DCPS School Board Meeting - April 14, 2026

001Mhm. >> Mhm. >> We'll bring the meeting back to order. Mr. Chairman, I move that we return to open session and adopt a certification of closed session. Second. It's been moved and seconded that we move back into our open session and adopt certification. Madam Clerk. Whereas the Dinwiddie County School Board has convened a closed session on this date pursuant to an affirmative recorded vote and in accordance with the provisions of the Virginia Freedom of Information Act. And whereas paragraph 2.2-3712 of the Code of Virginia requires a certification by this school board that such closed meeting was conducted in conformity with Virginia law. Now, therefore, be it resolved that the Dinwiddie County School Board hereby certifies that to the best of each member's knowledge, only such business matters as were identified in the motion convening the

002closed meeting were heard, discussed, or considered by the school board. Dr. Elaine J. Pearson, District 1. I certify. Dwayne G. Walker, District 2. I certify. Barbara T. Pittman, District 3. I certify. And Mary M. Benjamin, District 4. I certify. All who were in attendance of the closed session have certified. Okay. Uh can I invite you all to join us for the Pledge of Allegiance? I believe we have someone from the middle school that will I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands, one nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. Thank you. We do have one board member who is joining us electronically today and I believe we need to uh approve that by a vote. Is that Is that correct?

003That's correct. All right. So, we'll entertain a motion to approve Mr. Brown's attendance electronically. I move we approve Mr. Brown's attendance electronically. Second. It's been moved and seconded that we invite Mr. Brown to join us electronically. All in favor, say aye. Aye. Any opposed? The motion carries. Welcome, Mr. Brown. Remember He's over there. Okay. Madam Secretary, do we have any amendments to the agenda? There are no amendments to the agenda, no. Excellent. Um Mr. Chair, I move that we accept the agenda as presented. Second. It's been moved and seconded that we accept the agenda as presented. All in favor, say aye. Aye. Are there any opposed? The motion carries. At this time, we have some recognitions. Is that correct? Um I think it's the middle school. Yes. I'm going to start with the middle school

004highlights and I will ask Dr. Walker to come forward. Good afternoon. Good afternoon. >> Dinwiddie Middle School is proud and excited to present to you this afternoon. We are thrilled about the incredible growth we have demonstrated throughout this school year and we can't wait to celebrate it with you. One of our most significant accomplishments is that we are no longer federally identified for school improvement. THIS MILESTONE reflects the hard work, dedication, and commitment to our staff and students. It has energized our entire school community and reinforced what we know to be the truth. That showing up for our students every single day, working together as a team, delivering a strong aligned curriculum, and fully engage in professional development truly makes a difference. Today, we are excited to showcase just a few of our many successes

005happening at Dunwoody Middle School. We'll highlight the achievements of our girls basketball team, share experiences from our FBLA New York trip, celebrate accomplishments from our FBLA state competition, and conclude with our outstanding gifted program. At this time, I will ask Mr. Gunn if he will come forward. Good afternoon. Good afternoon. My name is Coach Gunn and I am the athletic director at Dunwoody Middle School. I want to start by welcoming parents, players, and coaches of the DMS girls basketball team. We are here to recognize their accomplishments for the 2025 season. The girls basketball team had the most successful season in school history finishing as runners-up in our fall line district with an impressive 14 and three record. All three losses were by a combined total of five points. Wow. Not only did these young ladies

006excel on the court, but they also succeeded in the classroom with 10 players earning AB honor roll DURING THE SEASON. THE TEAM WAS COACHED BY HEAD COACH MR. ATKINS, who has been with this program for 12 years. He plays a key part of the development of the girls basketball programs. A special thank you to assistant coach Mason for volunteering her time and knowledge to help develop these athletes. Assistant coach Johnson for her dedication and knowledge to the team. And coach Green, the varsity girls basketball coach, for her hard work and leadership in BUILDING THE PROGRAM. PLEASE JOIN ME IN congratulating your Dinwiddie Middle School girls BASKETBALL TEAM. THANK YOU. GOOD AFTERNOON. MY NAME IS Crystal Anderson and I am a business CTE teacher at Dinwiddie Middle School and I have the honor and privilege of

007being the faculty advisor for FBLA or Future Business Leaders of America. GOOD AFTERNOON, MEMBERS OF THE BOARD and community. My name is Latoya Brown. I am the FBLA co-advisor at Dinwiddie Middle School. I would like to thank the Dinwiddie Middle School administration, the board, and all parents and so loved ones who continuously support our FBLA chapter. It is with great honor that I announce and present to you our state winners from the FBLA State Leadership Conference 2026. We have eight state winners. THIS TOTAL MATCHES OUR leaders from our winners from last year, so we met the same goal that we met last year. However, this year we we were the only chapter, middle school chapter, from our region to have actually have students to place. All of these students before you not only placed in

008their competitive events, but they also placed high enough to attend our National Leadership Conference this summer in San Antonio, Texas. At this time, I would like to introduce our winners and they will show you their awards. Objective test winner, fifth place, Kerrigan Sheets. And Kerrigan placed in career exploration. First place winners, and I will add that this is um super exciting because these ladies partnered last year and placed first place in another event, went back this year, had even stiffer competition, and placed first place in a new event, community service presentation. First place, Morgan Williams and McKayden Nickelson. ANNUAL CHAPTER ACTIVITIES, our second place winner in the state WAS DESTINY CHANCE. THIRD PLACE WINNER IN business ethics presentation and objective test, this young lady had to not only take an objective test, but also do

009a professional presentation, and she topped out third in the state, and that was Miss CHARLIE SEABOURN. AND LAST BUT NOT LEAST, WE HAVE our super team of new competitors. This was their first year competing, and they placed fifth place in business issues. THAT WAS JAYLA STIFF, KYLA WILSON, WHO WAS NOT ABLE TO attend today, AND LUCY ANDREWS. AT THIS TIME, two of our students will give quick reflections on their experience at state winners. Good evening, everyone. My name is McKayla Nicholson. I am the secretary of FBLA Dunwoody Middle School chapter. Today, I will talk about my experience at the spring FBLA state competition and how I prepared and worked hard toward our goal of getting to the national competition. This took preparation and hard work despite increased competition and minor setbacks. We are proud of

010our FBLA members, even if they didn't work even if they didn't place, but they put in the work, effort, and last but not least, dedication. My partner, Morgan, and I persevered and we are honored to report that we have secured first place for our second year in a row. Although Morgan will be in high school next year, she leaves behind a great leadership advice in our FBLA chapter. But overall and over anything, we are super grateful that many members of our FBLA chapter will be going to nationals. Thank you. Now, moving on TO CHARLIE SEABORN. HELLO. MY NAME IS CHARLIE SEABORN and I am the sergeant at arms at FBLA Dunwoody Middle School chapter. Today, I will be discussing about my experiences at spring FBLA state competition and how this takes time and dedication to

011succeed and qualify for nationals. This was my first year competing and I'm proud that I won third place and my topic was discussing about business ethical ethics. Preparing for this competition was not easy. It required many hours of studying, practicing, and staying focused on my goals. There were times where it felt challenging to where the point I wanted to drop out because I didn't think I would do well, but I kept pushing myself to improve and do my best. I learned that success doesn't happen overnight. It takes practice, patience, and hard work. With the guidance of Ms. Anderson, Ms. Brown, and my mommy, I got my speech and slideshow done for competition in 2 weeks. At the state competition, I had the opportunity to compete against many students across the state in Virginia. It was

012exciting, but I was really nervous. However, I remained confident. I trusted my hard work and I did my very best. At the end, I felt proud of everything I had accomplished. This experience taught me important lessons about not giving up and being responsible. It also showed me the value of leadership and teamwork through FBLA. Moving forward, I am excited to continue growing and representing my school at the national level. THANK YOU. GOOD AFTERNOON TO THE BOARD, DR. WESTON. My name is Latrice Johnson and I'm the secondary gifted instructional specialist. It has been a pleasure stepping into this new role and today I would like to highlight some of the amazing things our gifted students at Dinwiddie Middle School have experienced during this year of STEM challenges and creativity. Is this my clicker? Okay. In sixth

013In sixth grade, students began by using fractions to determine and plan the perfect classroom event food menu. Students are currently are currently using craft supplies to design and build a functional prosthetic hand. Students have additionally researched and built complex Martian habitats in order to explain how one would survive on a planet with thin air and freezing temperatures. We didn't just stay in the future. Students participated in project POTUS exploring leadership in the history of American presidents by creating a one-minute video that will be nationally judged and decided next month if they are the winners of the $500 prize. Seventh-grade students embrace STEM challenges by creating These are my sixth-grade students. That's their Martian habitats that they're creating there in project POTUS. For seventh-grade highlights, um students embrace STEM challenges by creating survival tools for a

014deserted island scenario with limited resources to apply concepts of evolution as well as adaptation. Furthermore, students participated in Virginia Tech's Biotech in a Box in order to cage the blob that uses slime mold to learn about the behavior of living organisms and ecological barriers. Currently, students are in the process of tackling urban planning by designing sustainable cities that balance energy needs with environmental protection. For my eighth-grade students, eighth-grade students are used started out beginning using Newton's laws of motion and they built LEGO cars specifically designed to maximize speed. We created a school newsletter where students are worked as journalists and editors to share the news of DMS. Students also use LEGO Duplos to learn why communication and precise step-by-step instructions are vital for complex builds in preparation for their VEX robotics competition this Thursday in

015Danville, Virginia. These students have worked diligently in order to design and code their robots and hope in hopes to win top finishes. No lessons are complete without enhancing experiences that aim to bring classroom experiences to life as you can see in my students creating a candy treat toss during Halloween. We also visited the Poe Museum in Richmond, Virgi- Richmond, Virginia. Uh we visited the Virginia Museum of History and Culture as well as the Dinwiddie Airport where they highlighted CAF Rise Above where they learned about the Tuskegee Airmen and the women Air Force um pilots. I look forward to creating more innovative lessons and helping students grow within this program. So at this time and continuing with the notion of bringing the classroom to real world experience, Ms. Destiny Shands who is the president of FBLA

016will come forward as a member of Ms. Anderson's business and marketing class along with Bailey Johnson. Um good afternoon school board members. My name is Destiny Shands and again, I'm the president of the Dinwiddie Middle School chapter of FBLA. I had an honor of lead of leading over 70 FBLA members. FBLA, we're very grateful that Ms. Anderson's eighth grade business class invited us on this historic trip to New York. We visited the Nike House of Innovation. Nike House of Innovation, we ate New York style pizza, ate ate at Shake Shack, saw Hamilton on Broadway, and ended the night ice at the ice skating rink at Rockefeller Center. This experience allowed me to try new things, learn how to design shirts, all while having fun and sharing memories with my classmates. I'm very proud of FBLA

