, we will have a moment of silence. Uh tonight, we pause to honor the memory of Ashley and Steven Williams who tragically lost their lives in a house fire in Kzwick earlier this week. Our hearts are with their daughters, Emma and Lily. Uh Emma is a third grader at Stone Robinson Elementary School and Lily is just three years old. We extend our deepest condolences to their family, friends, and the entire Stone Robinson community as they navigate this unimaginable loss. Please join me in a moment of silent silence in support of these children and in remembrance of their parents. Thank you. Uh now we have uh approval of the agenda. >> I move to approve tonight's

005agenda. >> Second. >> Motion made by Dr. Berlin, seconded by Miss Lee. All those in favor? I >> opposed. Motion passes. Next item is announcements. And the announcements are going to be a little longer than they are usually because of the issues that we are addressing tonight. Uh first uh Dr. Haw. No, I'm making a mistake already. First, I'd like to introduce again our student school board representative, Leighton Cox. This is his first night as student representative with this board and he has a brief statement and make sure you pull your mic down. >> Thank you, Miss Auff. Hello, members of the school board. I'm happy to join you today. School board members, my name is Leighton Cox representing Community Lab School and I'd like to take this opportunity to share a few things that

006my fellow students and I have identified at CLS for your consideration. I want to bring attention to the inconsistent room temperatures in classrooms. Some are too hot, others are too cold. It is affecting comfort, focus, and learning. I ask that the board look into possible solutions and ensure a more consistent and comfortable environment for students and staff. I'd like to point out that there are very few spaces outside of our classrooms for students to eat lunch or work because of our school because our school does not have a cafeteria or large gathering space other than the small gym. But it does not have bleachers or any other seating. Because of the limited room, many of us don't have a quiet or comfortable space to go when working or simply eating lunch. I know the school

007board has approved a renovation plan. So, my fellow students and I request you continue to advocate for the renovation at Community Lab School. I'd like to point out, excuse me. Lastly, I'd like to suggest the idea of me mental monthly mental health days and wellness days for students. With the stress of school activities and personal life, many students feel overwhelmed. a regular day to reset could really help with mental well-being and over overall performance. Thank you. >> Thank you, Mr. Cox. Uh we next have statements by Dr. Haw, Dr. Berlin, myself, and then Miss Spilman. Uh Dr. Hos, >> thanks Dr. Auff, and uh welcome aboard uh Mr. Cox. Thank you. Uh so I'm going to just uh provide a timeline on uh the issue that's very prevalent tonight around the uh Turning Point USA

008guest speaker and it's just the the background on it. Um, so on September 25th, 2025, uh, principal, Western Alma High School principal Jennifer Sublet received a flyer from the student president of Turning Point USA Club at Western Alma High School announcing that the club wished to host Ms. Kimberly Cobb as a guest speaker on the topic of two genders, one truth. Miss Sublet contacted schoolboard legal counsel and me to discuss whether the event could occur during the lunch period. I advised her that the event should be moved to after school out of concern that it might spill over into the instructional time and disrupt the remainder of the school day. At that time, I did not ask whether the club had previously hosted guest speakers during lunch without incident and the decision was made without

009that information. The next day, September 26th, uh the Founding Freedoms Law Center sent a letter to Albal County Public Schools asserting that the decision to restrict the event to after school hours constituted viewpoint discrimination. The letter uh referenced the Equal Access Act and Constitutional Law and requested written confirmation by October 3rd that the club could host the speaker during lunch. Um, the Equal Access Act is a federal law enacted in 1984 that requires public secondary schools to provide equal access to all student groups when they allow any student group to meet on school premises during non-instructional time regardless of the religious, political, or philosophical content of their speech. So, on September 30th, uh, after further consultation with uh, Mr. black legal counsel uh and the sublet. I reviewed the facts and our past practices related

010to lunchtime speakers. We found that not only had other student clubs hosted lunchtime speakers without incident, but the Turning Point USA club itself had also done so previously without disruption. Acting under my advisement, Miss Sublet determined the Turning Point USA club will host this presentation during lunchtime, as it had before and as other clubs have been doing. I provided an update to the school board noting that the club's next meeting was scheduled for October 22nd and that the speaking event was t tentatively planned for early November. October 1st, we sent out a draft community message. Uh it was prepared to clarify that student clubs are permitted to invite guest speakers and that the WHS clubs have previously hosted speakers during lunch. The principal's determination that the TPUSA club may proceed during the lunch period was

011made in consultation with school board counsel, Mr. Black, and me. The event date has not yet been set. We did recently respond to several media requests. So there's probably a lot of media out there about this. Um and you can look at that. They our responses reference uh our own policy IGDA which references student organizations. It provides equal access for student groups during non-instructional time and reaffirmed that our decision was consistent with constitutional law and long-standing division practice. I also want to clarify that there w there was no and there has not been a reversal of Almall's position. After reviewing the facts and consultation with legal counsel and me, the principal approved the event for the lunch period subject to expectations of order and respect. The rationale for permitting the guest speaker is that under

012constitutional law, public schools must grant student organizations equal access to meet during non-instructional time and to invite guest speakers, provided the events do not materially or substantially disrupt instruction or infringe on the rights of others. Once any student organization has been permitted to invite guest speakers, all student organizations must be afforded the same opportunity under the Equal Access Act. And finally, our own policy, teaching about controversial issues, states, "The school board welcomes the study of controversial issues and encourages students to examine multiple sides of such issues critically, intelligently, and with respect for the opinions of others. So consistent with this policy and with our practice of equal access, the Turning Point USA club's request met the criteria for for approval. The event will take place during non-instructional time and the principal ha principal has established

013clear expectations for respect and orderly conduct. In anticipation of the event, our school safety services department will coordinate with Miss Sublet and her administrative team to ensure that our protocols are in place for heightened security. Additionally, by holding the presentation during the lunch period rather than after school, we can restrict attendance by outside visitors, which we would not have been able to do as easily after school, further enhancing student and and staff safety. Thank you, Dr. Auff. Thank you, Dr. Haw. Um, there remain a few uh please refrain from clopping, hooting, making comments. Uh, disrupting a public meeting is a violation of Virginia code. Uh, and we don't really want to go there. I think we're all very interested in this topic. There are a few seats for those who are standing uh up here.

014Um, and if anybody who has an empty seat next to them can sort of hold their hand up, then the some of the guests can come in and sit down. Thank you, >> Mr. Vain. Is the upper loft open? It is not open. Okay. >> No. No. >> So, >> for security now, >> right? >> If everyone could raise their hand one more time. I see a few empty seats right over here. >> Thank you. If you are standing, I'm going before I continue, I'm going to ask you for you to take a seat. I see empty seats there, sir. There's some seats in the front. I ask that you sit down, please. Could [Music] could everybody who's standing please take a seat. There's a couple of empty seats down here toward the front. >>

015For the safety of the board and everyone in the audience, I'm going to ask everyone to take their seats, please. Thank you. I under I see that it's a bit of a tight squeeze, but we still have a few seats up here in the front. See, it has a camera. Okay. >> Thank you, Dr. Berlin. >> Thank you very much, Cherry Coff. Good evening. On behalf of the Alberark County Public School Board, we want to take a moment before public comment begins to address the concern and emotion surrounding a studentled club at Western Albamar High School. The Turning Point USA Club has received approval to host a guest speaker, Victoria Cobb, during an upcoming regular lunchtime meeting. The topic of her talk, two genders, one truth, is one that many in our community, ourselves included,

016find deeply troubling and contrary to the values of Elmer County Public Schools and to our long-standing policy protecting transgender and gender expansive students. Please refrain from making audible comments or you will be asked to leave the auditorium. Thank you. Thank you. We want to be clear permitting this club to meet does not mean the school board or the division endorses the speaker's message or viewpoint. policy IGDA interscolastic extracurricular activities which govern student organizations and the right to meet during non-instructional time ensures that access cannot be denied based on the content of a group's speech. Upholding that policy and the constitutional rights behind it sometimes requires allowing speech that we strongly disagree with. At the same time, policy JBA, treatment of transgender and gender expansive students, which affirms pro protections for transgender and gender expansive students,

017reflects our unwavering commitment to ensuring that every student in Alberark County Public Schools feels safe, seen, and supported for who they are. Our division has a long and consistent history of standing up for these protections, including amending our non-discrimination policy years ago to include gender identity and adopting a standalone policy in 2021. Today, we remain steadfast in our belief that no student should ever feel less than fully accepted in our schools. While the board disagrees with the message of this particular speaker, our disagreement is not directed towards the student who invited her or those students who wish to attend. We recognize and respect students rights to form clubs, invite speakers, and engage in dialogue, rights that are fundamental to learning in a democratic society. The decision to hold the meeting during the club's regular lunch

018period ensures that the event takes place in a supervised structured setting. All standard safety and supervision measures, including the school's entry screening systems, will be in place. This is a challenging moment for our community. It is clear that many of us hold deeply felt and differing beliefs around this issue. And some of us are even conflicted within ourselves. As we drive to uphold both students rights and the dignity and safety of every student, we remain united as one community with a shared responsibility to support and educate our students. As a school board, we hold both of these truths at once. Respect for individual rights and concern for every student's well-being must coexist in our schools. Our students are watching how we engage with one another. Let's show them that even when we disagree, we can

019do so with respect and compassion because that's what our students deserve from us. Thank you very much. >> Thank you, Dr. Berlin. Um, I too have a brief statement. Um, the school board has received many emails from our community questioning both our continued commitment to transgender policy as well as our support of the first amendment free speech rights of students. There's been considerable misinformation circulating and I hope that the statements made today by Dr. Haw, Dr. Dr. Berlin and myself will correct the record. A catalyst for this concern includes both the very existence of D Western Albamaral High School's Turning Point Club and their recent invitation of a speaker Victoria Cobb to discuss two genders. A threshold issue is whether the WA was Turning Point Club should even be permitted at ACPS. The short answer

020is to that is yes. Note that ACPS has many student clubs, including political clubs. The Turning Point C Club was launched during last school year and it has had other speakers, even controversial speakers with no disruption. Student clubs meet monthly during the lunch period and no one is required to attend. We are prohibited by law from discriminating based on the content or purpose of such clubs. Restricting the establishments of such clubs or their content they have is a question of student free speech and as noted by Dr. Haw and Dr. Berlin the Supreme Court in 1969 ruled in Tinker versus De Moine in that case students have the right of free speech and expression and these do not stop at the schoolhouse gate. Student have students have very wide latitude in their exercise of these

021rights. Since Tinker student free speech has been repeatedly affirmed by appellet courts. Neither the school board nor ACPS can constitutionally treat this club differently from how we treat all other clubs based on the content of what they discuss. Second, even if we permit such a club, some have argued that the invited speaker challenging the existence of transgender students itself is a violation of this school board's transgender policy and it should be blocked. Again, we cannot set aside student free speech rights because we disagree with the content. The club holds its sessions in a classroom and no student is need attend. Although this will not satisfy everyone, we must work to balance our support of free speech and the protection of our transgender students. The vast majority of the emails the school board has received appear

022to have been spurred by personal social media and press comments by our colleague at large, Representative Allison Spilman. She, like each of it, is is a duly elected member of this board who speaks only for herself. Only the chair and the vice chair speak for the full board. Miss Spilman's statements do not necessarily represent the views of any other member of this board. Multiple emails have also cited the school board's code of conduct as providing the legal grounds for removing Miss Spilman from her office. We affirm the code of conduct each January to meet and strive to meet its standards, but the provisions are aspirational only. We cannot control what our colleagues say or the medium on which they say it because seven members of the school board are elected by the community. Any sanction

023of its members are made by the voters at its ballot box. Thank you. And now, Miss Spilman, I believe you have a I believe you have a statement. >> I do. Thank you. Um good evening. Um, this has been a difficult week for me, for students, for families, and for our school community. Um, I want to take a moment to share what happened and sorry, and what I will do going forward. Um, last week I did make a Facebook post on my personal and private account. I expressed my concerns about a speaker invited to Western Alamar High School and within hours someone screenshot my post and shared it with media outlets and political organizations. What followed was a coordinated campaign of harassment and intimidation and it was terrifying. Um, I received thousands of messages to

024my personal work and schoolboard cell phones, email accounts, and social media accounts full of assaults. Thank you. um harassment and statements containing threats against my family, including my kids and other students at W. Uh we had to involve law enforcement and there were so many to go through that we had to um get people to help sort through them. To those of you that did reach out and offered support, I'm really grateful. Um I can't read the worst of the worst because they're too obscene, but you need to hear a few of the examples. Good morning, you child grooming demon. You're going to hell for what you've done to your poor child, you disgusting freak. One called me sexually mutilating terrorist scum. And perhaps the most chilling of this bunch. You are the kind of

025people that were burnt at the stake 500 years ago. It seems like a fitting tribunal to reinstate at the moment. And there are thousands more where that came from. I did not intend to equate the WAS TPUSA member students with the KKK and I realize that that is how it was interpreted by many. I tell my children all the time that if you hurt someone, whether you intended to or not, you should always apologize. So to the TPUSA students and your families, I am sincerely sorry. And for anyone else that I hurt, I am sincerely sorry. What I did intend to do was raise a crucial question about principles and policy, about where we draw lines regarding outside speakers in our schools. If we condone outside speakers coming on campus during school hours, what procedures

026are in place to vet their credentials, their topics, and the groups they represent? Are there mechanisms to ensure that other schoolboard policies can be followed and upheld? And if those policies and procedures allow a speaker whose message invalidates the identity, existence, and dignity of transgender students, shouldn't we reexamine those policies? Turns out there is no clear policy on this on this subject. A shortcoming that has led to back and forth and conflicting messages from the school administration, the school board members like myself, and the central office. During lunch, our schools have been turned into open public forums where essentially anyone can come and espouse their views to our children. It turns out that the answer to the question I initially posed on Facebook may actually be yes. And this is not a theoretical for me.

