001one board member that's virtual okay we have one board member that's virtual yes Mrs Pitman yes so people that's it certification of closed session where as the dewi County school board has convened a closed session on this date pursuant to to an affirmative recorded vote and an 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 the school board that such closed meeting was conducted in Conformity with Virginia law n therefore be it resolved that the deny 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 closed meeting were heard discussed or considered by the school board Dr Elaine Pearson District 1 I certifi
002Dwayne Walker District Two I certify Barbara Pitman District three I certify mayor Benjamin District Four I certify Jason Brown the Second District 5 I certifi Madam chair all certifi thank you I invite you to participate in the Pledge of Allegiance okay Al to the flag of the United States of America and to the Republic for which it stands one nation under God indivisible with liy and justice for all thank you Madame secretary are there any amendments to the agenda Madam chair we need to add agenda item 6.03 under superintendent's matter fcal year 26 budget thank you did everyone get that 6 6.03 Madam chairperson I move that we accept the agenda as amended second it has been move it has been moved and properly secondly we accept the agenda as as amended those in favor
003use the sign I I no knows the agenda is adopted Madam chair I move that we approve the Personnel list as presented second has been moved in second that we accept the Personnel list as presented all those in favor I I hearing none um Dr Weston um yes I would like to take this opportunity to introduce midway's um principal for the 2025 school year and Beyond so I'd like to have Chuck Simmons if you would stand up please I want to tell you all a little bit about him um he is originally uh from not originally I think he's originally from Danville but from New York um has several degrees in both Elementary education and special education and can speak in Spanish so I was pretty impressed with that as well um he comes to
004us by way of Danville where he has served in a number of capacities and currently he is a principal of I believe it's a uh what is it umem yes the activate STEM Academy in Danville and he's the principal there and has been I want to tell you that um when I reached out to references on his behalf every person that I spoke to couldn't say enough wonderful things about you from New York to Danville and the work that you've done for young people um and that they said if you that you're getting a gy um and I'm just so glad that you you found your way to Dewy County thank you so much for joining us and he has any family um I think yes I think no not tonight are you by yourself
005this evening or okay okay I just want to make sure just want to make sure it wasn't anybody else okay great approval of student matters Madam chair I move that we uphold the recommendation of administration and expel student number e225 D1 second you've hear the motion coming from and second coming from um our board members all those in favor all one extension the um we have one abstention but the motion is carried we have question you want to do your question you have a question you just abstain you just abstain okay motion is carried uh Madame chairperson I move that we uh upold the recommendation of the administration and expel student number E-2 25-2 finding that the student poses a threat to the health safety and Welfare of others second it has been moved in
006second um coming from our board members all of those in favor use the usual sign I one abstention the motion said I the motion is carried um recognitions rante oh yes um so I'd like to introduce for those of you don't know this is um Dr Paul leup and he is our new principal at Rowan Technical Center um he's been very busy since he arrived last July done a lot of really great things at the school um and so he's here and this is CTE month and so he's here to talk to us a little bit about um Ruan and the great things that are happening there thank you so much Madam chair Mr chairman Ste members of school board Comm members and stakeholders it's an honor and privilege to stand here before you tonight
007it's my first time being in front of with school I'm excited to be here and everything and we hit the power button on the microphone each one is different different first time rcky mistakes um but just wanted to uh speak with you a little bit about what's going on at ran kind of give you a little bit of a state of the union kind of thing um as well as a past present future for ranti um just to kind of share with you and everything this evening so by the Numbers ranti this current school year we have 254 students of which 122 or Den Wy high school students really excited and love to celebrate our deny um students we have a number of programs here we have nine programs currently this year I've got a
008little ASC and everything next to criminal justice U due to due to a teacher leaving us mid year we did um close that program mid year but I'm happy to report that all of our students enrolled in that program earned all of the high school credit associated with that as well as any of the dual enrollment students of that program are continuing asynchronously um their studies to ensure that they earn the same number of college credits they would to if the year continued pres Rowan so there are three pillars I like to think of when I think of Career Technical education uh the first is the same as in any subject matter whether it's math history English CTE which is strong instruction we go one step further of that which is strong instruction that leads