017and Ms. Anderson's eighth grade business class for raising enough money to go. And we raised additional money which was over $10,000 in just one month. With all of this hard work and dedication, this led our FBLA chapter for being ranked the number one middle school chapter in the STATE OF VIRGINIA. WE WOULD LIKE TO THANK THE DINWIDDIE COMMUNITY, the school board, our school board members, and our school administration team for their support. Good afternoon. My name is Bailey Johnson. Um The New York trip was a very fun experience and an eye-opener. As a sixth grader, it was definitely something that I've never experienced before, especially on a school trip. We got to participate in the Nike By You experience at the Nike House of Innovation and we made shirts. We also went to see Hamilton

018on Broadway and watch actors perform and bring history to life. After that, we went ice skating, which was good for the people who know how to ice skate. This trip was one that I'll always remember, and I'd like for other kids like me to experience more trips like this one. I hope you will continue to support future trips like this. Thank you all so much. We hope that you have just enjoyed a small taste of Dinwiddie Middle School. We do have small tokens of appreciation for you all. We want you all to remember that April is Autism Awareness Month, so in your bags that you will get, they have a button. So, please wear that button to support. Lastly, I would like to thank all of the students, the parents, my admin team, and staff

019who came out this afternoon to just present to you the good things that are going on at Dinwiddie Middle School as we continue to change the perception to achieve greater heights. THANK YOU. DO YOU WANT THE PARENTS TO STAND OR ANYTHING? IF If we could acknowledge all the parents and uh and the students that are here from the middle school, if you wouldn't mind standing Absolutely. so that we can Teachers. Teachers as well. Anybody that's here from the middle school today, THAT WOULD BE GREAT. WE WE UH WE HAVE A COUPLE MORE RECOGNITIONS, but I I do want to give the board members a chance to speak to that at the end. So, what Once we're done with the other recognitions, we'll we'll have a chance for that. Um I believe the nutritional services has

020a recognition as well. Good afternoon. Good afternoon. Good afternoon. Today, we are proud to recognize outstanding members of the nutrition services team for earning state recognition. These honors reflect not only their hard work and dedication, but also their commitment to excellence and the impact they make every single day. Their passion, professionalism, and willingness to go above and beyond truly represent the very best of our district. They are state manager of the year Christy Hayes from DINWIDDIE MIDDLE SCHOOL. STATE EMPLOYEE OF THE year Yolanda Johnson from DINWIDDIE MIDDLE SCHOOL. AND WE WOULD ALSO LIKE TO recognize that um the state conference recipient winner was none other than our very own Anitra Lewis from Southside ELEMENTARY THIS YEAR. NEXT, WE HAVE OUR SVRTC Technology Awards. Dinwiddie County Public Schools is part of the Southside Virginia Regional Technical

021Consortium. The mission of the SVRTC is to provide members with the technology and training needed to enhance the learning at all levels and drive economic development throughout Southside Virginia. Each year, SVRTC hosts an annual technology awards banquet. The following people were selected locally and then recognized on March 24th at the SVRTC Technology Award Banquet, which was held at Longwood University. Instructional Technology Support Award winner, and please come forward. Christine Farrell, AKA PAM FARRELL. CHRISTINE FARRELL SERVES AS an Innovation Specialist at Southside Elementary School and Dinwiddie Elementary School. She collaborates with teachers to design and implement technology-infused lessons that enhance classroom instruction and student engagement. She also integrates computer science and digital literacy directly into the K-5 curriculum. Mrs. Farrell collaborates with curriculum teams and and to embed meaningful connections to technology and computer science in

022the division curriculum. And she creates practical help guides to support our very own teachers. She also assists teachers and students in integrating coding tools such as Root Robots into the classroom lessons, making computer science hands-on and accessible for young learners. Congratulations, MRS. SPARROW. TECHNOLOGY TEACHER AWARD is awarded to Darnay Jones-Henderson. Would you PLEASE COME FORWARD? DARNAY JONES-HENDERSON brings science to life at Dinwiddie Middle School through purposeful integration of technology. In her physical science classroom, she uses QR codes for instant access to chemical change demonstrations and PHET simulations for deep virtual experimentations. Students also utilize Canva to transform lab results into professional data visualizations, strengthening their analysis and their presentation skills. By blending digital tools with strong instructions, congratulations, Mrs. JONES-HENDERSON. TECHNOLOGY Support Award goes to none other than Tyrone Goodridge. Is he here? All right.

023Okay. >> Tyrone Goodridge serves as the Chromebook Support Specialist at Dinwiddie Middle School, where he maintains the hardware and software needs of the students and staff. He has built a strong partnership between the school faculty and the district technology team, ensuring technological challenges are resolved efficiently. And he's recognized for his proactive approach and ability to quickly master new systems. Mr. Goodridge ensures the middle school's digital learning tools remain functional and accessible for daily use. Congratulations, MR. GOODRIDGE. THANK YOU. AND WE WILL TAKE pictures after for all recognition. Okay? I'm going to have one more recognition. Today, we are proud to recognize a student who stands out for her creativity. What makes her work remarkable is the effort and the detail that it displays. This wonderful artwork caught the eye of Book Buddies Committee Chair while

024going through submission pieces for a regional recognition. Our student is none other than Emma Horton. Is Emma here tonight? Emma? Okay. Emma is a current fifth grader at Dinwiddie Elementary. Emma designed this piece a few years ago while participating in the Book Buddies program. Book Buddies is a public service initiative that is aligned with Delta Sigma Theta Sorority's and incorporated five-point program thrust. That thrust is none other than educational development. Along with Book Buddies, the Petersburg Alumni Chapter also offers Delta GEMS, which stands for Growing and Empowering Myself Successfully, DARE, which is Delta Adventures in Reading Enrichment Summer Program, PSAT/SAT workshops, and the chapter also offers several educational scholarships. Um I would like none other than the Book Buddies Chair, Katherine Murphy. Can you just come up for a few words? ALL RIGHT. AND MS.

025MURPHY, WE DO HAVE WE DO HAVE A principal here as well So, thank you. You're welcome. Good afternoon. I'm Kathleen Murphy. I'm the chairman for the Book Buddy Committee. We have today with us our president Mrs. Sonya Tucker Pride and our first vice president Mrs. Nicole Martin and we have several of our Book Buddy members and we have I would like to thank one of your uh school board members, Mrs. Mary Benjamin, for coordinating this effort and making it happen for us to actually be here today. And we would also like to thank uh Mrs. Latonya Williams for pulling it together and coordinating the details of us coming out. Yes, this did happen, but Book Buddies have been coming to Dinwiddie Elementary for years. Each month during the school year from October to May, where

026we read into at this with the second grade students. And sometimes the students tend to want to thank us and they'll do drawings or write something, say "Thank you, Book Buddies." But this particular time, this happened about two to three years ago. We had a student to There were several, but somehow this one stood out. And it's Emma Horton's drawing. So, Emma is Emma here? No, okay. Emma um did this drawing. What we decided to do was to present the Dinwiddie Her principal is here. >> Yes, to to present Ms. Adams on behalf of the uh Petersburg Alumni Chapter of Delta Sigma Theta Sorority Incorporated, the Book Buddies Committee with this Thank you. We see each other every TIME WE COME. WE DECIDED TO GIVE THIS TO YOU all to perhaps hang somewhere that a

027place that you think would be appropriate because this is beautiful. And what Emma said, she said, "Thank you for being our book buddy." from Emma Horton. And you know, Emma has had challenges and so we decided to to do something special. So, this is the original and we also have a duplicate for Emma also to take home with her. And in addition to that, we have a bag of goodies for Emma. Now, I don't know if we give that to you. >> I can call them to come. >> Yes, please. It's heavy. It's a heavy little bag there. And in addition to that, we have been celebrating our 85th Pack Our Chapters Anniversary. And so, under the educational development, we decided to ask some of the classes was there anything in particular that they needed.

028And so, the second grade class decided that they would they needed Expo markers. So, for the second grade classes, we have also we're presenting a pack of second of the Expo markers for the second grade class. And so, could all of the Book Buddies members that are here today, please stand? And thank you to all of our chapter members, please stand. I just want to thank you for having us. It is a pleasure that we come into the school each month and read to the students. We look forward to that. Thank you so much. It's been a lot to process. Um we want to give an opportunity for each of the board members to to say a word while we have all these great folks in the room. Uh Mr. Chairman, um I want to

029one congratulate everybody who received an award. Um they really are outstanding. But one thing really stood out to me. We are talking about middle school students and they stood up and presented at the school board meeting and their public speaking was wonderful. It is something really hard for people to be able to do. But congratulations to the SLA uh teacher sponsor for having these children be able to do something like that. It's just great things to come for them. Thank you. I'd like to thank the middle school in general for their presentation, but more moreover for the motivation uh to make improvements and make it make it a place that students want to be at and parents are accepting of your efforts and that is a wonderful progress that we're making there. I'd also like

030to um say how excited I am about the gifted program there that new projects and um both with innovation and real world experience that is absolutely necessary. And um is exciting, I'm sure, being in New York City, not only um to see uh New York and Hamilton, but to try to ice skate. That that would not be on my list at this point in my life. And uh Book Buddies, thank you so much for all that you do for multiple communities. I know you go other places besides Timber Ridge as well. And we can't forget the nutrition team. Thank you so much for what you do every day. Yeah. This has been an exciting evening. I I am excited and always. I think there was about three, four, five, six um coming from the middle

031school and then some coming from somewhere else, but Book Buddies, I'm really excited about that because I enjoy reading um to the students each month and bringing them light real life stories. Ditto to what everyone else have said. Administrators, all of you, I appreciate all that you do for our children. But we when we go in with real life stories, it you know, they look and it makes it makes a difference because sometimes they don't believe that at one time I was a kid, too. And it's so and you learn a lot through life experiences and through reading and then we also they they're interested make them interested in reading and having their own library. So, I'm especially happy to be a part of that and to bring it to them with the county. I

032thank you for all that you do. Students, New York City, uh the FBLA club, I was in the FBLA club, too. But uh it's just so exciting. Teachers, um parents, I am excited that you are here. And Book Buddies and Delta, you are the best. I You know I love you. Thank thank you Mr. Chair. Um I I don't know that we have an a way for Mr. Brown if he wants to say something. Is that possible? Mr. Brown, do you have any comments? I can't see him. Yeah, okay. That's okay. I'm sure he'll have some comments later if Okay, absolutely. I just would like um as I was listening to all of the um recognitions this evening, um the word service came to my mind because um you know, each one of these groups

033are there individuals who serve um in different capacities, you know, whether you're serving in nutrition services, um serving at the middle school, serving our young people, serving from the community. Um, it's all about service and we certainly couldn't do the work that we do here and and at Dinwiddie Public Schools without your service. And I think being role models for our young people. And certainly we know that the parents are serving because um, you're the ones driving your young people up and down those streets you know, everyday and helping them to get to these wonderful opportunities. But I just want to thank you all for your service and your um, carrying the banner for our young people at Dinwiddie County Public Schools. Our student rep over here. >> Miss Janiece is with us. Yes. As