027When speakers come into our schools advocating for measures that deny students identities and humanities, that affects my family directly and it affects many, many other families in our district. It contributes to an environment where LGBTQ students who already face dramatically elevated risks of harassment, depression, and suicide feel even less safe. Schoolboard members across the country are leaving public service in record numbers due to harassment and threats. There are schoolboard and professor watch lists. The people on these lists have received death threats, rape threats, racist, and anti-semitic harassment. Some have been physically attacked. One professor received emails saying, "I hope you die in front of your family." Another was told, "I'm going to rape you in front of your children." These aren't hypotheticals. These are real educators whose lives have been upended. The campaign to silence

028me is part of this broader campaign, and it's working exactly as intended to make any educator, any school administrator, any school board member think twice before speaking up for vulnerable students. I do support every student's right to organize, to express their political views, and to engage in respectful dialogue about their beliefs. That includes TPUSA members and GSA members, for example. But there's a difference, however, between encouraging student speech and allowing outside non- studentent speakers into our school building. And that distinction matters. School boards and administrators exercise judgment about the content of what's being said and taught in our schools all the time and we should as it's our responsibility being entrusted with the care and education of students. I was elected to this position by the voters of Alamaro County and I will not stop

029advocating for every student in this district especially those who need advocates the most. I will speak out in service of my position and face those consequences rather than stay silent while students suffer. To the students who might be watching and will hear or will hear about this meeting, I am here to serve you. All of you. I will continue doing the job that your parents and community elected me to do. And to everyone in this room and watching tonight, what happened this week should concern all of us regardless of your political affiliation. I want to have serious conversations about speaker policies, about how we protect both student expression and student safety, and about how we support each other when we disagree. The question before us now is whether we will continue to be a school

030district that protects all students, including those who are most valulation and harm. Will we carefully consider whom we invite to speak to our children? and can our elected officials do their jobs without fear of coordinated campaigns designed to destroy them? I will continue serving this community, advocating for comprehensive policies that protect all students and asking hard questions when necessary because that's exactly what I promised and was elected to do. Thank you. Thank you, Miss Spilman. Pardon? Um, thank you, Miss Spilman. Uh, next we have our public comment and Dr. Berlin will be managing that. Thank you, Chair Akoff. Please be respectful, please. I'm going to ask that everyone be respectful during this public comment if and I'm going to read the rules for the public comment as well as make a statement about that. Thank

031you, sir. Public comment guidelines. We welcome public input at our schoolboard meetings. To sign up to speak during public comment period, you can do so in several ways. Online sign up is available from 9:00 a.m. on Monday of the meeting week until 2 p.m. on the meeting day. By phone by calling the school board's clerk to sign up on 2 p.m. on the meeting day in person. Sign up at the meeting is available from 6 pm until the public comment period for in-person meetings only. Please note that public comment is not received at special board meetings unless specified on the agenda. Each speaker typically has three minutes to speak, but the chair with board consent may reduce this to two minutes should there be 14 or more speakers. Today we have about 52 speakers signed

032out. The maximum number of people or groups that may speak at a meeting is 20. In event that there are more than 20 people or groups who wish to speak at a particular meeting, each speaker will be assigned a number and the numbers will be drawn to determine which people or groups will have the opportunity to speak. Those who do not have the opportunity to speak at a particular meeting may sign up to speak at a subsequent meeting or may submit written comments for the school board's consideration. Speakers should state their name, address, or voting district, address comments to the entire school board, limit comments to schoolboard governance and schoolboard operations, provide written statements and supporting material to the clerk. The school board will use a timer to track each speaker's time. Once the time

033is up, speakers are asked to wrap up their comments. Tonight, the microphone will stop at the 2-minute mark. To maintain respect, please refrain from clapping or other audible forms of support. You may raise your hand instead. Debate with the school board is not allowed. The projection system is for staff presentations only. I'm going to read an additional note on today's meeting. As a reminder, our public comment period is governed by the guidelines that I just read. Each speaker will have two minutes to speak. All comments should be addressed to the board, not to individuals. Please refrain from applause, shouting or interruptions so that each speaker can be heard and the meeting can proceed in an orderly manner. And I'm going to repeat something that I read at the end of my statement. Our students are

034watching how we engage with one another. Let's show them that even when we disagree, we can do so with respect and compassion because that's what our students deserve from us. And that's what I will expect during public comment tonight. I have just received the first three numbers from Superintendent Hos. So, give me a second to look down at my list to see who will be speaking and I will let you know. The first speaker is number 47, Allison Wood from White Hall. Allison, if you would come up and just stand until I'm ready uh to start public comment. The second speaker is number 17, Anna Malo from the Rio District. And our third speaker is number 50 and that is Gray Tracy from Samuel Miller. I'm going to ask each of them to come up

035for two minutes. While they are speaking, um Dr. Hos and others will be pulling the next set of 10 numbers and I will let you know those names as soon as they are completed. One second. >> Can you uh move the um microphone down? There you go. >> Hold on one second, please, until the clerk is ready. >> You may begin. >> Good evening, board, and my community. I'm here because I'm outraged by the comments made by one of our school board members. Comments that were diverse, inappropriately, and completely unacceptable for someone else elected to be present. all families in this district. When a board member calls a difference of opinion hate speech and compares it to KKK, that is not leadership. That's emotional outreach and an attempt to silence others. Let's be honest, she

036is focused on protecting her own child's feelings. However, when you elected to the school board, your responsibility is to every child. Where is that same energy for all of the students who test scores are dropping and whose education is suffering? Our district is struggling, academics are failing behind while personal agenda takes the spot. Enough is enough. We need leaders who focus on improving education, not creating division. I feel that she cannot represent all students fairly. And because of that, I'm asking her to step down, not out of anger, but because our children deserves better. If we don't start holding her accountable now, when will we? Thank you for your time. Thank you. When the next speaker comes up, please state your name and your voting district. My name is Anna and I'm in the Rio

037District. I want to start off my public comments today to the board by stating that I am an out queer, non-binary, anti-fascist community member. I am saying this proudly to let the community know and this board know I will never capitulate to fascists who want people like me and kids in Almoral County Public Schools to be put in camps for simply existing. I am also saying this because I want the queer and trans kids of Almor County Public Schools to know your elders have your back. I know how hard it can be to exist in this administration, but my queer ancestors threw bricks. so I could fight for you. Keep going. I went to a high school in a incredibly conservative town in Virginia where is frowned upon to be anything but but normal. I

038was lucky to be a chameleon. I fit in with most groups seamlessly. But something always felt different about me, something I couldn't put my finger on. It wasn't until I was approached my senior year by friends wanting to start a gay straight alliance that I started to put the pieces together. The GSA was a place I could feel comfortable to think and speak about queer issues. Ultimately, it's where I realized if I was queer, there was nothing wrong with that. In a town where homophobia was the norm, my GSA made school a space where I could be me. I may not have come out until 2 years after I graduated, but I think often about how having that space in high school pushed me to accept my true self. I'm going to cut my speech

039off here. Uh what I've written to say do not capitulate to fascist to this board. Do not capitulate to Christian nationalism, to authoritarianism. Protect trans kids, the most marginalized, the most marginalized in our society right now who are the scapegoats. Allison, we support you. I will never be afraid of fascists ever in my entire life. And you shouldn't either. Stand up for what is right and what is good and what you will be judged about at the pearly gates. I appreciate you. >> I have, as a reminder, you may stand in support, you may raise your hands like this in support, you may do this in support, but I ask that there not be cheering, booing, or any other disruption or we will have to stop this meeting. >> Snapping fingers either. >> You may

040not and no snapping of your fingers. You can put your fingers together like this. I am asking for respect. I would like to continue with these public comments, but I will stop if I need to. Everyone receives the respect and the time that they have been allotted. Thank you very much. Please state your name in your district. >> Hello, I'm Gray Tracy. I'm from Samuel Miller District. I'm a senior at Western Elm Marl High School. I'm here tonight because I'm deeply troubled, not only by the decision to allow Turning Point USA to proceed with their two genders, one truth event, but by this board's response to negative feedback. The title of the event alone reveals a disconnect between the views being espoused and reality. Scientific consensus has for decades held that sex and gender are

041not inherently coupled and that individuals exist with genders different to the ones assigned to them at birth and indeed with genders outside the conventional binary of man and woman. However, the claims that Turning Point wants to bring to my school aren't just untrue, they're cruel. I am transgender and non-binary. I have firsthand experience with the ignorance and hate that are sadly so prevalent in our society. To be reminded daily by the news, by the internet, and now by my school environment that many see people like me as deviant, deluded, or ungodly is both heart-wrenching and exhausting. In an email statement to students and families, the superintendent members of this board wrote that these discussions have left many feeling angry, frustrated, or invalidated while others feel supported. The former feel invalidated because the board has allowed

042a guest speaker who intends to come spread bigoted misinformation. The latter feel supported because they're being allowed, they're being given license to demean and discredit their peers based on an immutable facet of our identities. Studies show that for transgender youth, suicide rates are significantly lower among those who consider their schools gender affirming spaces. I urge the board, please don't let future classes down. Keep our schools safe and supportive for every student to come. Thank you. Thank you very much for your comments. >> I'm going to read the remaining speakers and then I will be calling you up at three at a time. Ashley Nettleton Scottville Travis or excuse me, Cav Travis Coffin Samuel Miller Lely Coffin Samuel Miller Cameron Midor Whiteall and if I mispronounce your name I apologize and please just correct me when

043you come up. Will Woodro Samuel Miller Nancy Mure Whiteall Sheila Bird Samuel Miller Michelle Karpovich Samuel Miller Matthew Christendon Rio Lily Kavich Rio Sabber Lion Samuel Miller Ike Knoth Rio Dana Langley Jet Jwitt Maria Cronush Rio Lauren Bomb Samuel Miller Kayla Shifflet Other Gracie Tracy Samuel Miller. >> The next three speakers are Ashley Nettleton, Tavis Coffin, and Lilly Coffin. You may begin. >> Ashley Martin, Scottville. Most of us are here because we care about the well-being of children. For thousands of years, humans have differentiated between children and adults. We have rules and laws that prevent children from doing certain things, either for their protection, lack of knowledge or experience, or inability to understand the lifelong consequences. Children can't get tattoos. They can't get married. They can't vote. They can't drink alcohol, smoke cigarettes, fight in

044war, or work certain jobs. If a teenager wanted to work in a grocery store, they can stock the shelves, but they cannot use the meat slicer in a deli. Why? Because it's too dangerous. They can slice off their finger. We want to protect children until they become adults. That's why many people don't think children should be able to get castrated, have double mistctomies, take puberty blockers, or hormone therapy, which leads to sterilization. Making these decisions require the ability to understand the lifelong consequences consequences which children cannot. The best thing to do when making lifealtering decisions is to discuss them over and over again because what if the decision you make is the wrong one or what if you grow up and you change your mind. You can't undo certain decisions which is why for thousands

045of years adults didn't like make didn't let children make those decisions. When students from a local school invite people to hold the discussion about gender, they may disagree with someone else's view, but that doesn't mean that they hate the other person. It just means they disagree. Not only that, if some of these students are Christian, they are called to love everyone and protect them, potentially from making decisions with lifelong consequences. If people on this school board refuse to hear both sides of a discussion and be impartial, maybe they shouldn't be on the school board, especially when one side is asking to pause first. do no harm and first do no harm when it comes to children. As I said before, children cannot get married, get tattoos, smoke cigarettes, fight in war, or use a meat

046slicer. Why is it wrong to ask why children should not get castrated, sterilized, or double get double mystctomies? Thank you. >> The next speaker is Tavis Coffin, Samuel Miller. >> Just move the mic up. Thank you. Good evening. Over the past year, the Turning Point USA chapter at Western High School has quietly shown what civil discourse can look like. From the start, the club has welcomed speakers like former Congressman Bob Good and TPUSA influencer Isabelle Brown, encouraging students, including those with opposing views, to think critically, ask questions, and share their perspectives. Controversial topics have been addressed, but always with respect and openness. From the beginning, the Cub face organized opposition. Some students tried to prevent others from signing up, mocking them, using verbal harassment, and even forming a human wall to block participation. But TPUSA