034I listened to everything that everyone had to say today, what I really got from the recognitions was that there is really something that for everybody at the schools. Um, like from sports to academics, we're always persevering and growing and there's just something for everyone. We mean we meet states and personal goals and we meet and beat them and that's that's just really good and we can all say that the by saying we eat really good there, too. I want to start by saying as a pastor, because that's what I do during the day. Um, that churches could learn a lot from this Delta group. What you guys have is special. And I see you guys all the time doing stuff and enjoying life together and serving the community. And so I just appreciate who you

035are and what you do. Um, our community is better because you're in it and and um, your presence is felt and appreciated. So I thank you guys for what you do. Um, I also want to acknowledge Dr. Walker. Um, her leadership has a lot to do with why we were able to have so MANY YOU HAVE UM, UH YOU YOU YOU'VE MADE A DIFFERENCE. And I I know our uh we've had unique challenges in recent months and whatnot that we were were walking through, but you are doing good. And so, I appreciate everything that you do and I think a lot of this starts with the the hard work that you've done. So, I I appreciate that. And even in some of these other presentations, it was interesting to know that there were folks that

036were working at the middle school that are that are getting recognized. And so, I I do appreciate you and and your leadership. Um and I I'll also say this, so often we hear that the um middle school is just a hard age and middle school middle schools are by their nature problematic. But it does my heart good to recognize there are a lot of good young people that are in our middle school. SO, UM I'M GLAD WE GOT TO SEE I SAW SAW QUITE A few familiar faces in here today and that you guys proud of you guys. You guys are doing good things. And uh what's really cool is you still got a few more years in Dinwiddie with us where we get to see you do even better things. So, um thank you

037all for being here today. We do have some more business that we have to take care of. Um but I know that you may not have signed up for that. So, what we'll do we're going to take about a 3-minute recess so that if you want to slip out, you can slip out and take pictures and whatnot. If you want to stay for the business, it is an open session, so you're welcome to stay for the business. But if you don't, this would be your chance to sneak away. So, we'll pause for about a 3-to-5 minute recess and then we'll reconvene in just a few moments. >> Amen. >> At this time Mr. Chairman that we accept the personnel list as presented. Second. It has been moved and seconded that we approve the personnel list

038as it has been presented. Is there any discussion on that that needs to be had? Not, all in favor say aye. Aye. Are there any opposed? Motion carries. Motion passes. Mr. Chair, I move that we uphold the recommendation of the administration and expel student number E-04/26-1 because they pose a threat to the health and safety and welfare of others. Second. It has been moved and seconded that we uphold the recommendation of administration in the case of student number E-04/26-1. Madam Clerk, can we call for a roll call vote on that? Yes. Is that okay? Dr. Elaine J. Pearson, District 1. Aye. Dwayne G. Walker, District 2. Aye. Barbara T. Pittman, District 3. >> Aye. Mary M. Benjamin, District 4. >> Aye. Motion carries. Mr. Chair, I move that we uphold the recommendation of the administration

039and expel student number E-04/26-2 because they pose a threat to the health and safety and welfare of us. Second. It has been moved and seconded that we uphold the recommendation of administration and expel the student in the case of student number E-04/26-2. There's no discussion. We'll call for a a roll call vote on that as well. Dr. Elaine J. Pearson, District 1. Aye. Dwayne G. Walker, District 2. Aye. Barbara T. Pittman, District 3. Aye. Mary N. Benjamin, District 4. Aye. The motion passes. This time we will entertain a motion related to the expenditure reports unless there's some discussion that needs to be had about that. Mr. Chair, I move that we accept the expenditure report as presented. Second. It's been moved and seconded that we accept the expenditure reports as they've been presented to us

040today. All in favor say aye. Aye. Any opposed? The motion carries. Mr. Chair, I move that we accept the minutes of March 10th, 2026 as presented. Second. It's been moved and seconded that we approve the minutes for the meeting on March 10th of 2026. All in favor say aye. Aye. Any opposed? The motion carries. We now move to board matters, I believe at this time Coach Torterice has some field trips. Good evening. Good evening. Uh I believe the first one we have up is the Scholastic Bowl team to Washington D.C. seeking approval because out of state trip. Um Ms. Minetree and Mr. Watts are going to take them up on Saturday. They're going to visit um I believe some of the foreign embassies and different things for that. Any questions about that trip? I move

041we accept the Scholastic Bowl trip. Second. It's been moved and seconded that we approve the Scholastic Bowl team to travel to Washington D.C. All in favor say aye. Aye. Any opposed? The trip is approved. Uh the second trip on the docket is the uh Virginia Tech State Convention trip for the FFA. Um this is their annual state convention uh held at the University of Virginia Tech. Many competitions will be held. Students will also attend the workshops and serve in voting delegates in the courtesy corps. It requires four nights on the Virginia Tech campus. Use of our activity bus and the county cars what they're going to take up. And you know, the Miss Miss Bishop, Mr. Davis, and Miss Lingberg will be on site with them. This is in the summer? Yes, ma'am. This one

042is June 8th through the 11th. Mr. Chair, I move that we approve the state FFA convention at GTech. Second. It's been moved and seconded that we approve the field trip to Virginia Tech for the state FFA convention. All those in favor say I. I. Any opposed? All right. The third one is the national FFA convention. Miss Bishop sent this one to me to get on the docket so she could start looking at air airfare because this is the one they go to Indianapolis every year. This is October 20th through 24th. As of right now, I believe the two for sure are Miss Bishop and Mr. Davis. Lingberg is also on the sheet, but I believe that comes down to decision with administration and how we handle subs and stuff like that. I do believe that

043airfare is going up because of fuel prices. So, the sooner they can do that, the better. >> she's going to monitor it and you know, look for the best price at the time you know, because we all know those change overnight. Is there any discussion to be had about the national FFA convention? I move that we didn't do the national convention in Indianapolis. Second. It's been moved and seconded that we approve the trip to Indianapolis for the national FFA convention. All those in favor say I. I. Any opposed? The trip is approved. The next one is the girls basketball trip to Liberty University for 3/9 June 26th through the 28th this summer. Coach Green like to take the basketball team up for camp. Um, it's a 3-day camp for basketball skills and knowledge. Team coaches

044will stay in the dorms and on campus. Uh, they're also provided uh coaches by Liberty and meals will be will be provided using their meal cards. And it's kind of like, you know, you're living a day in the life of college athletes type of type of thing there. I move that we approve the girls uh basketball camp at Liberty University. Second. It's been moved and seconded that we approve the girls basketball team to travel to Lynchburg at Liberty University for camp. All those in favor say I. I. Any opposed? The trip is approved. The next one is the boys basketball team, the Anchor Leadership Basketball Camp. Uh, this one's is requested to stay overnight basketball leadership camp at the YMCA. It's Silver Beach, August 20th through 22nd. Uh, the specific focus is team leadership, individuality,

045and collective and collectively uh redefining the basketball culture in Dulaney. Will also include uh sessions from the FCA, life on the court, mental and physical health, lodging, meals, conference spaces included with the registration. Where is Silver Beach? Uh, Jamesville, Virginia. Never heard of it. It's not on like a college campus or anything. Uh, not that I know of as of now. Miss Collins. It's at a YMCA camp. Miss Collins is helping head the project for coach with coach Line. Excellent. I move that we accept the boys basketball leadership camp. This is This is boys basketball, right? >> Correct. Okay. Second. It's been moved and seconded that we approve the boys basketball uh trip for the uh Anchor Team Leadership Camp. All those in favor say I. I. Any opposed? The trip is approved. All right.

046The last one, this one has a little caveat with uh you might have some questions about, but it's the Fort AP Hill trip for the JROTC. Um it is the trip date is uh June 13th through the 19th. Um Major Robinson is taking them up, will be with them, but needs to leave. Um and if you've seen the packet, um we have the letter there. I've included it. Uh he needs to leave on the evening of June 16th to the morning of June 18th for his daughter's graduation. Um he has secured a memorandum from the JROTC with um I'm I'm not good at the military thing here. Um first sergeant over Prince George uh to take responsibility of our cadets while he in his absence. Um so we're looking for approval of that as well

047as the trip. That is contingent, you know. Right. So would they come back before he gets back? No, he will he should he'll he's going up and he'll he'll get them to come home. Okay. Any other discussion about that trip? I move that we approve the Junior ROTC Cadet Leadership Challenge Summer Camp. I second. It's been moved and seconded that we approve the JROTC Cadet Leadership group to travel to a summer camp. All those in favor say I. I. Any opposed? The trip is approved. Thank you, Coach Thomas. >> I believe we have one more trip that we need to approve for the middle school. Miss Johnson. Miss Johnson will come and present that. Miss Anderson. Awesome. Uh good afternoon again. Miss Anderson, but we're going to let our students take the Okay. Members of

048the school board, Dr. Weston and student affiliates, I don't think it's turned on. Members of the school board, Dr. Weston and student affiliates, good afternoon. >> Good afternoon. My name is Lila Bell and I am here representing the eighth-grade gifted group and the eighth-grade business and marketing class along with my peers to present our request to attend Atlanta, Georgia for an end-of-year trip. In this presentation, we will provide our why, the plan, and our ask for permission to go. Here, I present to you our why. Imagine sitting in a classroom learning every day, but never having the chance to experience those lessons in the real world. Our trip to Atlanta will give us the opportunity to bring the four core subjects we study in school to life through meaningful real-world experiences. These are our goals

049and anticipated impacts. This trip will allow us to increase our knowledge on how business businesses grow and impact our communities. It will also give us the opportunity to interact with our curriculum in a practical sense. We plan on going to Atlanta on May 20th through May 21st. Here are our four stops for this trip. Firstly, we plan on going to the Georgia Aquarium. Our second stop would be the World of Coca-Cola. Thirdly, we would go to the Georgia Institute of Technology. Lastly, we would plan to go to the Martin Luther King National Historical Park. Funding for this trip. To fund our trip, we plan to do a calendar fundraiser and have varying donations. We will The calendar will raise a total of around $500. For example, the fifth day will equal $5. Our ask is

050that you can approve this field trip for us so that we can experience this amazing learning opportunity that you can't get from sitting in a classroom. Today, if you accept this proposal, you can go home knowing that you provided an opportunity LIKE NO OTHER. SO, PLEASE ALLOW US TO FEEL THE MAGIC. Thank you. Aw. If you all um If you all ever teach my kids at home how to ask for something, I'm in trouble. Excellent marketing. Absolutely. So, I have a question. >> How much do you need? So, is it This is eighth grade class or several classes or It's a gifted program. So, um this is a combination between our gifted program, our eighth grade students in our gifted program, as well as the eighth grade students in my intro to business and marketing

051class, which is a high school level class taught at the middle school. Wow. So, it's eighth grade class two and and and gifted. Yes. Wow. Mr. Chair, I move that we approve the Dimmitt Dimmitt Middle School eighth grade field trip. Second. It's been moved and seconded uh that we approve the field trip to Atlanta, Georgia for the eighth graders at the middle school. All those in favor say aye. Aye. Are there any opposed? The trip is approved. Congratulations. THANK YOU SO MUCH. THAT WAS GOOD. PLEASE PASS AROUND OUR BAG or something. Ms. Wolf if you can see if you can top that. All you need is three slides. I know. I definitely cannot top that. So I'm so sorry to disappoint, but is the clicker over here? Oh there there it is. Okay. All right,

052well good evening and thank you for allowing me this opportunity to not only present to you our priorities for the Carl Perkins grant, but this year is also a comprehensive needs assessment year. So every other year we do an extensive look at our community needs, our student needs and try to make sure that we have aligned those to our funding priorities. So the comprehensive needs assessment had A through F and these were kind of the highlights and overviews for those. So the first category was part A where it was CTE student performance and I also want to identify some of the gaps and strategies for there. Section B was the CTE program size, scope, and quality. So we're going to talk about our program growth and our new course offerings. Part C was the CTE

053program alignment to the labor market and I want to talk more about our CTE program expansion and how quickly that has grown and some of the challenges we've had there that we've overcome. Section D was the CTE program of programming and program of study that we offer for students and that also aligned with our CTE program access. So I will be sharing about our special populations and equity efforts to ensure all students have access to our CTE programming and then finally section E was the staff recruitment, retention, and development of those teachers and I'll conclude with a summary of how I prioritize those. So, typically each year I'm able to share with you our annual performance report that comes out on the year prior data. So, this would be our 2024-25 data that we recently

054received. And this is the first time I've had to tell you that I had some areas that I had to identify for need of improvement, but I want to explain a little bit more as to why those came up as flagged areas. So, we do continue to meet or exceed the areas in most of those proficiency targets, specifically six out of those nine. And you'll see a sharp increase in the participation of work-based learning and the opportunities we provided with students, specifically in our 3E indicator. That has been a new accreditation piece for us, so we've been extremely mindful to watch the data and ensure our students have access to certification testing, high-quality work-based learning experiences. When we looked for areas identified for improvement, this um annual performance report also looks how our CTE completers,

055which we generally have a little bit more than half of our students, if not more, closer to 75% of our students that are considered CTE completers, meaning that they're taking two classes in a specific pathway sequence. But, it also looks at how those students perform in the areas of English, math, and science. And so, um we did see a slight decline in our SOL scores for in the area of English, um and we know that we had uh new standards introduced. So, these were the first set of students impacted by the the new test. Um we have since worked very heavily on our curriculum. We will be adopting a new HQI in for next year. Um so, I hope to see those continue to trend upward. Our special populations, remember these are students that are

056identified as non-traditional such as um our female students taking agricultural classes or building trades, or maybe our males in nurse aid. They've reduced the number of classes that qualify as non-traditional, but a lot of our students fall in the special populations category, such as economically disadvantages or or students with disabilities. Um and then the third one that we're looking to improve is our non-traditional program concentration. Um so, this is kind of just a summary, um and I know the chart is a little bit small, so I do have it um kind of summarized on the right for you, but those are the different pro the qualities or um standards that we have to um meet. And I put an analysis to show you the goal or the benchmark that we had to hit um last

057year versus what we had to hit this year. And if you can see by those little green arrows, that's how much the state increased our performance measures that we had to hit. So, um there were significant increases. We used to only have to be 86% across the board in English, math, and science, and you can see that those have risen to 90 5.7, 94.5, and 90.3. Um our on-time graduation continues to be a glow for us. We We were at 100% of our CTE completers um completing a four-year graduation, um which is exciting, and our um post-program placement has continued to uh be a highlight. Um but when we look at uh specifically, like I mentioned, the reading, um that has been an initiative for our entire district, so we will be looking towards um

058how to continue to support CTE uh students in that area of literacy. And then when we're looking towards the participated in a work-based learning, it used to be 11%, and now we have to have um 30 Actually, I think it might even be higher. Uh the Perkins application and this comprehensive needs assessment, uh the two documents differed, but it's over 30%, so over a third of our graduating completers have to have a high-quality work-based learning experience. Um and I'm sure you heard the efforts of um Ms. Clary as um Ms. Bailey presented earlier in the year about how much that has increased. So, it's going to take a little while and I'll show you that we're already on the rise. We just fell a tiny bit short there um especially for our um all students,

059but we tend to do better for students with special populations. Yes, ma'am. I have a question. Does that work-based learning have to be within the school? No, ma'am. So, it used to count service learning uh externship and a lot of other areas. And they reduced them to only um six. So, we used to have a lot of other opportunities and so now all of the high-quality work-based learning opportunities that can be documented have to be 90 hours or more. So, unless the student was kind of grandfathered in and had their experience experience prior to, we're going to be limited um we have we have a higher bar to meet um to get all of those students a high-quality work-based learning experience. >> has to be through one of our programs, though. It cannot and if

060they're working after school at So, we do have the independent study program. We do have some business partners that um do accept our students. And so, Ms. Clary works very hard to place a lot of our students in any of our community partners that have agreed to take on a student and she develops a training agreement. I know some of our businesses when they take a student already get them registered with Virginia Dolly as a youth registered apprentice. Um but those are the types of things that we're going to have to continue to build. So, I'll highlight in just a little bit we have recently partnered um with Bon Secours with Chelsea Animal Hospital in Fort Lee. So, we're going to be looking at a major expansion of other opportunities for our students to try

061to meet these benchmarks. So, the entire for example, the entire senior class needs the needs the um the two courses and to meet the criteria, but now we have to get 30% of the senior class to have these work Over 30% yes, ma'am. And in their four years, somewhere in their four years of of high school, yes, ma'am. Yes. All right. So, you can see that I kind of highlighted that six of our nine were all met and there were a few that were unmet, but we do have a plan for those and Miss Clary and I the application that I gave you kind of goes in a lot more detail. So, the summary itself was about 18 pages and I tried to break that down to just these few slides, but I can definitely

062go more detail if you would like. We have developed 29 unique pathways to hopefully meet all the needs and interests of our students and paired specific courses with those pathways and over the last nine years we've had an addition of more than 25 unique CTE classes to meet the interests and the labor demand in our community. This coming year we will be offering floral design, sports medicine, athletic training and office administration and then you've heard Miss Anderson has been coming and sharing with you the success of our students in principles of business and marketing for eighth grade. So, that in addition to foundations of agriculture and JROTC one will continue to be offerings for our eighth graders. And then one of the initiatives that Miss Clary and I are currently working on is helping a

063lot of what we in reviewing the data, one of the things that we noticed is a lot of our fine art students don't have CTE courses that more align with their interests. So, there's a specific CTE fine art pairing that we're looking to build over the next two years so that there is a pathway related to CTE for every student and their interests. So, this is what I was speaking to earlier about our work-based learning expansion. Um you can see that this is on the rise. Um all students versus our special population students, remember the denominator is a little bit different with special populations. Um we had roughly 180 completers, I believe, in our last data set, and um of that maybe 120 were the considered special populations. So, um those are the percentages that

064you are seeing there. Um but like I mentioned earlier, we're looking at new business partners in Bon Secours, Chesdin Animal Hospital, Fort Lee, and that is continuously growing. We've also expanded our school and county work study placements. So, we've been able to utilize our IT department, our um transportation department, maintenance department, schools. Um I know we have a student placed at Southside right now. Um and one of the things that we're working toward is, you know, what are the transportation solutions for some of these students for those offsite placements? Because when you're trying to earn 90 hours, it's a lot on if you don't have your own driver's license and transportation, so. So, as far as meeting the needs of our special populations to ensure equity, we are trying to tackle some transportation um barriers.

065Uh we we we have been providing students transportation to both Rowanty and Bright Point um to make sure that they have opportunities in those areas. Um and then we're working on some of the logistics for expanding the work-based learning partnerships. Financial access, we've been making sure that we support students if they're interested in participating in leadership events, CTSOs. Um some of the things that you heard our middle school present, we have been able to support our middle school FBLA in a lot of their endeavors, and so um that has been good to be able to support them in that manner. Um IP alignment, making sure that we We've been working closely with Ms. Moore um to make sure that our students have a uh a good plan when they leave us um and that we're

066working to align those pathways and and develop um whatever is needed to support student in their IEP goals. Uh We recently published a new magazine to increase awareness, especially of our students in non-traditional areas. Um and we'll be dropping off some big boxes for our middle school and high school students to distribute them. It has a QR code on the front that goes to kind of all the classes, the chart that I presented a couple months ago with all the classes that we have to offer and the um pathways. Middle school access, giving them earlier access to our pathways so that they can become a completer earlier on in their high school career and continue in that pathway. And then of course continuously monitoring the data, making sure that we are watching that closely and

067that every student has an opportunity. As far as our teachers, um we're making sure that we are recruiting, retaining, and developing our CTE teachers. And so professional development is one of the priorities within Perkins and we have to make sure that um professional development is the first one that is on the funding list followed by our activities for non-traditional and special populations. And then the third required one it was our support for Rowani. So it's based on a number of our students participating that goes into the formula to make sure that we are sending a portion of our allocation to Rowani. And so the final part of our comprehensive needs assessment has us kind of evaluate within student performance, um program size, scope, and quality, labor market, and program and implementation, staff, and program access

068were our highest priorities and they want to make sure that those funding allocations align to that. Um and so we have we we I'm seeking approval tonight to um upload the Perkins with these funding priorities with the understanding that we haven't gotten our new allocation yet. So, I will be uploading it with the 88,513 and 85 cents that we were allocated this past year uh and then adjusting it um to align with these priorities once I know my final allocation. So, this is about where I am. This is from schedule 17 of the Perkins application um to kind of show the primary funding pieces. Again, Rowani is um I just put to be determined once I have the final enrollment numbers and put it in the formula to know what that is. Uh this past

069year it was just shy of $7,000, so I anticipate it'll be close to that. Um So, that would be all of our things. So, looking forward, we're going to continue to grow our work-based learning experiences, um making sure that all of our CTE pathways have um the opportunity for a uh high-demand credential as well as an experience. And then um continue to support our special populations, um dual enrollment opportunities, refining our data collection processes. Um I know we'll have a new coordinator of accountability, and I know Patty and I worked really closely together to make sure that all of our data was eyes dotted, tees crossed to make sure that our um information is correct. And then um really the most important thing is making sure that every DCPS student has a meaningful, updated academic

070and career plan so that they know what they want to do, and they have the experiences to support that. Are there any questions? That's a lot of information. >> I know. I tried really hard to make it as condensed as possible cuz no one wants to read all things I just have to write. No, it's important. Yes. So, you need approval from us today to submit this grant. >> I need approval to submit um the Perkin Perkins grant in what they call approvable forms, substantial approvable form, um knowing that I'm going to have to amend it once I have my new allocation, but that the priorities listed here align with our goals in the community. Right. I move that we approve the application for the Carl Perkins grant. Is that what it is? Yes, ma'am.