047members chose not to retaliate or escalate. Instead, they turned to school leadership, and under Principal Sublet's steady guidance, the situation was handled swiftly and fairly. Western, under her leadership, has remained committed to ensuring that all students, regardless of belief, have a safe, respectful, and supportive platform to express this their views. which is why it's so troubling that a member of our school board recently made remarks indirectly comparing TPUSA and its guest speaker to extremist groups like the KKK. This kind of rhetoric is not only irresponsible, it's deeply unfair to the students who have conducted themselves with nothing but maturity, love, and respect of others, including those who disagree with their positions. More importantly, it reflects a dangerous assumption that disagreement equals hate. Believing in traditional gender roles or holding religious convictions about sex and identity

048is not hate speech. If we continue to start labeling every traditional viewpoint as dangerous or extreme, where does that leave the thousands of students or churches across this country who hold these same beliefs? Are they also to be considered extremist? We often underestimate young people, assuming they are incapable of engaging in difficult conversations. But in truth, many are handling them better than the adults around them. They're navigating complex issues calmly, respectfully, and face to face. If we're serious about instilling leadership principles in our youth, we must be willing to recognize when they are already leading and teaching us how to rebuild the dialogue we as adults have lost. Thank you. >> Our next speaker is Lilly Coffin from Samuel Miller. >> Kelly Coffin. >> Apologies if it says L. Kelly Coffin. My son is the

049founding member and president of Turningpoint Club at Western Albamaro High School. He has had the opportunity to work closely with Mrs. Sublet from the time of club application until now. I want to commend Mrs. Sublet for facilitating the freedom of speech for all students at Western Alamar High School. She is truly making Western everybody's school. Last spring, I had the privilege of to volunteer at a Turning Point meeting where guest speaker Isabelle Brown spoke to over 120 students on the sensitive topic of abortion. She was knowledgeable, engaging, and connected well with the students. I saw Western students actively engage in civil discourse with the speaker and with one another. I fel left that meeting feeling encouraged by the turning point chapter and the environment that they had created promoting freedom of speech and civil discourse

050in our school. In stark contrast, a school board member has shown that she believes that free speech is for some, not for all, and she has elevated the rights of some students above others. In recent weeks, this schoolboard member likened my son, members of the Turning Point Club, and a scheduled guest speaker to the Ku Klux Clan. She accused them of hate speech and stated that their speech has no place in our schools. Her words were divisive, spoken in an in anger, and have brought harm to our community. Not only that, they were reckless in light of the recent assassination of Charlie Kirk. Albam Marl County School Board ask you to pause for a second. >> I'm asking for decorum so that all speakers can be heard. Thank you. Would you add 10 seconds to

051the clock, please? >> Alamaro County School Board, thank you for reversing course and allowing the Turning Point Club to host this guest speaker. By doing so, you have upheld students right guaranteed by the Equal Access Act and the First Amendment to the US Constitution. However, by addressing only policy in your statement on this matter and being silent on the dangerous words that were spoken by a member of the board, you have cond I I asked for her to have 10 additional seconds because she was We are in a >> let's recess. >> Under school board policy and Virginia code 22179, the chair is responsible for maintaining decorum and orderly conduct during meetings. This is a public meeting of the school board, not a public forum. Interruptions, shouting, or personal attacks are not permitted. In addition,

052disrupting a public meeting like this one is a crime under code Virginia 18.2-415. This is the first warning. Further disruption will result from removal in our meeting. I am going to ask that you have 10 additional seconds. because of the disruption. So you may have 10 seconds to finish. Thank you. >> By addressing only policy and your statement on this matter and being silent, >> we will turn the microphone on and reset that 10 seconds. >> You're good. school board. I challenge you to follow the example of Western students and Jennifer Sublet, making sure that Albamarl County Schools are truly everybody's school. Thank you. >> Thank you. The next three speakers are Cameron Midor from Whiteall, Will Woodro from Samuel Miller, and Nancy Burch Moore from Whiteall. As a reminder, just state your name and

053your district as you come forward. Cameron Meter. Good evening. My name is Cameron Meador and I'm in the Whiteall district. I have two sons in Alamar County Public Schools. My son Liam is in 10th grade at Western. He's a member of the Turning Point chapter there. I have always wanted our boys to be in public schools because I can think of no better way to prepare them for life than to be a part of their community. Being taught by adults and learning with others in their community in their lives, they will always encounter people with different opinions. One of our guiding principles as Americans is the first amendment. Americans have the right to express their views without censorship. And Americans have freedom of sim of assembly, the right to gather peacefully. Any student group in

054our public schools has the right to express their views and gather peacefully. And this includes turning point. This group of students has been meeting peacefully, sharing their views, listening to speakers, all the while respectful of their peers and their teachers with different views. Regretfully, they have not been treated with the same respect. As their principal, Miss Sublett, recently said, "Western Albamarl is everyone's school. This should always be our attitude as Americans. We must reach the point that we can have difficult conversations about controversial topics without threatening to ban or censor the person who disagrees with us. As adults in these young people's lives, we must model this for them, not choose sides, not call names. Our school board members should advocate for the rights of all students, not just equate them to bad people when

055they have a difference of opinion. The Turning Point chapter at W should absolutely continue for your remarks and they have a constitutional right to do so. >> Will Woodro is our next speaker. >> Hi, Will Woodro. I'm a father of one of the founders of the Turning Point chapter at Western. >> Please, please adjust your mic. >> Uh, regarding the controversy around the recent uh KKK comments, I would just like to say I think we can do better. I I've been very proud uh watching these kids uh and their club at Turning Point. The the bravery that it's taken for them to uh to build it, the maturity that they've developed and demonstrated, and the grace and the respect that they've shown for classmates who've disagreed with them. Shame on us adults. We are a

056community. We get to choose. Do we want to look like the rest of the country? Or do we want to build an oasis of kindness where we can disagree with ideas without attacking the people who hold them? But we can do better. And now I have a strong view and most of you have expressed that you don't agree with it. I I believe that the aggressive promotion of gender ideology to young children does more harm than good. uh it confuses kids when they're most vulnerable, when they are the most uncomfortable in their own skin that they'll ever be. And I don't see good fruit as a result of that. But here's the point. My concern for our kids is based in love. Love for all the kids in our community. And I understand the strong

057disagreement. I understand that those on the other side often come from a place of love as well. Misguided love, I believe, but love nonetheless. And that's where we as a community need to be honest with each other. The majority of us are motivated by love on this issue. Let's focus on that fact with charity for one another. Yes, we have diametrically opposed ideas of what love looks like. So what do we do? We trust our kids. We respectfully engage our ideas in the best of the Western tradition. We don't put a thumb on the scale. We don't demonize or silence differing points of view. We don't dishonestly accuse each other of being motivated by hate. That's intellectual violence. We're better than that. Let truth defend itself. >> Thank you. >> Our ideas will rise or

058fall on their own merit. Your >> time has expired. >> Thank you for your remarks. Your time has expired. Our next speaker is Nancy Burch Mr. from Whiteall. >> Good evening. I'm Nancy Mure. I'm from Whiteall and I'm the chair of the Alp County Republican Committee. I want to thank Principal Jen Sublut and the school district for upholding students constitutional rights by allowing Victoria Cobb to speak. This decision reflects the best of public education, teaching students to engage in critical thinking with diverse ideas. I'm saddened that it took legal action to reinstate the lunchtime TPUSA speaker. Um, since every student club has a right to invite speakers during their meetings, I hope this is a lesson learned for the future that neutral viewpoints will be used consistently in decisionmaking regarding applying school policies. Public education

059should champion student instruction and not waste time, money, and energy on refereeing partisan comment. Unfortunately, the atlarge school board member Allison Spilman publicly posted an irresponsible, demeaning, slanderous labeling of Western Alporal TPU USA students, drawing comparison, as you know, to the Kuclux Clan. This rhetoric incites violence and squashes civil discourse. And Allison, I'm sorry for the emails that you've gotten from some people that are also very violent. Violence kind of begets violence. I think my foremost concern is the prevention of any more rage or violence. Haven't we all seen enough in our beautiful community of this violence? Suppression of free speech stifles debate, breeds resentment, and erodess trust and institution. Let's promote harmony and cancel the vitriol. I encourage the board to lead. Thank you for your remarks. >> I am aware of the clock.

060I don't need to be reminded of what the time is. And I will stop the speaker. Our next three speakers are Sheila Bird from the Samuel Miller District, Michelle Karpovich from the Samuel Miller district, and Matthew Christensen Christensen from Ryer District. There are before you you start Miss Bird um if you are standing there are seats in the front. If you have a seat next to you please raise your hands. >> Thank you very much. You may begin. >> Thank you for the opportunity to address the board tonight. My name is Sheila Bird. I'm an Albar County parent, grandparent, teacher, and the granddaughter of a brave county sheriff who in the 1920s spearheaded the elimination of the Ku Klux Clan from his hometown. How did we get here? We say we want civil discourse, but

061do our actions affirm or bely that stated intent? Charlie Kirk wanted civil discourse. So he led a movement to resuscitate it. >> I'm asking for quiet during the speakers. We will stop this meeting if needed. >> Need to add about 10 seconds. >> You add a few minutes. >> Please add 10 seconds to the clock. >> Thank you. Thank you very much for doing that. You did not lose any time. >> Thank you. Charlie Kirk wanted the free exchange of ideas. So he spent his days welcoming dissent, listening to other people, assuming the best about them, and rarely raising his voice. Charlie Kirk treated everyone he debated with respect. And he did so because he understood why our founding fathers had pledged their lives, their fortunes, and their sacred honor to establish this constitutional republic,

062which every one of you has sworn an oath to support. In contrast, state candidates for lieutenant governor spew despicably violent rhetoric, and not a single member of his party has condemned him. The candidate for governor admonishes citizens to use rage to motivate behavior. And here, an elected schoolboard member distinctly and publicly compares young engaged students who want to exchange ideas freely to the KKK my grandfather fought. No schoolboard member should ever suggest that the board violate the US Constitution by squatchching free speech. I thank you for ensuring that every student is safe and supported regardless of their sex or their politics and that all students have their constitutionally protected rights to free speech protected. Thank you, >> Michelle Karpovich. >> Good evening, members of the school board, parents, students, and community members. My name is

063Michelle Karpovich, Samuel Miller District. I've taught at Western Elmoral High School for 27 years and I proudly serve as the faculty adviser to the Wise chapter of TPUSA. Tonight, however, I speak as a private citizen about a matter of public concern. I am deeply troubled by your recent social media post, Miss Spilman. In that post, you equated speaker Victoria Cobb of the Family Foundation, invited by our chapter, to discuss two genders, one truth, with hate groups like the KKK. This comparison is not only inappropriate, but dangerously inflammatory. Our schools should be places where all students, regardless of background or belief, feel safe, respected, and heard. equating a speaker meeting or a a speaker presenting a widely held biologybased perspective on gender. Excuse me. I'm going to ask again. >> I can tell you where that's

064coming from if you'd like to know. >> Yep. If the we will now recess this meeting for five minutes to allow order to be restored. We are committed to hearing public input but we cannot continue while the meeting is being disrupted. Our ACPD officers will assist as needed to ensure safety and restore order. We will reconvene once order is restored and the room is calm. She will get her 48 seconds back. >> Are you scared? I don't know what we're supposed to do. >> How many more do we have? Someone's going to get >> We need to be able to We need to be able to identify the people that are including probably just remind everybody. Great. Halfway. I'm going to ask everyone to take their seats. >> Uh I'm sorry. Uh Mr. Christensen, you

065may stand. The two speakers that have been called may stand. When everyone except for the speakers is seated and we have silence, I will begin. But I have a few comments to make. First of all, I want to make sure those and who have signs keep them away from the speakers. Uh, please no comments. And I'm going to read the rule again. As a reminder, our public comment period is governed by the guidelines that I read earlier. Each speaker will have two minutes to speak. All comments should be addressed to the board. I'm going to repeat that. All comments should be addressed to the board as a whole and not to individual board members. That is part of our guidelines. Please refrain from applause, shouting or interruptions so that each speaker can be heard and

066the meeting can proceed in an orderly manner. And I'm going to read this one more time. Our students are watching how we engage with one another. Let's show them that even when we disagree, we can do so with respect and compassion because that's what our students deserve from us. Miss Karpovich, we have put 59 seconds on the clock for the remainder of your time. >> Thank you. Equating a speaker presenting a widely held biology-based perspective on gender with a historically violent hate group is a reckless misuse of language. It undermines the values of respect, inclusivity, and open dialogue that our schools must uphold. Beyond the hurtful nature of Miss Filman's words, her post shows contempt and prejudice toward constituents with differing views. It reflects a mindset unwilling to engage respectfully or represent the full diversity

067of our community. Her words have shown division and created an atmosphere of intimidation that threatens free and respectful discourse. As elected officials, schoolboard members must uphold the highest standards of professionalism and fairness. I therefore call on Miss Spilman to resign from the Almiral County School Board. We are sincerely grateful to Dr. Haw for his message to the community. Let's reaffirm our commitment to schools where every voice is heard, respectful discourse is welcomed, and all students feel safe. >> Thank you. >> No, I'm going to remind everyone again, all comments should be addressed to the board and not to individual members. Matthew Christensen >> Matthew Christensen Rio District I am not trans myself as a social worker in child welfare as a therapist and as a friend. I have sat with people who are trans. I