071It's been moved and seconded that we approve the application for the Carl Perkins grant. Um Is there any discussion? If not, all those in favor say aye. Aye. Any opposed? Thank you very much. >> Thank you. Good evening. Good evening. Thanks, Beth. All right. Um so, I am here tonight to present the 2026-2027 special education annual plan. All right. Um so, the special education annual plan um our part B flow-through application serves as a formal agreement between the local school board and the Virginia Department of Education so that we can implement federal and state laws and regulations that govern special education services. Um by having this application process, it ensures that we do um abide with those federal regulations. One item um that is found within the application is a certification. So, we have to

072certify that that school division has developed local policies and procedures for the provision of special education and related services, which are kept current and which ensure compliance with the requirements of any revision requirements of and any revisions to the IDEA, its federal implementing regulations, and the Virginia Board of Education's regulations. The application does get signed by the superintendent and has to be approved by the school board. Another item that is found within the application, it has to do with local and regional jails, which in Dinwiddie County we do not have any local or regional jails that support juveniles, but if we did, we would have to have an interagency agreement in place with the sheriff or the jail administrator who's responsible for the operation of the jail. And that agreement would address the staffing and

073security issues that are associated to make sure that they are providing those special education and related services. So, if we do have students who find themselves having to be placed in a juvenile detention facility, they are unenrolled from our school division and then enrolled in the locality where that specific facility is located. The implementation narrative section of the plan is always from the previous year. So, as you know, in special education, just like in finance, we're working in multiple years all at the same time. So, for this year's application for 2026-2027, we have to indicate to the extent to which the annual plan from 2024-2025 was implemented. And so, the statement will read that the 2024-2025 annual plan has been fully implemented. Dinwiddie County Public Schools has complied with all assurances and provisions that are

074set forth in the document. All right. Maintenance of effort is an item where I work very closely with Christie and the finance team. It does require the local education association to spend at least the same amount that it did the previous year or whatever the highest level year is and there are fun formulas involved. I don't know where Christie went. I think she's behind me somewhere. So if for some reason a division does not meet their maintenance of effort in at least one of the four categories and I'll show you that on the next screen, then you're required to pay back whatever that shortfall is. So I always encourage, you know, when I'm working with the finance team or with the superintendent or whatever, when we're looking at potential areas where we may have to

075cut back, special education should probably be one of the last areas we look at just because of this particular reason because we could potentially have to pay back federal funds if we don't meet those same levels of effort that are established for our division. If for some reason we ever do get into that situation, then that payment back goes to the state. It's done on a payment plan and then they pay that back to the federal government and you can't use your federal funds to pay back the shortfall. You do have to use local funds. Okay, so this is our maintenance of effort current levels for FY25 and if you look at this particular screenshot, it's going to show you a no in all four boxes. So when we initially did our maintenance of effort

076compliance for FY25, it did come back that we did not meet in any of the four areas. But Christie worked, you know, to go back through looking at did we have any staff that retired or resigned and did we replace those positions? Do we have vacant positions currently? So we looked at specifically MOE test number two and she was able to submit enough exceptions to the state to offset the difference that we had not met. So, at this time we did end up meeting for FY25. And I think it's always interesting to look at our historical data when we talk about our student involvement. So, when we look comparatively from last year in 2024-2025, when we submitted our December 1 special education child count to where we were sitting in 2025-2026 when we submitted that

077application, you see a significant increase in the number of students that were found eligible between you know, from December 1 of 24 to December 1 of 25. So, when we look at you know, this impacts our staffing, this impacts our ratios of students on caseloads and things like that. The other thing that I think is important to note on this slide is our increase in the number of students who are eligible for special education that are placed in parentally placed private or home schools. Because that also impacts our funding and things that we have to do with some of the funds that are provided through the IDEA grant. This slide shows historical information about our funding for the last several years. So, 611, which you'll find out more about each of these in just a

078minute, but 611 is our school age funding. 619 is our early childhood funding, and then this proportionate set-aside column is the funds that are calculated that we have to set aside to support those students that are parentally placed private school or home school. What's the 611 and 619? What's the targets for those? What do you mean the targets? 611 funding funds what? So, 611 is school age, 6-19 is early childhood. >> Early childhood. Mhm. So again, like I said, um, proportionate set-aside is a mandated set of funds. They pull that out of our 6-11 funds and we have to set that aside to be able to serve students who are placed in privately placed private schools or home schools. Each school division is able to determine what services they're going to provide to those students.

079Most school divisions, and we fall right in line with that, is that we will provide related services. We will not provide academic services. Um, so currently those funds are used to pay for speech therapy services, but if a student who is in one of those placements needed, um, occupational therapy or physical therapy, we could also provide that because those are also considered related services. So currently the amount we have to set aside is $38,837.70. That money does have to sit in this set-aside, I guess, pool of money for two school years. Um, and then it whatever funds have not been used, they let us know on July 1, okay, from July 1 to September 30th, you now have three extra months. You can move those funds back over to your 6-11 funding and actually use

080those to pay for salaries and benefits. Do we provide those speech and occupational therapy physically or we pay for them to do it someplace? >> No, so it is our providers that provide it. Um, currently we have out of the, um, you know, 30-plus that are students who are eligible, we only have seven that are receiving services. Um, and part of that is because some of them don't have related services on their plan, and so they wouldn't be eligible for services even though they're placed in a private school or, um, home school. Um, so out of when you're only looking at serving seven kids, you're never going to use all that money that they make you set aside. So that's where after 2 years then we're able to move it back over to be used.

081And we have some students will do what we call walk-in services where they'll actually come to the school and one of our speech therapists will provide the service. But we do have some students who are in the private school sector where we've made arrangements with the family where we do provide those services at that location. So, that is a you know, something that's in the regulation that we can provide it at the private school location as well. Okay. So, this speaks a little bit more specifically to those 611 funds. This is what we call our flow-through funds. So, this amount is used for salaries for special education teachers and selected paraprofessionals. There is also a small amount of the grant that we do have to set aside for that grant's administration, those indirect costs. So,

082currently in the the 611 grant, we have 16 FTE of staff. So, currently it's 10 exceptional education teachers, six paraprofessionals. That number is ever fluctuating because of course we have to look at, you know, we don't want to use up the whole grant and then not have any money left if something happens. You know, say we have a student who moves into the division that requires a one-to-one and we don't know where we're going to find that money to provide it, but we're required by law to provide it. You know, you just never know what could happen in special education that may require you to have funds available. So, we do try to leave a little bit of buffer within the grant to make sure that we, you know, we have some extra money there

083in case we need it. So, cuz I think last year our FTE in the grant was 15, but again we had a student who needed a one-to-one and so this was a a place where we could put that extra FTE to to to fund the position. All right. And then the 619 funds, which is a much smaller amount than the 611. Um this can be used for salaries and benefits for special education staff on the early childhood side. Um so this does have to be used for pre-K special education. So currently, we fund one paraprofessional within our early childhood special education classrooms. And then same thing as what we do on the 611 side, we have to set aside a little bit of money for that grants administration or indirect costs. All right. So the

084timeline for the annual plan um is that the first requirement was that I did have to present that to our special education advisory council, and there are a few members of that team here in the audience tonight. Um so I presented that to them last month on March 5th. Tonight, I'm presenting to you guys, and this plan does require approval from the board. And then I'll finish up the application and get that to Dr. Weston for signature um before May 8th when it is due. Any questions that anybody has about this particular plan? Can I Could you go back to the maintenance of effort Mhm. We just had to pass any one of those four tests. >> only required to pass one. Okay. And so you said that uh Ms. Fleming submitted for an exception,

085and it's already been approved. Correct. Correct. Yeah, this is one of those um when we submit the maintenance of effort compliance, Dr. Weston will tell you it sits out there in our application system with like this big red it's overdue um because we submit, but then we have to wait for the Department of Ed to actually go in and and look at those exceptions before they'll actually approve it. So, yep. Are there any other >> questions? Um Mr. Chair, Mr. Chair, I move that we um approve the special education annual plan. Second. It's been moved and seconded that we approve the special education annual plan. All those in favor say I. I. Any opposed? Thank you guys so much. I appreciate your support. >> Ms. Fleming, I think you have a a bonus. Good afternoon.

086Um when the General Assembly came um to enter session this year, obviously they, you know, concentrate on the FY27 budget, and that's what we've mainly talked about, but they also make some adjustments to the FY26 budget as well. And that's called the caboose budget. One of those things did include providing a one-time bonus um in fiscal year 2026 for um teachers. They But it's all employees. Um or it can be all employees. Um and they provide the funding for the SOQ funded positions. Um this what they suggested was a $1,500 bonus. We um we do have some um flexibility on who it's offered to and how it's offered. Some school divisions are not giving it to all employees, but we believe that we, you know, should honor all of our employees with with that. We

087do have um the ability to use this as a um retention bonus. And so, one um we are going to provide uh we are proposing, excuse me, to provide this bonus to all full-time or part-time employees. Um $1,500 for full-time, $750 for part-time. Contracted employees. Contracted employees, yes. Contracted employees. As long as they sign their contract and return for the upcoming school year. And with this we did this last year as well with it was $1,000 last year and we're proposing $1,500 this year. Well, that's the the amount set by the state. She's asking if we have non-contracted employees. Do you want to explain who those would be? Like substitutes? Or you know, people that don't work on a full-time Yeah, they're you know, they're not required No, mhm. How much How much is this

088costing us above what the state >> the potential cost could be $932,250. However, That's above what the state gives. No, I'm going to Yeah. All right, so out of the the the total cost, the state is providing 533285. The local potential cost could be 398965. However, that's for every single employee. We already know we have resignations, retirements, retention You know, we know that there are going to be It's not It's not going to be this much. Where would we get that money from? We do have the ability to cover this the because of our large vacancy pool from this year. You know, we we are able to be able to um you know, supplement this along with the state, you know, providing the funding for us as well. Um we do propose to give this

089on on June the 17th. And as long as you signed your contract, um you know, you would receive this this bonus at that time. If you we did and we have a email Dr. Weston has an email that she is going to uh uh send to all of our employees letting them know about this great um opportunity to come and work continue to work for Dinwiddie County Public Schools and receive this but if you do you know leave you will if if you if you I just I want to make sure that you know we did include that in the email that you can't just sign it and then in August decide you're going to leave. Yes. >> So if you decide in August you're going to leave then that amount would be pro you

090have to pay that money back. So we have the ability to That's why I was going to ask why why don't we wait later but But but we did that last year. I mean we brought for anybody that left afterward we just prorated it for the amount of time that they did serve. >> Right. >> And we just deducted it from their last paycheck with us. Okay. Yeah, we we did all we we we had ways of of of getting it. So uh Ms. Pitman the state is providing it to us June 1st. Okay. So we're paying it in the same fiscal year. In order to carry it over we would have to do all the stuff with the accounting. So and and you know it's a nice gesture for those that you know are