068have heard their stories, heard the pain and hurt they have endured, the rejection, the hate, the denial of their very existence. I have heard some tell me they want to die because of the way they've been treated. That they don't know if they can keep going under the weight of the hate that has been piled on top of them, the death threats they've received just for existing. Schools are supposed to be a safe place for our children. Why allow in a speaker who is going to tell trans and non-binary students that their existence is a lie? You're telling trans kids that they aren't safe in your schools, that they shouldn't even exist in your community. You may be able to go home tonight and wash your hands of this, but I will continue to hear

069their pain and be a safe person for them and tell them, "Please, there are people who love you and want you here. Don't listen to the others. Please stay. I wish you didn't have to fight just to exist to be allowed to use the same facilities. I'm sorry I can't keep you safe. >> Thank you very much. Before we move on, I do need you to move that sign and keep all signs be behind that podium. The next, excuse me, the next three speakers, Lily Kovich, Sber Lion, and Ike Nth. Good evening. My name is Lily Kovak and I'm a student at Almoro High School and a proud member of the Young Democrat club. I'm speaking to you tonight because I'm furious, heartbroken, and deeply disappointed. Western Almar High School is bringing in a speaker

070to speak on a topic called two genders, one truth. This title is not just words. This is an attack on our non-binary and transgender classmates. This title is diminishing our students and peers acting like they're a problem we need to take care of and address. While the only thing we need to take care of and address is the hate they are receiving. Almoro County claims to be inclusive and diverse. But how are we supposed to call ourselves that if we allow a club on our campus to spread a hateful message to our fellow classmates? This is not only harmful but outright humane and dehumanizing. This is not about different opinions. This is about what is right and what is wrong. It's about protecting students who already carry the weight of being misunderstood, mocked, or targeted

071simply for being who they are. And an event like this doesn't promote dialogue. It promotes hate and cruelty which was we as a community should stand against. Public schools should be a safe space for every single student. Turning Points event does not reflect those values. It undermines them. Turning Point speaks so highly of letting people express themselves through three free speech. Yet, when their so-called free speech goes against their own ideals, all of a sudden it doesn't apply to that. You, as a school board, should stand up for what's right. Stand up for us. Stand up for our non-binary and transgender classmates. Let's stand up for what we believe in. And let's put our values on display for everyone to see. In no way am I asking you to deny students of their opinions. I'm

072asking you to recognize the difference between free speech and hate speech. No one's identity should be in question or denied at a school event, especially not at our schools. Please show that every student, no matter their gender identity or background, that they belong here. They are seen and respected and valued. Thank you. >> Thank you very much. >> Again, I am going to ask that there be no outburst during speeches. Sorry, comments. Please state your name. >> Hi, I'm Sabre Lion. I'm in the Samuel Miller district and I'm here as somebody who went to Western Elmore High School and is a trans person. Every single one of my peers that I went to school with 20 years ago and myself were deeply deeply suicidal. Every single one of us. Every single child that I'm an

073auntie to has shared these devastating secrets with me that they don't feel they can share with anybody else. And I recently, as in last week, lost somebody in my community. She was only 23. No, not a high school student. But this is where we come to. This is more than just conversation. This is more than just language. This is people acting as though other people don't exist, as though we don't have a right to breathe, as though there's no space for us in the world. And I know that many of you don't want there to be space for us in this world. And the reality is that we exist and we're going to continue to exist and we have always existed. It's genuinely a shame that people are here hunting children because ultimately metaphorically that's

074what this is. If we're pretending like this doesn't turn into bullying, this doesn't turn into cyber attacks, this doesn't turn into blood and knuckles, then you're doing nothing but deluding yourselves. I encourage you again to be brave, to do what's actually right. Because like that brave student just said, there's a difference between speech and hate speech. There's a difference between putting people in danger and supporting people. >> Thank you very much. >> Our next speaker will be Ike Nath. >> Good evening board. My name is Ike Nth. I live in the Samuel Miller district. I am a member of the student council at Western Alamar and I am a friend to countless people in the LGBTQ community at Western. The existence of trans and queer people is not a controversy. There is not a discussion.

075Trans people exist. I am disappointed by the school board for allowing Miss Cobb to speak at Western. Her talk denies the reality and dignity of trans people's existence. School should be a safe place for students. This is not safe. Her rhetoric is harmful and misinformed. If the school board's goal is to make sure students are comfortable, this is a failure of that duty. We must be accepting and create a community with compassion coming from a student at Western. Thank you. >> Thank you very much. Our next three speakers, Dana Langley, Maria Cronbush, and Lauren Bomb. Those three people may come forward. Hi, thank you for allowing me to speak. My name is Dana Langley and I live in the Jack Dwitt Magisterial District. I would like to start off sharing a quote from Franklin Graham.

076Charlie Kirk said, "I want to be remembered for courage for my faith. The most important thing is my faith." A single bullet silenced his voice on that platform on September 10th. But it can't erase his influence, his legacy, and his testimony for Jesus Christ. Just a few days before his death, he posted, "Jesus defeated death so you can live." He wasn't afraid or ashamed to talk about his faith. I think the devil has overplayed his hand. I pray that tens of thousands of young people will pick up Charlie's banner, courage, courageously speak truth in a culture that tries to deny God's truth. At this time, I'd like to offer a prayer of gratitude for the school board. Heavenly Father, we lift up our school board members to you tonight. Thank you for calling them to

077serve and for the commitment. Let's just get through this. Can I have time added for that interruption? >> You may have five seconds for that interruption. We will adjust your time. >> Thank you. Lord, we ask that you would cover each board member with your peace, protection, and guidance. Glant them clarity of mind and unity of purpose as they make decisions that affect the lives of so many. May their leadership reflect your love, justice, and grace in every word and action. Lord, you tell us that everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved. Pray that any board member or community member present tonight that does not know you, Lord, that they would be sensitive to your spirit. >> Thank you very much. >> We ask this in the mighty name of

078Jesus for your comments. >> Amen. [Music] Hi. Uh, Lauren Bound, Miller District. Um, I'm here to say do not relent to those who marginalize. You must protect students from ignorance, prejudice, and hate that the hate that Victoria Cobb seeks to promote. Mr. Hos, your legal analysis fell short of considering the district's obligation to prevent discrimination and harassment. This is not just any speaker invited to a lunchtime event. You know what this speaker promotes. You've heard what this speaker is going to promote. You not only can legally, but you must stop this event. By the way, I'm a civil rights attorney, not licensed in Virginia, although I will change that if I have to. I represent public schools currently on these issues. I know what you guys are dealing with, but I also know what I'm

079talking about. The First Amendment and the Equal Access Act do not protect discriminatory speech. You may lawfully promote uh prohibit speech that poses a material risk of substantial disruption or interferes with the rights of others. You also have a legal obligation. This is acknowledged in board policy to maintain a safe and supportive school environment free from harassment and discrimination. You have a legal duty to restrict this speech because it is likely to create, if not already has created, a hostile environment for students based on their identity. Imagine being a gender non-conforming child right now. Your very existence is attacked daily. Then someone's allowed to come to your school, perhaps your only safe space in life, and tell other children that you do not exist. Imagine the irreparable damage that that will cause. You cannot keep

080students safe while allowing this event. I'm going to borrow some language from a federal judge here. This type of discriminatory speech cuts to the core, belittles an individual's sense of place in society, and creates a feeling of inferiority that is unlikely to ever be undone. You have a choice right now to protect these students or do some allow something that will harm them in a way that is unlikely to ever be undone. Make the right decision. If not, I will help all these trans and non-binary kids lawyer up and sue the out of >> Thank you very much for your comments. Thank you very much for your comments. Do you want chair? Do you want to move into recess? >> Let's try to proceed. >> We have three more speakers left. I would like to

081proceed. We have a full school board agenda that I would like to get to in addition to these comments. Lauren Bomb. >> That was her. Marie Cronbush. >> Okay. Apologies. It's been a long night and day. Kayla Shifflet and Gracie Tracy are my last two speakers. >> I think you're done. What? >> I think you're good. Kayla Shifflet. >> Yeah, let's pick another one. >> Thank you very much. Sam Rosenbomb. [Applause] >> Yeah. >> Good evening. My name is Sam Rosenbound and I'm speaking today as a senior at Western Armal High School. I'm from the Good evening. My name is Sam Rosenbound and I'm speaking today as a senior at Western Armal. I'm concerned for the future of my school due to the allowance of divisive rhetoric during school hours. Specifically, I would like to

082address the board's decision to allow Victoria Cobb, an activist who has repeatedly targeted Alam Marl County for its policies regarding inclusion and equity for marginalized students to speak during school hours. By allowing two genders, one truth, Almor County is disregarding the students and the policies they have fought to uplift in years past in favor of the free speech of an outsider. This event should not take place during school hours. The potential harm of bringing in a speaker who could intimidate students and faculty with her rhetoric far outweighs any potential benefit. Words have meaning and they have power. Rhetoric has transformed in the past couple of years. Uh political debates turn hostile instantly, result in political violence, which endangers the safety and the security of ACBF students, faculty, and staff. Keep our lunch period free from

083political escalation. Ultimately, higher education is the place for a speaker like this. Conversations like this. As a senior, I know that my younger self is more malleable, far less mature than myself. Now, think of the younger freshmen who haven't yet had the opportunity to develop their political beliefs. Students feel bombarded by one side of the political spectrum. TPUSA is an organization with the external funds and support to provide large speaker events with food and prizes. But no other club exists to this level at Western. If we allow a Victoria Cobb to speak, who is next? In the current political sphere, there just is not a liberal equivalent to TPUSA, eliminating the needed neutrality of schools. Please, member of the board, rethink your decision. Keep this speech out of our school and think of the policy

084Almarl County was so proud of just nine months ago. Thank you. >> Thank you for your comments. That will conclude public comment for today. We will now move into an immediate 10-minute recess. Can someone give me an official Oh, they're not on. >> Which one do you want? >> We just need to have this on. >> Turn it on. Oh, they do, don't they? Okay. >> Hello everybody. Um, if you you are absolutely welcome to stay. We are moving into the business part of our meeting, but if you want to leave, this is the opportunity to scoot out of the auditorium. Thank you. still. [Music] Sorry. Hello. Can I ask the officer to close the doors because there's a lot of talking out in the foyer. [Music] And the one on this side would be

085great too. Thank you. Thank you. Uh we are now back in session. We had 20 speakers uh signed up and given the contentious nature of the topic uh and how full we were. I thought it went reasonably well with some exceptions um in terms of directing comments direct you know to a specific schoolboard member. The next item on our agenda is approval of the consent agenda. >> I move we approve the consent agenda. >> I second. >> Motion was made by Miss Lee, seconded by Dr. Berlin. Uh all those in favor? >> I I opposed. Motion passes. Next item on the agenda is an enrollment update by Miss Schmidt. Good evening. I'm Roslin Schmidt, chief operating officer. Tonight I will be providing an update on our enrollment as well as our class sizes. Uh these

086are two data sets that we annually annually report to the board. This is the first time we have presented them together. However, the full reports are included as enclosures to this agenda item and then you also have um hard copies of it. The class size report looks like this in our typical format and then your enrollment projection table is that right there. Um all data is based on September 30th. Before we get into the figures, let's first frame this work within our strategic plan. I want to draw attention in particular to the first and third goal, thriving students and equitable transformative resources as I think these are most relevant to this item. Starting with the enrollment, this table shows it by a summary summary by level. At our elementary schools, we have enrolled almost 6,200

087students. This does not include preK, which is about 75 students less than last year. We had projected a slight decrease but this is 68 students less than what we had projected. You can see our middle school enrollment grew by 50 students and came in right at projection. At high schools uh we have 70 students less than last year and that's 50 students less than what we had projected. So divisionwide that means we have 89 less students which is just a minor decrease of 6% and slightly less than what we projected which is about one less than 1%. Again this is just by um level but the enclosure has it by school and by grade. Um just a quick note about our projections. As you know we utilize a cohort progression model to project um project

088our enrollment. Kindergarten projections utilize live birth data from five years prior. Our current kindergarten class was born in 2020, which is hard to believe. That's our COVID babies now in school. Uh that year had low birth rates and therefore we had projected a lower kindergarten class. Um divisionwide we were accurate within 10 students. Uh but which schools they showed up was highly variable, but that's why you're seeing a decrease in the elementary level. So looking at this in historical context, we have a uh graph that goes back to 201516. The blue line is our actual enrollment by school year. The dash green line is what we had projected and budgeted for um in that same year. So you can see pre- pandemic uh we were actually coming in under projection for a couple years. We

089had that unexpected growth in 201920. Then the pandemic hit when our enrollment decreased and we've been increasing since. So while this is a decrease in this current year, you can see the trend line since 2020 is pretty consistently upward. At your next work session, you will be receiving the long range planning advisory report and included in that material will be the updated 10-year enrollment projections based on this new data. The last detail I have on enrollment is to look at it as a comparison to last year by school. I've grouped this chart by schools who increased by 20 or more students on the left. The middle are schools that were plus or minus 20 students and then schools that decrease by 20 students or more on the right side of the chart. But again, the

090enclosure has more details by individual school. Now we have the class size report. This report is produced annually and has a consistent format for many years now. It provides transparency and oversight into one I think the most important resources that we can allocate to schools which are our classroom teachers. It speaks to both the student and staff experience. The full report is included and provides information by school including mean class sizes, information by grade level and subject. You can see in this summary table that at division level despite budget reductions the mean class size has remained the same or less than last year. This is due to accommodations of principles making staffing decisions that are away that were reduced away from core classrooms and then the lower than expected enrollment. Similar to enrollment we can

091look at the state data in historical context. It's the same time frame back to 2015 2016. The teal and circles are elementary class sizes. The dark blue is middle and then the orange is high school. You can see um we've been stable the last two years, but it's an increase from um three years ago, but we're still lower than pre- pandemic. Are there any questions we can answer either about the enrollment or class size report? Just uh do the mean class sizes differ between the high schools? I mean Albamar are the class sizes different than Montichello? >> Yep. So as you we um produce on a differentiated staffing model. So we do expect different um class sizes. I'm going to pull it up. That is on page eight seven page seven of that full report.

092Uh Almoro High School has a mean class size of 20 this year. for Montella High School 19.7 and Western Almural 22. >> So they're pretty close. Thank you. You'll you see more variability at the middle school level. >> Is it too granular to uh know why like Stony Point went up 20? I mean that's a lot for a tiny school. >> Yeah. So um based on the past redistricting um decision um Cascadia is a growing community. um they had a very large kindergarten class um that can contribute to that. >> Okay, thank you. >> Are there any other comments or questions? >> Thank you, M. >> Okay, thank you. >> Thank you, Mid. Next on the agenda then is student discipline review and mental health and wellness. Mr. Curts and Mr. Nelson. >> Yeah. Sorry.

093So inept. Cool. >> Thank you. Uh, good evening. I am Kevin Kirstst. I'm your executive director of student services and along with me tonight uh is Miles Nelson, coordinator of mental health and wellness and Eileen Gomez who's the coordinator of nursing and health services. And we're basically going to give you our data story tonight which is a state of Alamar County's student services department. Um, and I'm going to start with a review of uh some data with regard to school discipline. And I'd like to pair that with restorative practices. In the interest of time and uh the amount of data here, I've included some resources for the board uh and the public uh to use. There are some groupings of behaviors, student behaviors and administrative responses. They are clusters, right? And uh I've put some

094examples in here so you could see and unpack like what are those groupings? What are those behaviors exhibited by students? So that is what they are in there for including examples of uh disciplinary responses that are available at the schools and utilized in our division. Uh the next three slides I'm going to start I I really went with uh 22 23 to last year 2425 um has an array of data. The intent here was uh in response to last year's presentation of could you break it down by grade level by different levels in the school. So this is more of a caricature of the types of um student behaviors that administrators are responding to. And at uh at the three different levels at elementary these uh the information is elementary primarily reports behaviors of a

095safety concern which include things like fighting, throwing objects and shoving. uh versus middle school that report the primary issue being uh relationship behaviors, teasing, profane language, failure to respond to requests by staff. And at high school, uh they note behaviors related to school operations like refusing to comply with requests by staff, violation of school technology or the internet policy, and not going to classes assigned. I do want to point out that other schools that's like post high center one the number of incidents is less than 20. So the there's inconsistent like from year to year the number is so low um that those things change uh a bit much. So over those three years um what we've seen is there's some consistency um in those characteristic behaviors that each level is dealing with although all

096of those categories are represented. So it's there isn't a behavior that's off limits at any level. When I break down, I do want to point out one of the uh findings is um elementary and high school report about,00 incidents in 2425 and it's middle school that is about 2,300 incidents. It's almost right elementary and high school combined. So middle school is a hot spot. Um and it has been for for a bit. This next slide is one that has uh indicates the frequency and so there's there's always good news bad news. Um but I want to point out just in general from 21-22 this new data reporting system took over. The state started this student behavior and administrative response process for reporting discipline. And in 2223 it took off but a lot of inconsistency across

097the division and our practices. uh so double down on that to really get a solid handle on accurate reporting and processes in 23 24 and then ultimately uh which I feel very confident to say in 2425 we saw a decrease in the number of incidents that administrators had to respond to uh almost and I I don't think it's a tiny little decrease but a decrease of almost 640 incidents I do want to point out right the good news bad news is that was primarily felt at the high school. They felt that decrease um middle and elementary that was pretty stable in terms of uh the frequency. Um even though there is an uptick so um an uptick in the uh disproportionate representation of students with disabilities in incidents. I do want to point out that

098they also frequencywise uh saw a decrease almost a hundred less incidents for students with disabilities. So, still disproportionate, but I did want to point out that uh there was some movement, still a priority for student services, but I I did want to point out some context there. Let's see. In this slide, uh the data shows both the frequency of disciplinary incidents that required administrative responses showing relatively consistent practices across the three years. In school suspension at the secondary level, it's called STEP or short-term educational program and short-term suspensions outside of school still are the primary response or disposition by administrators for behaviors. Okay. Uh this slide highlights however an increased attention to academic support when suspension or even inschool suspension is utilized by administrators. Uh I I believe this is uh not insignificant. Uh this

099is regularly considered when that has to happen. Last year, one of the concerns was, hey, how do we how are we doing with regard to the state? Could you give us some context? So, the state across the board, the the most recent data I could get my hands on as of about 5 days ago was from 23 24. I have not seen state 2425 data yet. Um, but it's trending increases across the board in all the categories. When we compare that to Albamarl County in particular, um we have one category that is decreasing significantly and that is behaviors related to school operations. Um so I want to point that out and the other categories are very consistent with the state. Not that that's a good thing, but um yeah, wanted to report just on that

100difference. Sticking with Albamarl, um, Alam Maro County schools saw an increase in the use of detention outside of regular school hours like after school detention. Um, loss of school privileges, out of school suspension by school administrators, and suspension of bus privileges. Those were all an increase. A decrease in the use of class removal for less than half a day and inschool suspension for a half a day or more. When we reflect on the state data, we see a trend in uh an opposite trend. Detention outside of schools and within school suspensions, those decreased. um where Albam Marl we saw u increases in those. I did want to highlight some of the work that's being done across the division that while this is one data point, it stretches all the way down to what we're doing

101with all students and that is the utilization of restorative practices. But this data is explicitly tied to administrative responses to behaviors that require some disciplinary action. And the utilization of restorative practices from 22 through last year is increasing. 2526 is on here, but again that that's just September and a tiny bit of October. I expect to match my goal is to far exceed 2425. This is daily work to support uh administrators, teachers, staff, families, and students. Um but wanted to highlight that that is still uh work in progress and there is some uh equity and inclusive data there as well that uh we're trying to keep an eye on and use with all of our with all of our students. So some takeaways uh the types of behaviors seen at elementary, middle, and high are

102different from each other but consistent across several years. There is a decrease trending in disproportionality of discipline with black students in particular. That's consistent. Uh not as great as I would like to see, but it's a mild trend. Um there is slippage on disproportionality with students with disabilities. Although again I want to point out frequency is decreasing but I'm working on that disproportionality. Um overall incidents are trending on the decrease right when we unpack and look at individual and where the decrease is happening it's somewhat concerning but overall we're seeing less incidents than the year before. Restorative practices are on the rise. And number six, I'm going to do a little restorative work myself. I have to fix number six because it's actually swapped. It's the state utilizes out of uh school suspension less uh

103and than what we're trending. We're we have an uptick of using out of school suspension as our uh so I I will submit that and hopefully restore my sense of trust with you folks. And number seven, alternatives out of school suspension are regularly considered. uh that's at after school what other things can we do restorative practices in school work and then the data is consistently more accurate allowing us to make decisions and to use that to indicate when we are aligning our practices and then before I go uh just wanted to give you a sense of next steps I do believe restorative practices and work with regard to um some some relatively antiquated Punitive practices like out of school suspension are done at this with all children at the classroom level. And I am working

104with division leadership to plan and implement professional development to increase uh our work in the classroom with regard to classroom management that ultimately leads to our response as administrators when behaviors are exhibited that need to be addressed. My department continues to support schools, principles, right down to families to understand, apply, and utilize restorative practices. I I do that quite a bit daily. And then um continue to work on collecting data that we can trust and that we could utilize to target our resources and make positive changes in the future. Not sure how you want to structure this questions now for me. >> Why don't we? Yes. >> Yeah. >> I have one question, Mr. Parz. >> Sure. >> Um, could you or could we receive the data from in school suspension and short-term by the

105principal uh by race? I know that you do the other the main thing by race, but if we could I have those two categories by race too in school suspension and short term by the principal. >> Yes, I could get that. So short the the different dispositions by race, >> right? >> Yes, I could get that to you. >> Um, go ahead, Miss Prior. >> I'm sorry. >> Can you share what sort of incidents do you use restorative justice for? Um, honestly it runs the gamut, but typically I'm called in with like the the larger fights. Um, things that involve staff from sometimes it's staff caught in the middle. Uh, but it fights bullying we've been called in for. I'm just trying to think of larger scale uh conflicts at the school. this morning, you

106know, a student got hurt by another, made a threatening uh move toward him and there was an accident, right? And someone got cut. It's like, yep, let's get in there, work that out. But then we've also moved to because I we're not going to get a lot of leverage just by the big end highlevel intense behaviors. We are working myself and Aaron English in our step programs. uh like okay here's a child that now this year is repeating why are you back in step for a number of times let's talk about why you're here how you could be a student how we could restore you back to the so it it is we're expanding from the high end which I typically do those intense behaviors all the way down to being out of class on

107a repeat kind of rotation >> do you do collaboration with the central Virginia Restorative um Commission. Do you all work? >> Not Not intensely. So I've worked with them, talked with them, but I don't like have them coming in or >> Okay. >> or directing our work. No. >> Okay. >> So if you're the one doing most, it sounds like you're doing most of the restorative work >> for for my cases for disciplinary hearings. Yes. >> Okay. But restorative work is happening at the schools uh with our um step program with Eron English supporting those. We're pulling in our um mental health support specialists, school counselors, principles. So it's not just I >> just they don't all come to you, >> right? They don't all come to me. And it is a way of thinking

108and working with kids. So I go in and there are folks working on restorative plans. It's more that's my default when I'm called into a disciplinary hearing versus coming in and dropping the hammer in an old school punitive way. It's what happened, who was harmed, where are we going from here? That's the restorative >> because as we've talked before, restorative practices done badly or worse than nothing at all. So >> almost worse. >> It could be hurtful. >> It Yes. >> If Yeah. It's you know like the wild west or something. Yes, there is a process. It is a way of and it is a way of thinking and working with kids. Absolutely. >> And are you trying to get that way of thinking pushed down into all levels of the school so that >>

109Yes. >> So that becomes a way of operating? >> Absolutely. And and honestly with all the efforts that the division has done already, it's meeting in the middle. For example, you've heard about uh responsive classroom and developmental designs at the secondary level. they use as a basis of building community the restorative mindset. So I'm not doing any of that. I'm meeting at the top. Okay. >> Reaching down to the base. Uh but we want to shore that up to make the link for everybody. >> So that is happening already in our division. >> Good. Um I actually um if you could go back to the very beginning um the slides that were talking about the percentages um yeah um do those align and I don't know this off the top of my head but like

110are for example are 30 roughly 37% of our students African-American what are the what are the comparisons um I'm sorry >> oh um I'm I'm curious like how disproportionate it is, you know, you talked about that we've slid one way or the other, but you know, I I don't know off the top of my head what percentage um our student demographics fall and then how how big that number is. >> So, I haven't run there is a state uh algorithm, right? It's like two times the the the chance that it could happen is their version of it's disproportionate. I have not applied that to these numbers. Yeah, I'd be curious. Yeah, I would be really curious to see that if um how that aligns um and you know if we're way off or if we're

111you know >> um and my other question was um when you were talking about um students with disabilities and that we've had slippage in that way. Um you know, Dr. Dr. Hayes and I have had a some recent discussions about this and I think that something to really we've really kind of honed in on is that um administrators don't seem to have the full understanding of their students IEPs and 504s. And so there seems to be a gap there where um we're coming in and we're disciplining a child who has an IEP or who has a 504 whose disability, you know, may be, you know, having an outburst or flipping a desk as part of their disability. That's, you know, whether it's sensory seeking or whatever. And our first instinct has been discipline. Um, so

112I would really like to see um some sort of plan in place of what that looks like for um for those administrators that are in charge of our sped students, our students with 504s. What is that training going to look like as far as learning and knowing their 504s and their IEPs, knowing those students so that our immediate reaction isn't discipline when it's often disability based? Yeah, I I could say at least now being the previous director of students or uh special education that that is front and center. When I go into a disciplinary hearing, it's automatic like where's the IEP? I want to read, >> right? But that's after they've been disciplined and we're in a discipline. We need to be >> frontending that. um because then we'll never get to a dis and