091are are going to be loyal and and continue to return you know it's it's you know during the summer. I know it's taxed cuz nothing goes on tax. Yes it is. But how about do they have to take VRS and all that on it? No. No. Oh that's good. No. Just the IRS gets Just the We will definitely follow the taxing the IRS taxing rules. Yes. Most definitely. So yes you will not receive the whole $1,500 unfortunately but we don't make those rules we just follow those rules. Um so yes but unfortunately we do have to do those things but VRS will not would not be part of that. It's not counting in your VRS but it the 5% that we take is not it's not going to be taxed on that. Right. Do you

092need approval from us? I do need approval, yes. All right. Well, it's nice. Yes. It's a I think our employees will, you know, would be very, um, thankful. There are some school divisions that are not able to do it because they don't have the local funds. Do they have to get approval? >> I mean, so they they can't accept the funding. Yeah, yeah, that's They can't accept the funding, so. Now, you know, it just baffles me when they don't have every district going to wake up to the inequities of the Yes, SOQ. Mhm. Cuz we I mean, we ours isn't quite It's more than half. Mhm. Yes. Yeah, Yeah, they they are providing, you know, at more than half, but I mean, even if they, you know, um, it's the SOQ positions they refer to

093it as, but, you know, even so, some some states don't even I mean, some localities don't have enough to be able to provide the local match that's required. >> Right. I've thought of that, you know, so we we are lucky that we we can do that. I do applaud Christie. I think that as soon as the governor, um, put that out there, I mean, she immediately went to work to keep that in front of mind so that we could make certain that we could afford our employees this opportunity. >> I think it's an excellent idea. I move that we approve the, um, fiscal year 2026 retention bonus. Second. It's been moved and seconded that we approve the retention bonus for the fiscal year 2026. All those in favor say aye. Aye. Any opposed? On behalf

094of all of the employees, we thank you. You're welcome. We got to approve the policies. Uh, policies, uh, you remember the last time we were together, we did provide you with a copy of the most recent, uh, Virginia School Board Association policies. Most of them are just updates to the code. Um, we just need approval to move forward with those and putting them into our policy. I move that we adopt the SBA um suggested policy updates. I need a second for that. >> Second. So, moved and seconded that we approve the VSBA policy updates for implementation. All those in favor say I. I. Any opposed? Motion carries. Now we have some super Do we have any new business, Madam Clerk? There is no new business, Mr. Chairman. So, Superintendent >> Yes, I'm pleased to um

095um Mr. Tucker and um Mr. Lawton, I believe are going to come and provide us with a transportation update. They've been so quiet down there, we don't even know they're down there anymore. So, um they're doing doing Oh, Mr. Well, his day starts at a dark 30, so we should have moved him up closer to the top, so. Good to see you this evening, Mr. Tucker. >> you too, Dr. Watson, and the rest of you also. Um Let me see what pair of glasses I need to wear. Chris is there to keep you awake. I have several glasses. He's not well. Okay. Um First of all, good afternoon. We We working right on the evening time, though. Um What I want to do this afternoon is to kind of give you a update as to

096where we started this year and where we are now. And um I don't think I have to tell you all that, you know, what we've had a quite stressful year and in transportation. But um things are kind of looking up, and which you'll see hopefully as you'll be able to see, um, before I finish. Um, what we strive to do, first of all, our our our our our our our our our our our our our our whole entire goal is to transport students from one place to it from home to school in the safe the safest manner possible. Um, and, you know, you I know you have heard that uh bus driver or someone from transportation is usually the first person that you that a student sees in the day and the last person uh

097from the school system that that they have contact with. And what we hope that our drivers will do is to greet those students uh with a smile. We know that it doesn't always happen, but that they they would greet them and get them at least uh in line or ready to start a positive day. Because if you can start start off positive, then perhaps uh it will continue into the school. Once they get to school, it will continue, you know, through lunch, continue uh through recess, or and continue through the remainder of the day, and also they can come back home and enjoy a good a good afternoon with their parents. Glasses. Um, it says that it say says that that the road to education starts here. And we do believe that the road to

098to education does start uh in the morning on the school bus. Um, each day in uh Dinwiddie County, we We know you. And each in the county, we transport approximately somewhere between 3,000 to possibly 3,500 students daily. Um whereas most of us uh when we say uh school transportation, we think about the yellow bus. But uh we uh have the regular yellow buses, we have the yellow exceptional ed buses. We transport students by cars, by vans, by um and and we've even with our McKinney-Vento students, we are even transporting some by activity we use uh one of our activity buses. Uh also during the day, we have uh you know, we're we're constantly moving kids from one place to another. Uh special trips, athletic trips, midday shuttles, um and then also after school programs. We

099also uh go to Powhatan twice a day and back. We um serve uh schools that are both in and outside of the district. Um that's we have one bus that goes to Richmond, drops off at uh three schools, and and then uh go goes have to do a return trip back to pick those kids up in the afternoon. Um so we know we're constantly on on the go and we have people who constantly um uh depend on us. Um most of this is made possible by our two routing specialists. On average, we have uh uh they have routed somewhere between 35 to 50 students per route. We have 60 routes. Well, we started out with 60 routes and that was 60 routes less than an hour long. We have uh as as far as general

100general education, there's a total of 63 routes. Uh exceptional education 18 total routes. McKinney-Vento three total routes. And then we also uh have to get kids to and from 11 schools that are out of district. Those may be in Richmond, Petersburg, Hopewell, um uh Powhatan, um you know, just very various places. Uh and it it takes a lot to keep up with that. To actually it takes a lot first of all to get it all scheduled. Then it takes a lot to keep you keep up with it. And on any given day, if one key person or one or two key people are out, it can really put you you know, have you kind of just just running around trying to figure out exactly what you need to do to to get it all done.

101Um This this slide right here uh says wheels on the ground and and talks about the drivers and and aides. I have a total of 61 61 total drivers and aides. Uh general education I have 38 drivers, exceptional education 17 drivers, six aides. Additional transportation needs, uh we have as I mentioned earlier, field trips, um from June to February from from June of 2025 to February of 2026, we had a total of 307 uh trips. That that's a lot of trips. Yeah. That That's a lot of It's It's a lot of planning. Um, we shuttle approximately 150 students daily, you know, with the with our because of our schedules, uh, between the high school and the middle school for for classes. And this is This is every day. And so it it it it's it's

102just a lot of moving parts, a lot of moving parts that And And as I said, if if you you know, if you get one of those one of those pieces, uh, doesn't get greased, it doesn't get oil, uh, then it can just throw things off. Um, and what happens What happens and something that, uh, I know all the principals over here have have had to deal with. Every principal has had to deal with it. But when you deal with it, I have already dealt with it. And that is the late bus issue. Um, to just to see why uh, what has happened with with our late buses, with our bus situation. We started the school year with, uh, and we try to base everything on the high school middle school uh, with 37 high

103middle school high school routes. And we had all the routes covered, which was a good thing. But the bad thing was we had no substitutes. So when a driver or an aide called out, then that meant that, uh, typically a number of other drivers would have to complete their routes, then come back to cover. My main objective and also what happened a lot doing that, particularly in the mornings, I would come in, and then I would even grab a bus and go out and bring kids to school because I I I just thought that kids needed to be at school when school started. Um you know, they could sit around a while once it ends, you know, till or maybe someone could come and pick them up or whatever, but I just felt that they

104needed to be there or they needed to be there uh when school start. Uh some kids depend on breakfast. Some kids depend on you know, some parents don't don't trust and I can't blame them with our society the way it is, don't trust necessarily leaving children at home alone no matter what their age is. So um I just we've always felt that if we can get them there if we can get them there and then the schools can handle them while they're there then um you know, we will find a way to get them back home. Now since the beginning of the school year, as I said, you know, we started out with with with those drivers. Every route was covered. But since the beginning of the year we've had four time four full-time drivers

105to resign. And what we did to try to um to to to to um ease our pains a little bit was that we ended up going back and looking back at uh the routes that we had started out with and basically we collapsed three bus routes. And I would we've done we we did away with them. Um we had also we have a midday person um who who comes in and does most of that uh midday shuttle. What we did with him was we also asked we also have used him to cover some of those routes that that are out. So, we have I have hired two full-time drivers and we currently have some people um that are you know, I I hope it that it hope that it goes through. Um I'm my fingers

106are crossed and that is the raise that Dr. Weston is talking about giving the bus drivers because we have had a real influx of applications and I think the word is getting out there. People are realizing that um you know, we are going to start paying what other districts are paying or we're attempting to pay what other districts are uh are are paying and hopefully we, you know, um we will be able to uh have ourselves uh fully uh staffed and be able to um just to kind of sit back and be where we were uh 5 6 years ago. We We have as I said, we've we have struggled. We've struggled since COVID, but I think a lot of places have struggled since COVID because uh uh you know, of the workforce. Of course.

107Um As I said, now we now have uh once we collapse those routes, we have 35 middle school, high school uh routes. Um with uh one person who that that middle of the day person that that we can use to um um to to come in and sub. Um and I have deliberately tried to um to stay off of bus, which I have. I haven't been on a bus probably in uh probably 2 months now. Um And I, you know, it's I just feel like that, you know, you pay me as a director and not as a bus driver. Mhm. Um We still have, uh, some full-time, what we call run of vacancies, which are somewhat like substitute uh uh, positions that are not that are not have not been filled. Um, but we have,

108as I said, we have people who are applying for those, you know, all the time and, um, hopefully, um, we'll be able to see our way through. And, uh, that's that's all I have for you tonight. It's time to go home. Thank you. Okay. I just would like to say I spoke to the service earlier and, uh, Mr. Um, Tucker has been serving Dinwiddie County Public Schools for almost 50 years now and I just want to publicly thank you for your service and, um, I think he's going to give us and I think he signed I think he hasn't signed his contract yet. You know, he'll get that $1,500 unless you sign that contract. Um, but we do appreciate everything you've done. But I can take it in writing? No, you may not do that.

109Um, but I do appreciate your service and your willingness, even though you haven't been on a bus for the last 2 months, you are always willing to do whatever it takes to get the kids to school and from school. And we appreciate that so much and I don't think we ever say that enough to you. THANK YOU. ALL RIGHT. YEAH. THANK YOU. GOOD PEOPLE. All right. And finally, uh, tonight, the last uh, presentations, we'll try to make this relatively short and painless. Uh, this is Simone Carpenter and um, she has been working with this probably for about a year now. Um, um, she represents a District Management um management group um and she's been assisting us and uh the development of our new strategic plan. So, tonight she's just going to provide us like with

110an overview of what the process has looked like. You'll be given a copy of the draft as it stands right now. You'll have the next couple of weeks to have everything um in the next couple of weeks, but she just kind of wanted to talk a little bit about it and um familiarize you with what we've been doing for the past year. Um, Ms. Pittman has also been participating with us in the process as well. So, Simone. Perfect. Thanks, Dr. Weston. >> Yeah, sure. Good evening, everyone. Good evening. >> Um, my name is Simone Carpenter. I'm a director with District Management Group and I've had the absolute distinct pleasure of partnering with the team here in Dinwiddie County Public Schools over the last year or so on building uh what we call a result a

111focused and results-oriented strategic plan which will help guide uh DCPS over the next few years in making decisions, allocating resources, and ultimately getting results for students, staff, and the district. This is nice to have to go side to side. This this is there one that it clicks to the side? It's just this one. >> one. Maybe Oh, there you go. Okay. Maybe it's that that I have to point it. Maybe so. Um, if it doesn't work, I can click through for you. Perfect. All right, so we'll start with some introductions. Again, we'll make this as quick and painless as possible. Um, talk about our methodology. Um, we had two major phases of our work, our needs assessment and then the development of the plan. So, we split those two up and talk about each one

112um and then end with next steps which this is your first introduction to this and um hopefully at the next or one of the next upcoming board meetings, you all adopt this plan. All right. Um, so as I said, I'm from District Management Group. Over the last 22 years, uh our work has been on our mission to create uh to achieve systemic improvement in public education by combining management techniques and educational best practices. And everything we do is really focused on the intersection of three big questions. First and foremost, what's best for students? And to do that in a sustainable and lasting way, you also have to think about what's best for staff and what's best for the budget. And so we really focus on the intersection of those three questions. And over the last

11322 years, we've partnered with hundreds of school districts coast to coast, a few others in Virginia, but also ones across the country, rural, urban, suburban, and everything in between. And what we've learned is that there's uniqueness in every single district and there's also some common challenges that districts are facing. In addition to our work on our consulting, we do some other work. We have a cloud-based scheduling software, we have a journal, and we do our breakthrough results program. And I'm going to skip through this quickly, just introduce myself. I've been with District Management Group for about eight years, worked with over 50 school districts across the country, really helping build strategic plans and thinking through how do we allocate our resources towards our strategy. And just one other thing you should know about me, I

114started my career in the classroom in San Jose, California. I was a middle school math interventionist. Okay. So we'll jump into our methodology. So we had four key goals that drove our partnership with DCPS. First, develop an actionable strategy that helps navigate tough trade-offs and guide decision-making to improve outcomes for students and stakeholders. Second, build support among stakeholders and buy-in for the path forward. You'll see in a little bit we did a lot of community and stakeholder engagement throughout this process. Third, a strategic plan should help drive results with specific priorities, measurable goals that enable you all to track progress, and finally, allow you to realign your resources towards key objectives through a thoughtful, results-oriented strategy. So, our work followed two major phases. So, everything in blue is what we did, and then setting you

115all up for implementation, which is what's in gray. We started with performing our preliminary analysis that started with gathering a working committee that included Dr. Weston, Ms. Pittman, members of district leadership, school leadership, school staff, and community members. So, it was really a interconnected working committee, and we did what we call our needs assessment, which is getting the most comprehensive understanding of the current state of things here in DCPS. And then, in a series of meetings with that working committee, we worked to actually write a new mission and vision for the division, codify a theory of action, develop a set of priorities and measurable goals, create an initial draft, and then what we actually do is we go back out. And so, we did a ran a second survey with the community to ask them

116for feedback on those pieces of the strategic plan. And what we heard from the community is that it's pretty spot-on for where the division needs to move. Um we already talked about our goals, so I'm actually just going to skip this slide for the interest of time and talk about our strategic planning framework, because this is a framework we've used with hundreds of districts across the country. We believe a strategic plan needs to start with a mission and a vision. That's the long-term aspirations. This really shouldn't change every 5 years. This should be what do we really believe is true for our students, our staff, and our community. That leads to a theory of action, which is the fundamental belief around what are are going to do differently that's going to lead to better results

117for our students, our staff, our community? Um and then we believe a short list is better than a long list, so um developing a short list uh three to five, we have five in the DCPS plan priorities, which are the key areas for district success. Um and with each priority is a short list of how you'll measure progress. Um that leads you to the implementation phase, which again was is not set on a long-term basis, it's set on a short-term basis, but really what we are aim is to set you all up to be able to determine your initiatives and your action steps. Um just to quickly orient you to each of those components, first is the mission and vision. Again, this is the long-term success. If you ask yourself, what does success look like

118for students and or for DCPS over the next 5 to 10 years? And we actually did exactly that with a lot of stakeholders, and that's what helped develop the mission and the vision statements we're sharing with you tonight. Uh next is the theory of action. This is a a series of if and then statements that says really what are we going to do that we believe is going to lead to results for our division. And that leads again to that short list of priorities uh and for each priority a short list of measurable goals, which uh really tell you all as board members how you can measure progress moving forward. All right. Let's jump into the the meat of our actual work with DCPS. Um so starting with the first phase of work. Um and

119so we started our needs assessment with a lot of stakeholder engagement. We tried to engage the community in DCPS uh on a number of different topics and a number of different settings and and ways of engaging. We ran two community meetings um back in September. One at Dinwiddie High and one at Sutherland Elementary School, where we had about 50 community members come and share their thoughts with us. We also did 34 interviews and focus groups. That was with district leaders, school leaders, school staff, community members and students. And then we did a community survey because we want to make sure that everyone has the opportunity had the opportunity to provide input. And we got about 360 responses to that first survey. And then as I said, we did a second survey later on. We got

120about 170 responses to the second survey. In addition to all of that qualitative evidence that we gathered through focus groups, interviews, community meeting, community survey, we also looked at tons of quantitative information, enrollment trends, outcomes, attendance, staffing, budgets. We tried to get our hands on everything we could to really deeply understand the current state of things in DCPS. And I have two slides that summarize what we learned. And what this is the qualitative themes. We learned three big things. There are qualitative themes and these are things that make DCPS truly a unique place. And the first is the strong sense of community and care. I will say I've worked with over 50 districts, DCPS is unique in your sense of community, your sense of care here. Stakeholders across the organization noted a deep sense of

121community, a family atmosphere. Folks mentioned that leaders and staff have pride, have a culture of care as defining characteristics. And new staff said, I felt welcomed immediately upon joining the team at DCPS. We when we heard from leaders, we heard there's a strong connection between ongoing work and the strategic plan. Um and when we heard from staff, we heard that there's an opportunity for a more unified direction to say, "How do we use this plan and actualize it in our classrooms?" Um and then finally, the student experience. And this is something I heard tonight, I'm sure you all have heard many, many times, but I had my first chance to hear about it tonight uh first hand, is just the wide range of opportunities for students in DCPS. Um especially for your size. Again, this

122is something that I've worked with a lot of districts makes DCPS unique is for your size, you have so many opportunities for students. Actually, regardless of size, you have so many opportunities um for students. And feedback from students, staff, families highlighted that uh really wanting to make sure that opportunities continue, that uh strengthening student well-being supports, and a school climate is really important for uh DCPS moving forward. Um five key areas that also came out of our needs assessment. Um and these are our good things and areas for continued uh work in DCPS. The first is academic outcomes. Um graduation rates have grown tremendously here in DCPS. Um and SOL performance is near the state average, which you see lower down that per pupil spending is below the state average, that indicates you're getting a

123really good return on your investment here in DCPS. Um and we heard that there's opportunities to strengthen proficiency at the middle school, tier one instruction, and supports for students with differentiated learning. Um human capital, we already talked about the strong family atmosphere, the supportive uh administration, and loyal staff. And looking ahead, opportunities to focus on staff sustainability. We actually heard about some of that tonight. Um and enhanced internal communication. Um student well-being, uh we know there's been tons of work on uh, addressing chronic absenteeism. It has lowered over the last few years. It continues to be an area of focus moving forward. Um, and opportunities to expand social emotional supports, uh, strengthen school culture. Um, and then for family and community engagement, uh, room to increase the frequency and accessibility of division communications including uh,

124one of the big drivers or big root causes is connectivity. So, how how can DCPS um, reach all corners of the Denbigh community? And then finally division finances and operations. As I said, per pupil spending is below the state average and opportunities to really strengthen transparency around resource allocation. Heard a lot of that tonight. Um, and address transportation and connectivity challenges which we also heard about tonight. Um, all of that is to say you're going to see a lot of that in the plan. So, we always like to ground in the current state of things. Um, so now we'll bring you to our uh, components of the strategic plan. And again, first time you're really getting to see this and interact with it. Feel free to ask questions. Um, but then the goal is that

125you all will adopt this plan or and or share feedback with us so that we can make updates for adoption. So, starting with the mission and the vision. As I said, we actually asked a lot of folks, like where do you see DCPS? What would you want folks to describe DCPS as? And that's what helped develop this mission and vision. And what we heard loud and clear from folks is the statement deep roots, great heights resonates really loud and clear with your staff, your students, and your community. And so we worked to weave that throughout the mission and the vision. Um, so I'll just read this. Uh, our mission and vision are shaped by a legacy of support, a culture of care, and a belief that when families, educators, and community partners come together, there's

126no limit to how high our students can soar. The mission statement is rooted in community, grounded in care, and committed to every child's growth. Dinwiddie County Public Schools cultivates learners to become confident, compassionate, and prepared to reach great heights in life beyond graduation. And the vision statement is together we grow a trailblazing school system where every student is equipped to thrive in college, career, community, and character. DCPS graduates are resilient, ethical, skilled, and opportunity-ready with a plan for lifelong success. Before we move forward, want to hear are there any questions or comments on the mission and vision? It's something to strive to. >> Yes, yes, long-term success. >> Yes. Yes. All right. So, moving to the theory of action. And again, what this theory of action is is a fundamental belief around what will lead

127to success in DCPS. So, what are we going to do that we believe is going to support our students, our staff, and our community? Um and it's connected by if and then statements. They don't always line up, so it's not meant to be read as an if then, but really a series of if statements and a series of then statements. So, um the theory of action is if we challenge all students with supportive, high-quality instructional experiences that foster curiosity and and engagement, provide opportunities for advancement, career and technical education, specialty programs, and other personalized experiences, build educator capacity and efficacy through relevant, high-quality professional learning, establish programming and a comprehensive system of supports, addressing student belonging, engagement, and social emotional needs. Modernize district division-wide systems by integrating advanced technologies, streamline processes, and efficient and reliable

128infrastructure, and evaluate our major programs for ROI, effectiveness, and alignment with strategic priorities. If we do those things, then all students will be supported in reaching their full potential and succeeding beyond graduation. Students will be able to engage in learning that aligns with their affinities, strengths, and aspirations. Students will participate in high-quality experiences that align with research and best practice, resulting in high levels of student engagement and achievement. Staff will experience greater clarity, connection, belonging, well-being, and engagement, and DCPS will retain a diverse, committed, high-performing, and empowered workforce that drives student-centered experience. DCPS will increase operational excellence, align decision-making, and cultivate strong stronger partnerships leading to healthier, more sustainable, and more engaging learning environments that support student success, and we will create a more supportive system that enhances student learning, strengthens community bonds, fosters innovation,

129and supports wellness by leveraging shared resources, expertise, and network. In turn, this will address systemic challenges, expand opportunities, and prepare our students for a thriving future in a diverse and rapidly evolving society. You can see a lot of through lines between what we talked about in the needs assessment and what's here in the theory of action. And what I really love about this is it's very action-oriented, and if you think about the initiatives and action steps, you can take each of these and probably create a set of projects for them. All right. As I shared earlier, we have five draft priorities to share with you. These are the um kind of big focuses of work moving forward for DCPS. Uh the first is learning and achievement for all. Um DCPS challenges learners to be future-ready