113and I I think that the damage that is done especially to a child with a disability being punished for something that often times they don't have control over um the regression is is very big. Um so and you know this I mean you you've you've been there but I would just this um I I would hope that that's where our plan is going and I would love to see what that looks like um >> Sure. >> going forward. Thank you. >> And Kevin Karen if you can clarify. So what constitutes the unique students from you have the total incidents 3901. >> Oh yes. So students in a in a behavioral incident it could be one incident but four behaviors took place right cussing hitting this that that's the difference. So uh an individual student can

114have even on one event multiple incidents. That's where you get the higher incident rate. Mhm. >> Does Does that make sense? On top of multiple times. So, it's 1621 individual students can have multiple incidents over multiple days. It's I was just trying to tease out because a lot the question had been is this a few students or is it many students doing a few things? >> Um does that does that answer your question? >> It does. Okay. And just one way I frame it too is I look at 16 21 unique students. That's just a little more than it's like maybe 12% of our of all of our students. So 88% of our students have no disciplinary record in our system. And the elementary schools that was an area where we weren't you know prior

115to a few years ago I don't think our data collection was great but it's getting better all the time. So, >> I I think that um it really speaks well of our students and our school community that really about 12% of our students are having these issues. But the other positive thing is it's it's getting to be more and more of a workable number. You keep bringing it down, you can, as Miss Spilman was pointing out, you can get more proactive. You keep getting more proactive because you're not just every time putting out a fire. Uh, the other thing I want to share is that I'm really pleased that we just aren't using the the schoolboard level discipline committee very much anymore. >> I haven't actually been to a discipline committee since I was put

116on the committee. I haven't been to a meeting yet. So, >> we're very pleased with that. >> I know. >> And I'm pleased with it, too, because to me that's like the tip of the iceberg. That's like where the volcano. >> Yeah. So if we're working at the base, and I say we, but you know, Kevin, his staff, the principles, working at that base level, keeping the temperature down and the teachers are doing a dynamite job of working in the classrooms to solve the problem before it turns into a real to a bigger issue and they're collaborating with families. If they're doing all those things, we should continue to see that the unique number coming down and we should continue that trend of with the exception of like the way off the chart thing um

117that we didn't see coming uh having those discipline hearings. >> Can you go back one more because just I mean I heard what Dr. Hos just said, but >> the stat that had I think um African-American students at 37%. >> And you were saying just um 22% I think 88% was the um percentage of students that weren't having any disciplinary challenges 37.2 here. Um >> okay. >> So we have an we have something called an equity table that's published every year in our state of the division report. And what we'll do is we'll get Patrick to share that with the board from it'll it's coming up again. they we do it every year and it shows the percentage of student representation of our overall student body and then it has different indicators including reading scores

118um uh special education identification some other things like that attendance but then it also speaks to discipline incidents >> and our we are we're extremely disproportionate um with our uh by race by um free reduced lunch But we're trending in the right direction and we're better than largely better than the state. So the other part is if you can bring down your overall numbers of discipline incidents, you're you're still going to see disproportionality because even if it's let's say we had 10 discipline infractions next year and it was one from every category that we have, you're going to see a big disproportionality because of the lower representation of the students in the overall student body. So when we used to work with Dewey Cornell more directly over at the Youth Violence Project, he said that

119what you've got to do is just keep pushing the whole thing down. Just keep pushing down the numbers of students that you're suspending. Work with restorative practices. Be proactive as board members are pointing out. You bring that whole thing down, you're still going to have disproportionality because the disproportionate representation of students, but you're not suspending them at at a great frequency. So we keep sorry I just have one final question. Um in I think last year um we were talking about the increase in racial and identity slurs. Um I think it increased by like something like close to 80% or something. It was like astounding. And I don't see that number and that doesn't look like it was >> um is that something you could get for us or is that something you have been

120tracking? um cuz it was concerning when it went up it such a large amount um last year and I'm curious if that number went down or if we're still >> Yeah. I I don't have it right here but but I could get it with the other data for sure. >> Thank you. >> Yeah. >> Miss Lee, Mr. Cox, do you have anything? No. >> Um given the disproportionality of discipline with our black students, which is like 37 or 39% depending on the year. I mean, overall our our black population is in the 11% range, >> so it's about triple. Um, >> what kind of feedback are you giving school administrators in terms of what looks like overdisiplining disciplinary actions with their black students or how how should we be looking at that? So, so the

121way I believe we should be looking at is is the work that's already begun, which is art. All behavior is communication. And when needs aren't met, we all >> try to get our needs met. When we build a community and use practices like restored restorative practices and responsive classroom and developmental designs, we take care of the needs at the base and that's the intent to firm and shore that up first. Uh and then look at alternatives. Look at alternatives other than punitive. So many times that question is what do I do? Can I suspend? And the question is why? what are you trying to do and is that the best we can do? Uh so it's that whole gamut from the classroom all the way up to a decision is about to be made and

122the critical questions being asked like why what do we want to happen and what does what we're doing match out of school suspension doesn't work as a punitive intervention. It it just doesn't work to go this will teach them it the data doesn't support it. Um, so that's that's my belief is we start as a need-filling classroom and work our way up to thoughtful interventions that are based on evidence. >> Thank you. >> Any further questions? Okay, Miles Nelson's up next. >> Thank you. >> Hello. I'm Miles Nelson. I'm the coordinator of mental health and wellness. Thank you all for letting me provide an update. going to talk a few things about community based referrals, direct services from counselors, peer nominations, help me, our DCJS climate survey, and then stop for some questions. Oh, going

123the wrong way. There we go. Uh, but first, just wanted to anchor in our uh mission and vision. So, um, students mental health is our foundation. So, it's not separate from learning and it's really what makes students mentally well to thrive. And with that kind of start talking about some of the data I showed last year. So this is the data I showed last year. This is our high school data. And the department of criminal justice survey survey climate survey. Too many surveys. Comes up every other year at the secondary level. So one year it's for the high school, the next year it's for the middle school. And so it's an every other year survey. So right here we're looking at the high school. And so this is our 2022 2024 data. In 2022, we

124saw that numbers were around 42% for the first question they ask is um does a student feel so sad or hopeless that almost every single day that they have stopped engaging in their usual activities? And you see the numbers are pretty high. And so the bar on the far left is ACPS and then it moves over to regional numbers and then it moves over to state numbers. And so we're seeing decreases. So in 2024 we saw a significant decline and that dropped to 33% for ACPS. And then the second bar graph that you see there is students that have seriously contemplated suicide. And so this is one of our more significant ones that I look at each year. And on 2022 we were at about 9.5%. And in 2024 it dropped to I got that

125backwards. I'm sorry. It was 12.6 in 2022 and then dropped to 9.5 in 2024. And so it's just showing a trend line from uh the amount of services that we're putting in schools and help support students that we're seeing a decline and we're staying below the state numbers and we're starting to see significant gains. So this is the middle school data from 2023 to 2025. Same survey except for now it's delivered at the middle school level. So on the left hand side you see we were at about 29% in the 23 data for feeling for hopelessness and then for suicidal ideation it was about oh I got my numbers again 9.4%. No sorry I should have had this laid out better. There we go. Yeah 9.4%. And then when we look at the 2025 data,

126we see even more gains. So we dropped to about 26% for the hopelessness and suicidal ideation dropped to 6.5%. And saw significant gains there. And so this leads into my next point is talking about our community based referrals. So we are continuing to see expanded supports through both our community partnerships and our mental health support specialists. Both long-term and short-term mental health challenges can prevent students from thriving in schools. Though through these partnerships and the work of our mental health support specialists, we're really beginning to see beginning to address these needs. And these program and this progress is reflected in the data from the DCJS survey. So a key piece to meeting our students needs is through this. And you see that even as we're progressing in the number of service, you also see a

127different variation in colors because we're adding in more services. So in the 2020 2425 school year, we brought back therapeutic day treatment services. Um we see the increase in mental health uh support specialists meeting students. Uh our partnership with region 10, which is our SAP counselors, outpatient counseling referrals is our contracted services with companies like active and connected and providing outpatient services. our connection with the Department of Social Services for family support workers and working with our own Mckenn Vento connection for families that are facing homelessness. So, we're continuing to see an increase in services. And then this pushes into our school counselors. So, this is a chart you see in front of you for the direct services from our school counselors and the partnerships they have with students, families, and schools. And so this

128is their direct contact and they are the lynch pin lynchpin of our schools. They provide the connection between community services and schools. And not only do they provide mental health services, they also attend to the career and academics of our students. And so you can see the small bars at the bottom of those bar graphs are the connections of our community supports that you saw from the last chart. So those are the intensive services where they're digging in and helping support kids, meeting some of our very intense needs. And then then this is where our school counselors are being that case manager. They're the ones connecting family, schools, and services. And then just to highlight a few other things throughout the division, this is our peer nominations. This has been a long-standing process. That is

129one of the things that I'm uh a huge proponent for. So, this is a yearly survey that we give which looks at and ask peers to nominate each other of individuals they think might be being bullied by others. And it's really just a pulse check. It's given once in the fall and it's really a chance to try to encourage students to have an opportunity to let a trusted adult, a counselor have someone to check in on. And so this really helps us uh with those stop gaps of trying to check in with each student that um might need some extra supports. And so it's just one other way that we try to check in with students. And as you can see over the last 10ish years, we've seen a decline in nominations. So again, making

130sure that we're continuing to talk through these services and what it looks like for kids. And then jumping into our help me data. So this is something that we've been uh implementing for the last 2 years and this is the wheel of services that get put in when students, families, community members put in information into our help me app. And so there's a broad range of categories, but as you can see, most of it falls under bullying, harassment, and other. Um, and then I always like to highlight the portion on self harm and suicidal ideation because this is a peer nomination service. It's where they either ask for help for themselves or they nominate a peer that needs support. And I think that's one of the purest forms of the system is that we're asking

131for help and support from a trusted adult within the school building and they're looking for how to get that help. And then that goes into the next slide. These are our response for the help messes that we put out or not that we put out the for the help that come in. These are our response and over 50% of our response is either conference or counseling. you are most likely to get a a supportive response when something comes through there. And then some of the reports that come in there do have to have the disciplinary response. And then one of the things that I'm also very excited about uh since our implementation, we're now in the second year of help me is that 99.9% of our cases have been closed. So these concerns are being

132addressed. They are being looked at. We're still working through some education and training for students on what it looks like because I know there are some complexities to it and that it's not always the easiest to get back into the system and see the response that's given from an administrator or from a school counselor. But we are looking at it. We do see what you're saying. We do hear you and I think that was my last slide. Any questions? >> Um a a note and a question I guess. So, um would you go back to the slide that showed the categories of types of support? It had the Mckina the um the Mckina Vento. Um I just wanted to I mean we've been talking about um the increasing homeless population, I'm sorry, on unhomed population

133um in our community and it definitely shows kind of that you know year-over-year significant increases. Um, so I just wanted to to to note that and just make sure we're all aware of that. Um, and then the second question is just um I think to the second to last slide where you kind of showed the um the different areas like what is the time frame? Is this this school year is like what am I what am I looking at? >> Yes, great question. This is for the 2425 school. All the data I pulled from for this presentation was from the 2425 school year. >> Got it. It it would be helpful maybe um to compare right to kind of compare um to a similar slice of data for last year to see how this has

134changed like because my head goes to that bullying number but I'm not I have nothing to comparison it to. So just kind of to see where we're seeing things going up and down. >> Absolutely. And I will more than happy to do that. So we used to use a different system and so our data was vastly different and so it's been we used to use anonymous alerts and so we saw a huge change when we changed systems because it went from anonymous reporting to a system that says help me and it was intentional because now we're asking what can we do to support? So yes, you feel like someone's bullying you, how can we support you? What can we do? And so we have seen a change in what these reports look like. So it

135is it does vary a little bit but I'm more than happy to get that into you. >> Oh that that's right because this is 242 25 data that's when we started using help me. So maybe you know maybe it's in >> next year's future or or as we have it we could begin looking at you know you know as we get to January maybe we look at because did we start in September or was it a little delayed in 20 the schools the school the um when when did we start using help me? >> This is a full year of data for help >> full year data. Maybe what we could do is look at um start of school like first first half of the year. >> Yeah. Maybe like in January that like a

136a January end of January meeting would be great to kind of come back and and just look at that a little bit. >> I would love to. >> Thank you so much. >> Okay. um if our staff is aware of maybe a time where there might be a lot of stress for some of our students, say for instance the trans students with what's going or what might happen at Western with that speech. Uh could there be any provisions made to have maybe extra counselors or some method of counseling the students around the time of an event like that? >> Yeah, absolutely. And so I think it's twofold. One, it's uh our team mental health first aid program. I think that's a huge part of this and I actually had a nice little speech about it

137that I forgot to mention, but it's a great segue. So with team mental health first aid, it talks about peer-to-p peer support. So if you are struggling or if your peer is struggling, it talks about how to notice and then how to connect them with a trusted adult. And so the same thing with our youth mental health first aid course. it it works really with staff on how to connect with a youth who might be struggling with a mental health challenge. And so it's that great partnership between the two. And then if you don't know where to turn to or you're unsure of, that's where help me fills in. That's where you can say, "Hey, I I'm really struggling. I need to talk to someone." Well, we can connect you with the school counselor. If