130critical thinkers and creative problem-solvers, engaging them in real-world experiences that prepare them for opportunities beyond high school. Excellent employees. DCPS recruits uh to retains, recruits, develops, and supports exceptional staff members. Culture of care and well-being. DCPS provides a welcoming, supportive, and safe environment that fosters resilient and productive schools and workplaces where everyone thought thrives. Families as partners. DCPS cultivates positive relationships with all stakeholders to enhance communication and strengthen mutual trust. And finally, trusted governance and strategic partnerships. DCPS strong strengthens public trust in Dinwiddie County Public Schools through transparent governance and operations, aligned partnerships, meaningful engagement and input from stakeholders, and shared ownership. Again, you can see a pretty direct through line between uh the needs assessment and these five priority areas. Uh before we move on to measurable goals, any questions, comments about the priorities

131or theory of action? All right. So, for each of these, so um you're going to see somewhere between around four and I think eight uh measurable goals for each of the priority areas. Um we always recommend having a list that is about that long for each priority area because you really can collect data on so many things. If you go back to our first slide, we had probably 15 things we collected data on. Each of those 15 things you could probably expand to to 10 each. Um this does not mean these are the only data points that DCPS should be looking at, but really these are the things that they're committing you all are committing to the community um for around each of the priorities. So for learning and achievement for all, how DCPS will

132measure success is in the percent of students showing uh reading reading on grade level by grade two, the percent of students showing readiness on the 3E readiness framework, um participation and pass rates in advanced coursework in middle and high schools, graduation rates, um percent of students who enroll in college, career, and or military, school accreditation status, and the school performance framework scores. For excellent employees, um measured by the percentage of fully and provisionally licensed teachers, um retention rates, uh the percent of staff who are rated highly effective on the performance framework, uh the percentage of staff who would recommend DCPS to a friend or colleague through referrals. This is a really good one. Uh I'll just say I I think this is a really good one because people who sing your praises are going to

133bring a lot of things along with them. Um the percentage of staff who report satisfaction where they work on this uh with where they work on the staff survey, and the percentage of classrooms implementing evidence-based practices. For the culture of care and well-being, uh you'll see that a lot of the employee ones were on the excellent employees. So the culture of care and well-being is mostly being measured by student uh engagement measures. So chronic absenteeism, behavior incidences, um students feeling connected in a social emotional way on a social emotional screener, and the percentage of students who report a sense of belonging on uh a student survey. That is one of those things like recommending a friend, it's a power metric. It brings a lot of things along with it. Um families as partners, this is

134how DCPS will measure success is the number of stakeholders who provide feedback on their experience or provide positive feedback on their experience with DCPS on feedback surveys. Um the number of families and community members who attend DCPS events. Um the percentage of stakeholders who report communication as clear and transparent on the needs assessment. The percentage of families who report trust and confidence in DCPS. And the percentage of newcomer, EL, military connected, and families of students with a disability who report DCPS as welcoming and creating a sense of belonging. And then finally, uh trusted governance and strategic partnerships. This is kind of the other operational things. Um and this is where you could get a laundry list of a lot of measures. And so really saying what are the things that we want to see um

135movement on, financial audit data, enrollment data. Um stakeholders who provide positive feedback on resource usage and transparency. And then the next three are really important because they're saying are we making progress in the other things that we've shown? So our capital improvement plan, department level goals, knowing that each department has their own metrics for success. Um and strategic plan goals. Are we moving the needle on all the other things we've committed to? Um and then the number of stakeholders who engage with DCPS meaningfully and the alignment of community partnerships with strategic priorities. All right, so that was all of our strategic plan components. Any questions or comments from folks? All right. Um so, what happens from here? So, first and foremost, hopefully, you all adopt this plan in the next month or so. Um and

136that is the first thing because that uh gives the the district leaders a green light to move forward with implementation, which is initiatives and action steps. Initiatives are the specific projects related to each priority. A lot of the things we actually heard tonight could kind of fall in initiatives um related to things like culture of culture of care and well-being um or student uh learning and achievement for all. Um and then action steps are the who, the what, the where, the when, the how. You know, who's going to take these actions? How are they going to happen? Um and it's a good way of kind of tracking progress towards uh goals. So, that is where things are to go um as a next step, you know, voting on a finalized and adopting a finalized strategic

137plan. The other um attachment in tonight's board uh meeting in addition to these slides is the um draft strategic plan fully designed. Um we would love for you all to read through it, uh share your thoughts, feedback, and questions, and um we're happy to make any updates or adjustments um to prepare for you all to adopt this. And then uh from there, it's the green light to get moving on implementation. Thank you all so much for your time and engagement tonight. I really appreciate it. Thank you, Simone, so much for all of that. Um I was hopeful that uh I guess it's not loading. I was hopeful that uh we could show the uh profile of the Dunwoody learner. >> Yes. Um I do want to uh thank um Dr. Clay and her team. Um

138if you could just scroll down to that cuz this really is something I think we started years ago and I just and Dr. Clay and her vision and her team can you go down to where the Does this one not have it? >> It does, right here. Oh, there it is. So, for each level the team has put together what that would look like. So, we're all kind of working on the same thing. We know what we want students to know and be able to do by the time they get to graduation. Then we backed it up so you can see it at K1 and K23. And so, I really am so pleased with this and I think our families are going to be so pleased with this as well, but it kind of connects

139all of our work together. So, I thank Dr. Clay and her team for helping to put all of that in place and you guys did a great job um bringing that vision to life so to speak. So, thank you all. But we have a lot to look at, a lot to review. And this has been you know, a you know, it's taken some time, but I I feel like it's we're getting closer and closer. I can't wait for us to actually sit down and really work on the the actual action steps and what that would look like in practice, but we have a lot of work to do with that with some of our leadership teams over the next few months. So, but if you all would take the next couple of weeks and if

140you have feedback or anybody from home has that as well, we'd we'd welcome that feedback from you all. >> Yes, and we're here to help get it to the finish line. >> Thank you so much. We appreciate appreciate you so much. Thank you. Thank you. And then Ms. Pittman and I attended Maggie Walker did you want to say anything Ms. Pittman about >> Um sure, that the um They had lots of meaningful trips. They had some over spring break, but they also have some this summer. And so impressive, they have a foundation that helps raise money to offset those trips and that foundation had raised like $50,000. And the students still have to pay some but they have to have raised some but it really takes the sting out of being able to have that

141meaningful experience. And some of those experiences were international. So that is absolutely wonderful opportunities and we have students that are participating in that. And the other thing was um that that that this time of year their programs were entering into some state and and national contest and they received several national awards um and they had brought a group of students in that they had won those awards and they shared with us what those were. And um they they they just provide such a quality and unique experience that make you work and I'm so glad that we had that opportunity to have students who want that type of experience for especially international business, international travel, international political views. It's that is their focus there. And you may have observed something different. Good. How many students speak

142and how many students speak and we have them there? We have five five. We have five and and next year we're going to have next year we'll have six or seven that'll go there. Yeah. We haven't had a graduate yet. We are having graduates this year so there'll be new students that'll go in the yeah. I want to share about the And and then we're wanting um we are still looking to hire the for the engineering program and we are um our students are preparing this time of year for both certification test and some of the competitions that we enter in the various um programs that we offer. Our guidance programs right now at the high school are signing kids up for the programs that we're wanting and we're probably going to be in the

143process of trying you know, we have more kids asking than we have slots and so we have a difficult process of looking at which students will be successful in certain areas and um it's a tough task. We want students that need something different maybe to be there, but we've also really have to consider that the student needs to be able, willing, attend school, um stick with it for the two years if it's a two-year program so that we don't have gaps and um in those programs. And wherever possible, we do link our programs at Rowante to the community college at Brightpoint and um for certification purposes and well Rowante offers a wonderful experience of a variety of certifications for our students and the engineering program is going to be great. I just hope we uh

144attract the students that have that have that long-term vision. They want to be in that field. Anything you would like to ask add? And also Pastor Walker is now the board chair. Yes, he is. >> board chair at Rowante. Yes, he is. He is the board chair. Yeah, two years. Yeah, that's right. Do we have any Do we have any citizens signed up for comment? No one has signed up to speak tonight. Thank you. All right, do we have any board comments before we close? Anybody want to say anything? We're pooped. It's late. It's been a long meeting. It's been a long meeting. Um I am grateful for the people in this room. Yeah, I am, too. We're blessed to have so many good people in our in our school system, so thank you all.

145Mr. Tucker looks like he's ready to His day starts >> You got to do it all again tomorrow, Mr. Tucker. What What get up in the morning, Mr. Tucker? I get up early, so What time do you get up in the morning, Mr. Tucker? 4:00. >> Wow. Don't call me. Oh, man. Um Janice Janice Janice, do you have anything? No. I You know, I I got to have some. Um we had the opportunity this week uh Sandy Moore did a great job with a Feet Meet, and um it was the weather was gorgeous. We all had a great time. I just wanted to acknowledge her leadership. Um and also in 2 weeks, uh Daniel Hawkins, Benny Brooks, and Janelle Valentine are going to be presenting to all the superintendents from across the Commonwealth. I understand

146that both hotels are completely full in Roanoke about all the great things happening at Sunnyside Elementary Schools. So, I'm very excited about that. And then finally, I told Leanne as we were walking in that we were a little bit late cuz I had to console you all because um she was on the retirement list. And so, we we had we all had a moment of silence, you know, because you know, Leanne has served this community for 34 years. Um you know, as an employee, but she also went to school here. So, I mean, this is her home, and you talk about deep roots. I mean, Leanne is the evidence of that. And um I don't think she's going far, and I think she, you know, but she has lots of plans for her time. And

147but I I think we'll see her. I think we'll get to see her and and benefit from all of her smarts. But but we just appreciate you so much. And um and we are are very sad, you know, to be losing your leadership at Dinwiddie Elementary School. But we know how to find you. You know, oh, you she she still got till the end of She has a few months. Yes, she got her till the end of June. But I just wanted to say it publicly, you know, because yeah. And Leanne, I've been moaning the loudest up here. >> Because her granddaughter's now coming to Dinwiddie Elementary School. So, everybody whose grandchild is now coming there are very devastated. Oh, man. The sign of a great leader. Thank you. Thank you for all that you've

148done. I've known you both as a student and as one of my employees at the middle school and as our principal, so all all of those things I've seen you do, you've done a great job. >> And what were your parents' connection to Dinwiddie Elementary School? It was a their first date and then she got to be the principal there. >> That's wonderful. So, this is a special school. Yes. So, if you've your parents had their first date at Dinwiddie Elementary School and you want to be a principal, you know, we we'd we'd like to talk to you cuz obviously that works. It is. Well, >> All right, that's it. Hearing no objections, this meeting is adjourned. Thank you.