138it's the high school level, we have our region 10 partnership. We have the mental health support specialist. And so if you're unsure of where to turn to, that's where I always suggest going to help me as a starting base. And then from there they can get you the resources you need. >> Okay. Thanks. >> And I was going to ask so for the bullying harassment here it's 19.6 and then under the discrimination 1.6. So there could be a fine line sometimes. So how do you distinguish the difference between those categories? >> So this is student generated. So it's what they select as a category. So, I can go back and look to see if people are adding in coding afterwards, but I'm unsure. So, I'll have to double check on that one for you. >>

139What's the total number of students? >> Total number of students. So, we had a total number of about 1,200 alerts last year, which is a increase of about 20 to 30% based on what we had when we had anonymous alerts. >> Okay. So this is the pie chart is based on 1,200 students using it and then the percentages are the percentages of that group of students. >> Yes. >> So it's 1,200 students 20% would be 240 of of the students that are reporting or saying they were bullied or harassed. >> I'm going to agree because I can't do that math in my head. >> Is that students or incidents? >> So it's incidents. It it is it's what is reported in that one subsection. >> This is actually not a number of students then it's

140a total number of incidents >> incidents incident. >> So out of the 1200 incences 19.6 of those reports were about bullying. >> Yeah. >> Thank you. I know when you were last here, Miles, that excuse me, um, one of our student reps uh, said that there was some confusion about what help me was, what did it, you know, whether it actually um, was the same as as the anonymous helpline. She, you know, thought it look was much more looking for help for the individual. Have you seen um a more robust um reporting as students have become more familiar with it or is there still that barrier and if Mr. Cox has anything to say about having it on everybody's computer and if that how that has worked out. I mean, everyone knows that mental health

141is very stigma uh stigmatizing sometimes and it but anyway, >> yeah, I would say I take every opportunity I can to talk about it within schools. Um, one of the things that we did this year was we had a slide deck that was available to administrators for like the beginning of the school year to introduce it and whatnot. um always looking for other opportunities to engage with it. And so one of the things that I have also done in partnerships with help me is I've introduced it when I sit at the um crisis intervention team table with our the CIT team and I've introduced it to our first responders. So when they're talking with families so as we have first responders on scenes, they show families how to use it and I've engaged with the

142heart team about it. I've talked with our region 10 crisis team so that they can introduce the kids and show them that it's a resource when they're working with kids. If they're not able to talk with their region 10 counselor, they can always reach out to this um service. I will say I was looking at some of the data and we have had what feels like quite an increase in what they consider imminent calls. And so those are their escalation pieces. So if someone puts something within the help me app that is of imminent concern where there is a potential chance for harm that the call goes directly to myself or to the department of school safety and security and then we end up contacting the family and I haven't written down the exact data

143for it but it has felt like an increase. What it's my understanding that the the help me u software is on middle and high school students and I I was just thinking of Mr. Kurt's data on disciplinary uh actions in in middle school. Are you seeing middle schoolers take this up or utilize this? Do we have data on them? >> Absolutely. Um >> different than high school data. >> I would say actually our middle schoolers use it more than our high schoolers. Um we have one particular middle school that utilizes it much more than other schools. Um and there it varies and so I think the again the more that we can provide training and education to our students and staff around the system uh the better it's going to get. Uh again this is

144year two of the implementation of it. I think it's just going to improve from here on. And I know that we were actually just on a call today with our customer success manager talking about different ways to engage and uh make improvements to the system to help show the keys to be able to get back into the system to respond or see what an administrator has uh written to a student. And that's where we're seeing the largest hangup. And so that's why I like highlighting that the system um that we have closed all of those alerts because I do want individuals to know that we are seeing them and right now that's our biggest >> hitch in our education piece of it is how to get back into the system to see that an administrator

145has responded to it. >> Thank you. And not to tell you what might the inappropriate conduct what is >> I would have to look into it. >> Okay. Um I believe I heard you say there was a increase in responses when um it is no longer anonymous. I was just wondering if you have a theory on why that is and do the people using the survey know that it is no longer anonymous. >> It's still confidential reporting up there. We don't know who the students reporting are. Um, I hold very tightly that it should be an anonymous survey, that it's an anonymous system. Um, there is a nice article from the, uh, Secret Service that talks about the need for an anonymous reporting system. So, we hold that very close. And generally the only way

146to get past it being an anonymous system would be to make a request of the police for a warrant to gather that um data. So it is a very secure system. I I promise you that it will take a lot to make this not confidential and I would say it is very very anonymous. Any other questions, comments? Thank you, Mr. Nelson. >> Absolutely. >> Thank you. >> Uh, next, uh, we have a, well, two things. Mr. Cox, it's after 9:00, so if you care to leave, you feel free to do so. Uh, your comments are great, but I understand that you have to get up in the morning, too. Um, >> do we want to take another break or do we want to push ahead? Let's push ahead. Keep going. >> Let's keep going. Um,

147Miss Gomez, you're up next. >> Hello, I'm Eileen Gomez. I'm the school health services coordinator for Almoro County Public Schools. And this is the first time I've used this. Let's see. Right. So, I'm going to share with you some data with the school health services and the school clinics for the last couple of years. You you have that in front of you, don't you? So, you can see that our clinic visits have increased over the last school year from last year and the year before. Some of that, I think, is the post pandemic. During the pandemic, we discouraged students from coming to the nurs's office because we were trying to separate the well children from the ill children. And so, we're returning to the numbers that we had prior to the pandemic. You can see

148that the nurses are busy. Over the course of last year, they saw 148,544 unique student visits. I um I just have a few of the major categories here as you can see. >> Then I break it down by school and school level. So the elementary schools, you know that there's a very big difference in the size, the enrollment numbers there. And you can see that doesn't necessarily correlate with the busyiness of the clinic. Some of that is school culture, I would say, and some of it has to do with the the needs at the school. So you can see the busiest school there is Baker Butler with an average of 64 visits per day, which is mind-boggling. And then the smaller schools they may see maybe nine or 10 as you can see at a

149red hill. And then we have the visits for high school. Overall there's fewer Oops, that's still elementary fewer visits at some of these larger high schools per enrollment, but some of the visits take quite a lot of time. A lot sometimes they're very serious matters. Uh then every year the state asks me to turn in numbers on chronic illnesses in our schools. So I have uh highlights of those numbers. Here you can see some of our most common conditions that involve frequent nurse visits are diabetes, asthma, seizures, severe food allergies. And I've uh I've like to point out a few differences that we've seen some um trends. One is that I find very surprising seizure. we've had an increase in seizures uh or students diagnosed with seizures. I can't say we've had an increase in

150seizures at schools, but students diagnosed with that. And some of that can be attributed to our um our refugee population. We have some um some some students that have not had um medical care for a long time. they get here, they go to the international family clinic and there's a high portion of those who are diagnosed with seizure disorders. I'm happy to report that we now have seizure res rescue medication that's available in nasal form. So that has really revolutionized the um the willingness of people to be trained and administering that medication. uh food allergies. We saw such a big increase almost exponential over the last 10 maybe 15 years but then recently the last few years we're seeing fewer of that and we're finding that uh students are uh going to allergists and testing

151out of their allergies which was surprising to me. We also now have epinephrine available by nasal form as well. So that that is helpful to families. So I wanted to talk briefly about uh immunizations. So the immunization project is very large. You can imagine with all of our students and all of the different immunization schedules. Uh we are constantly trying to keep up with this. We have the immunizations that required when students start school and then we also have immunizations that are required prior to entry into seventh grade and 12th grade. So at last count the this is the um that I have on our immunization compliance rates. uh very interesting trend to me is that the percentage of our students who are religiously exempt from immunizations has gone down over the last five years

152maybe some from before the pandemic to now we have fewer um and we I I didn't really notice this until this year when I really dug into it that we have some students who are religiously exempt to all vaccines but then we have some who are exempt to some they choose to or the religion um prohibits some vaccines some of it is when they get to the secondary level I think families are saying we're we're done with immunizations we don't want to get the seventh grade or the 12th grade ones but some of it are there's exemption to some of the components in the vaccines themselves we have very few students who are medically exempt and when they are they it's quite often a um temporary exemption, but sometimes it is a student might have

153had a reaction to a previous one. So then they will be exempt for the rest of their lives on that. Then conditional enrollment describes students who have at least one of each of the required vaccines with a schedule on file for the completion of the series. So we we are working with the students to try to get everybody up to um to to catch up on all the vaccines that they still require. the spacing inter rules that prevent them from getting well in the beginning of the year. Some of the problems that we've run into over the last couple of years has been that come August, appointments for vaccines and physical exams are nearly impossible to get. So if a family postpone that or they just moved to the area in August, they're likely not

154able to get in to get an immunization even at the health department for a month, maybe two months, or to try to get in to see a physician as a new patient for a physical exam could be several months. So that has been a challenge for us. The immunization schedules are very complicated, especially when you take into consideration the catch-up schedules and the minimum intervals. it it it's very uh difficult for us to keep up with that but we're doing our best on it. We have taken some of the barriers away by bringing in immunizations into the schools. So we've held several different clinics in the buildings. We've partnered with the University of Virginia Health System, the Childhood Wellness Initiative, which is a collaboration between pediatric associates and the health department. And then we bring

155in the health department immunization nurses and hold vaccine clinics in the schools. And then Centa or Martha Jefferson has helped us with some physical exams. So we have because of these problems of having all the students get their immunizations by the first day of school. We last year and this year have issued a um a reasonableness approach where students may start school if they have their complete health records including the required physical exam and an up-to-date immunization record. or they have documentation of an appointment scheduled to get either the physical exam or andor the uh completion of their vaccine series. And so now I'm going to move on to tell you about the medical trainings that we're doing for our teachers and other school personnel. that you might be aware that I think it was

156last year the legislature passed a law that all school employees who have regular contact with students with seizures undergo a seizure training program on a bianual basis. So we set that up within our um our professional learning management system so that the teachers can take these courses. We have it in seizures but we also now have it in anapilaxis, asthma, diabetes and nlloxxone which is narcan. Uh they the teachers can take it through the online modules and then the school nurses work with them to show them the specific care plans for the students at their schools as well as the equipment for the students with diabetes. I wanted to share with you that we have many emergency rooms now it seems at the schools. We have AEDs, we have stop bleed kits, we have Narcan,

157we have undesated aluterol inhalers to be used on any student believed to be suffering an asthma attack. We also have undesated epinephrine that can be used on any students believed to be suffering anaphilaxis. And we have undesated epinephrine in in both the auto injector format of the EpiPen and the nasal and which we got from both of those through a grant from the manufacturers. That's what I have. Any questions? >> Um I'm very glad to see that we have the Narcan available. Um how many do you know how much usage we've been getting on that? >> We haven't used We haven't used it at all. >> We haven't used it at all. Yes. >> And that's also in the elementary schools as well. >> Yes, it's in all schools. And then in the elementary schools,

158most of them have one and sometimes individual staff members will also have it if they undergo the training. Uh at the middle and high schools, we have more than one. >> Just a question on that that that brought up. If an adult is suffering, either a staff member or a parent who is visiting is are Are we allowed to use that? There's >> Yes. >> Hopefully they don't they're not using Narcan. >> I know. Hopefully, but actually at the elementary school, we're probably more likely to use it on a visitor. I would I hope on >> a I just want to take a moment though to put and just really celebrate Eileen. I mean, if you look at that list of the u emergency services that we have. Can you show that again? Eileen was

159uh Eileen's been the Holly me nurse early in her career and then through her leadership took on division level nursing and I had the privilege of working with her like 15 years ago I knowing nothing about nursing was um got to work with Eileen and I just want to say your your ambition has always been to get out in front of these things. So, um, the AEDs, for example, we were one among the very few school systems in the state to just start having AEDs on our own, and it was all around Eileen's initiative to do that. >> Um, the other pieces I remember you working really hard on was the auto injectors for um, allergic reactions. That was something you were pushing before the state came out with it. And then we had a

160a legislative process that we went through to to work with the state to make that a bill. So when I look at that growing list, I just want to recognize just you're being on the forefront of that and always putting the safety of our kids and our staff in the forefront. >> Thank you. I have to say that Rob Bell was helpful too because he's a force of nature. So you give something to him, he'll take it. >> I actually have a question related to that actually talking about getting ahead of things. Do you anticipate um with the changes going on with Health and Human Services and potential with vaccine changes, how does that affect us on like a very local level? I mean, do you anticipate any changes in that and how we'll have

161to I mean, I'm even thinking like from a budget standpoint as we're thinking about like where we're allocating money, like you know, are we going to be needing to like have vaccine clinics or educational things for our students? Anything like that that's going to like keep our kids safe? Well, I I guess I don't really know how that's going to impact us. Are we going to get to the point where we're not requiring vaccines? I'm a little nervous about that. Um, we vaccines are required vaccines are available to to families irrespective of their ability to pay. So, the health department has several different pots and they have the vaccines for and so does UVA and Martha Jefferson. They have vaccines for children. So, those are available at no charge to families who can't afford them.

162And um and I I if the vaccines are no longer required, we might not be able to get the vaccines from those kind of programs. So, I I really don't know. I I was talking to the um health department epidemiologist today and he said that he's a little nervous that these uh government shutdowns are going to trickle down to the state level and we might have a problem with the health department not having as many um employee some of them might be furled but I don't really know how how that will work. >> Interesting. Okay. I was just curious. Yeah, >> I have a kind of blended question comment. So, I was recently on a um school visit with Dr. Hos and Miss Spielman and um I was kind of floored at I think it

163was 9:30 quarter to 10 snack time and I saw your slide about diabetes and some of the children and whatnot. Um is there any correlation between um nutrition and the dietary um departments at the various schools for children? because that time they were on snack time and I saw ho hos and M&M's and >> Cokes and energy drinks and um >> you know and I know it's it's even hard to educate adults to do the right thing and so I'm just curious and do are any of the lunches geared toward children who may be diabetics or what have you. Uh yeah, the the child nutrition services uh have u ingredients lists and I was just talk I was at one of the schools. I was talking to them and they they have the list of

164students who have dietary restrictions. We have students that you know have severe allergies, but we also have students who can't have certain things because of their religion or because they're gluten intolerant or uh lactose intolerant. And so the cafeteria does uh make allowances for those students and they can provide safe nutritious food for the students with the restrictions. As far as what the kids bring in from home uh at the school health advisory board level, we we try to address that. It's very difficult to tell parents what they can and can't feed their children. They they have a choice in that matter. So we do try to educate the families and the students about the nutritious food that is good, the ideal setup for good learning. >> And so I think having the um the

165free breakfast and lunch programs at the schools really help because kids have those as an option also. >> Thank you. >> Just one thing uh Matt Dr. H mentioned h how you've been uh very assertive in building our our health program and I know and my colleague uh Rebecca knows that you also working with a dental committee or dental committee to try to bring increased dental care in our schools which would be a huge huge benefit working with the foundation I hope as well. >> I'm very happy with the foundation. I'm glad that that's part of our team now. >> Yep. Um I think with that I think the combination of what we do in terms of putting out 14,000 touches for students plus the number of mental health contacts it makes I think uh

166Elmoral County Public Schools one of the biggest basic pediatric care >> uh providers in certainly in central Virginia and I think that's something to be proud of. >> Thank you. Thank you >> and thank you for everything. >> The penultimate speaker will be um Dr. Mclofflin. >> I've lost my voice somehow. >> All right. Good evening board members. I'm Pat Mclofflin. I'm here to give a brief overview of uh the Virginia school performance and support framework tonight and also to review our school level results with you. Uh the Virginia school framework uh the new Virginia school performance framework is going to be a uh a pretty integral measure of whether or not we are meeting the mission uh that we have in Alber Alberal County Public Schools to end the predicted value of race, class,

167gender and special capacities. If you remember uh our accreditation and accountability system has gone under has undergone some pretty significant changes uh in this past year. We used to have six to nine indicators that were ranked on a level of one to three and if any of those indicators were a level three then a school was accredited with conditions. Uh this has changed beginning in the summer of 2022. I've give you a brief timeline but I won't go through all of it. Uh but starting in the summer of 2022, the state board of education was charged with coming up with a new system that separated accreditation from accountability. And those are some of the key milestones uh that they met along the way. Uh with one of the final ones being uh just this month,

168us getting our first glimpse at our uh performance results from the 2425 school year. You may recall that back in February, I came and gave a a rather detailed uh update on how those performance framework scores are calculated. So, I won't go into all of that tonight, but this has a link to that previous presentation if you want to get those details. Um in a nutshell the uh each of our schools depending on the uh the level of the school it gets a certain percentage of their final score from things like growth, mastery, readiness and graduation rates that are there. It's generally a combination of reading, math, science and English language learner progress. Uh growth uh in reading and math uh and chronic absenteeism in advanced coursework uh for our kids. At the high school

169level, we see a little bit of a difference where we uh factor in both four and six-year graduation rates and a new measure called the 3E ready for life framework. Some key reminders uh about uh our data this year. High school data for the most part with the exception of chronic absenteeism is cohort-based data for the most recent graduating class. So when you are looking when you are uh hearing about uh individual scores for high schools for reading or math or science, those are up to four years old uh from uh from when the the graduating class took their first test in uh math or their biology test or their reading test. So it doesn't really reflect uh last year's scores that we shared with you uh at our previous board meeting. uh chronic absenteeism

170does reflect the last year of the school but all the other measures uh are graduation uh cohortbased. The other uh key piece to remember is that growth is now calculated in a very different way. Uh previously growth was uh students were put into performance bands and if you moved up from one performance band to another but didn't pass your test you were counted as a pass for the purposes of accreditation because of because you met growth. Now growth is calculated for 100% of our students who took a test in the previous year and it's done on a bell curve by percentiles. Uh but we don't know what percentile students need to get to uh to achieve that growth score. So that's one of the things that is uh a bit of a frustration for schools

171is that they don't really know um how to predict uh whether students are are on track to hit uh the state growth scores or not. So when you put all of that together, uh each school comes out with a score uh and falls into one of four performance categories. Uh the highest is distinguished, which is 90 points or above. On track is 80 to 89 points. Off track 65 to 79 points, and needs intensive support is below 65 points. Uh one other caveat I will put on this is that none of the results you're going to see tonight are official yet. Uh we have been uh see saw these for the first time probably about a week and a half ago. Uh since then there have been uh almost daily updates uh because different divisions

172around the state are finding discrepancies in them reporting them to the DOE and they're running the numbers again. Uh I think that's somewhat to be expected with a with a new system like this. Um but we expected to have a full report for you tonight. There is one key piece that's missing that I'll I'll discuss in just a minute. Um so in addition to those performance indicators uh that are created at the state level in order to uh to meet our federal accountability measures, we also have to have a uh what we call a federal accountability uh program as well. There are two categories of federal improvement that schools can fall into this year. uh one is called comprehensive support and improvement that only impacts title one schools and uh and if you are in

173the the lowest 5% lowest performing 5% of title one schools you get a designation of comprehensive support and improvement that stays with you for three years. Uh we also annually uh the state identifies schools for what they call targeted support and improvement. It's a rather complicated formula that's based on uh some of the scores of the title one schools uh that are there. There is a third category called additional targeted support and improvement. Uh but that is not going that's a three-year um identification and that won't be identified again until the 2028 school year. So what we are missing right now is any federal accountability indicators. Uh and that's important because if a school is identified uh for federal improvement status, all those categories, despite where they land with their score, they get a one

174category penalty. Uh and they move back one category. So with what we know as of this morning's update, uh these are the scores of our schools. Uh any school that is in the green is uh above 90 and in the distinguished category. Any school that is uh in the blue is in the ontrack category and the schools that are in the orange are in the offtrack category. You can see that some of these margins are very slim uh between those two categories. We've got two schools that are uh just under the bar by uh by less than uh by 210 of a point or one10enth of a point. We've got one school that's over the bar uh by 210 uh of a point there. to look at this uh another way we can see here's

175just a list of where our schools fall right now uh with um Western Brownsville Murray Ivy Stony Point Lab Henley and Holly and distinguished uh I won't read every single one to you can see our ontrack schools and our offtracks are Burley Agner Scotsville Greer and Woodbrook uh and remember that this is prior to any federal designations coming out so if Burley for example were to get a targeted support and improvement designation. Uh despite the fact that they were just uh two ten of a point away from being on track, they would move back to needs intensive support. Um so that is the last piece of information that we're waiting for. We've been told uh well we were told it was going to come out last week, now we've been told it's going to come

176out this week. Uh whenever that comes out, a week from then they are going to make uh all of the information public on the school quality profile sites. uh that's when we'll be able to see kind of what percentage of of schools throughout the state are in the different categories and um and have a little bit more information for that. So um that's what I've got for you tonight. I'd be happy to um to take any questions. Did we have a school that was in the in needs intensive support last year and is no longer in that? >> So last year was all model data because we didn't have the system but they ran it on the 23 24 data and we had I believe four schools that were below 80 uh there. >> Gotcha.

177>> Yep. >> Okay. Thank you. So it looks like we're improving at least. >> Well now we've got five, right? Um >> well I meant Well, I meant the one Sorry on the Can you go back to the here. Um, so this is where we are right now. >> That's correct. >> Okay. So, we don't have anyone that's in the needs intensive support category at this point. >> No, but but it is certainly possible that we will see um one or more schools. Right now, we have uh five schools that have a targeted support and improvement designation. Okay. Um for them. So, so it's possible. But now, but targeted support and improvement is calculated totally differently this year than it was in the past. Uh >> so do we expect them to we will have

178more in that category or less? >> We would. So if any school got one of those designations, they would move one category to the right. >> To the right. Okay. >> One category down. >> Gotcha. Thank you for clarifying. >> Y >> I think I've asked you this. If if we get that designation of needs, targeted support or whatever that it was, is there any money that follows that? So this is basically what we know uh right now is that the uh the second paragraph in each of these at least in the offtrack in the needs intensive support is that schools may receive intensive support from the state or supports for student groups. Uh we don't really know much more than that. I will say that when um when schools have received the federal designation

179they are grant eligible. uh the targeted support and improvement in the past has made schools eligible for a $75,000 grant uh which all of our schools applied for and used uh and I think used uh in a way that is certainly helping them improve. We did have a couple of schools last year, uh, Greer and Red Hill, that were previous targeted support and improvement schools that worked their way out of it last year. >> And now they're >> and now it's a it's a yearly designation, so we're just uh in wait and see mode with that. >> I don't know how you do all these numbers, but >> it's a lot. >> Anybody have any further questions? >> Thank Thank you. >> It's Dr. H up. >> Thank you, Patrick. So, I actually have no

180presentation. Uh so, uh everything that you've got uh I put in the item. Um I'll be really brief. So, with some of our staffing changes in our uh communications department, we use that as an opportunity to have a discussion about how we work with the legislature about our priorities. Um so, Dr. Dr. Akuff charged me uh charged Jennifer Butler and I to have a conversation with her, come back with a proposed structure for that. I've attached a draft structure for you to take a look at it. There's no decision tonight. So, if you didn't get a chance to take a look at it, that's fine. Um the other part so the other part is we did take uh as part of that structure VSBA has a set of talking points for the legislature for this

181year. VAS uh has a a draft set of talking points that we haven't voted on yet but we will at our fall conference. So those are both provided. And then what I did is did a quick analysis of the two sets and came up with one set for you to review. So my um ask is that you take look it over uh look at look at what VAS came up with, look at what VSBA was looking at because we generally don't deviate a whole lot from them in terms of priorities. um and no decisions this meeting, next meeting. It's not it's not a big priority. As we work our way through is we'll at some point want to arrive at a set of talking points that you can use and then we can carry those

182forward. The other part is if there's something all that's not on that set that you want to advocate for then I then I think we we need to bring that to the board and have a broader discussion about it to go ahead and then have the board make a final decision on this is our set. So I did provide some discussion questions although I can imagine you know you may not want to have that discussion tonight but these are punders of is this how's this structure going to work for us? what would we like to do? Um where should we align with the the two broad organizations? Where are we different? And then uh where do we really want to have our our impact? Any questions? >> Are we going to leave the legislative priorities

183area under the new communications person? What we will do is we'll just work on it as a board and then if you when you take a look at the draft process what we said was if there is something unique that this board really wants to push for then we would uh work with our communications department because there is expertise in that department to to carry it forward to the legislature perhaps even to do advocacy during the um legislative period and then also do visits The other I I'll detour a little bit. When I first pushed this out, I pushed it out as well to um Amber uh who works with the student schoolboard reps and I also have a student cabinet. We her proposal was that the student schoolboard reps in the student cabinet plan

184uh our legislator visit >> and they host it, they talk with them, they do all the things that the communication shop used to do, but it would be more fun because the students could get to do it and they would learn a lot from it and the board could enjoy >> kind of taking the back seat to the kids. >> Feels like a broader ownership of it kind of. >> Yeah. I mean, what Matt and I talked about was given that that used to be what the lobbying used to be what um Helen did, whether it should remain in communications, whether we should outsource it, whether our lunches with the legislators made any sense, how could we make it a more effective and more efficient entity? And I guess that's what we're working toward. So,

185and our first step was to collect data from our from the region and you'll see a little report at the beginning where most of the school systems in our region don't do not have uh staff that do that. They >> they will do what kind of what we were proposing. So, >> okay. >> So, two notes on this. Um >> first is I mean the structure seems to make sense. Start broad and then change as we need to. Um, one thing I also want to mention is that I was at the ACES meeting yesterday and um, this might be a thing for Roslin, but I know that we had talked about possibly adding one um thing to our uh, priorities this year about um, the difficulty of getting solar onto new buildings. So, I just

186want to mention that so that it's sort of in the air. I know that I'll have to come back and we'll have to think about it, but I just want to note that from the ACES meeting yesterday. >> Thank you. >> Is there any other business then? >> I have a comment. >> I just want to thank Dr. Berlin. >> You are rock star tonight. You did a really good job for handling the crowd. >> Thank you guys. Appreciate it. >> Thank you. Any further business? Well, with that, we have a very late night, but I think we got through it just fine. Uh, thank you everybody. Thank you all the police officers. >> Sorry about that. Good night.