009to an industry certification or state licensure so whether that's a nurse aid certification state inspection license what have you and everything so we go above and beyond in terms to making sure our students are College and Career ready so it's a theme you will hear tonight and you will hear from me uh throughout my tenure and everything is the Rowan principle but the other two pillars that really again these three pillars uh basically create what we call the Rowan experience is is is things we want to focus on everything so one of which is what we call a ctso or a Career Technical student organization in short it's simply a co-curricular program that extends the classroom Beyond um some of the opportunities allow students to network with their peers from other Career Technical education programs
010um one of the biggest things is competition so I'm happy to report that deny has had five students this year qualify for the state championship which will be in April competing in competitions such as Collision and Repair um cosmetology and and several others so we're really excited about what that looks like in terms of our skill USA all of our students um at Rowan are active participants in their ctsos um so skills USA is for all of our programs with the exception of for Nurse Aid nurse aid has their own which is a HOSA the Health occupation students of America um and we also reopened our chapter of the National Technical Honor Society this year and we have six students from the fall and we plan to extend that number and everything this upcoming spring
011with additional um students participating there another big pillar as so as so we speak and everything in terms of Career Technical education is work-based learning now that is going to look a little bit different I'm sure there's been conversations on what used to be called School accreditation and everything and what that is and what's important in terms of work-based learning as it pertains to that as well as the profile of a Virginia graduate but this is one of our big priorities this year it was something not only just for the accreditation piece of it but just making sure we're doing right by students and having them have full exposure to the careers what's associated with it um so so far this year we've completed 787 experiences Again by the Numbers there we've got 306 guest
012speakers we've got workplace tours job shadows as well as high-intensity experiences these are the experiences that do count towards those accred accreditation and and the um the models um that you've probably heard of before and everything but we've got 32 experiences of service learning where students are going out in the community identifying a opportunity and solving that opportunity as it pertains to their program of study we have 66 um student experiences and ter of student-based or school-based Enterprise where students are applying what they've learned in class to either the school itself and Beyond so we have students that are um as part of that work-based learning experience with school-based Enterprise building sheds for community members and being able to essentially have a a zeroc cost lab activity over several months given them a real world
013experiences as well as having them work on the electricity and um different aspects of the school so as we not only improve our school quality and everything we're giving the students those opportunities to learn Beyond so really excited about that as well as 35 students in our nurse aid program going out and spending at least 40 hours each year with direct patient care at an assistant living facility in the community so that was the present so I want to take a step backward and talk about the past so again I mentioned the concept of ranti students are College and Career ready vocational education is an outdated term which came from really back in the 70s and it was really for a place that AR for students that aren't College Bound so it was focused on
014employment after graduation as you heard he mentioned throughout this presentation everything the term now is Career Technical education it's National um Career Technical education month this month and it's really meeting students where they're at they have with them having different goals a student in automotive so to speak may have an interest in learning just how to do their own brakes and how to do their own oil they may want to be a mechanic or they may want to be an engineer and they want to learn the Hands-On aspect of it if you've ever replaced a car battery in a car and I know I have sometimes it feels like you have to take about half the engine apart to be able to get to the battery well that's because an engineer designed it I'm not
015talk an engineer and I've studied engineering but an engineer said there's an opening there and that's where the battery will go doesn't have anything to do with the serviceability side of I have to take this in and out and replace it at time to time so it's important that we're giving all of our student these opportunities to be able to learn and be able to learn not just the theory but the practicality side of things as we go so again staying in that past looking at Rowan from the past so classes that have been offered at ranti from the 7s and 90s if you look at it and you kind of combine some of them it's really no different than it is today and I think we would all um agree that careers and Industry
016and whatnot have all changed so to speak and it's not knocking what we've done or saying that it was done wrong or anything like that but it's something as we look to expand and offer additional opportunities for our students we need to look at the data and the research about what's growing and what students are interested what are high demand High wage jobs which again factors back into that profile in terms of accreditation so again looking at this the only program that we've stood up since the 70s was criminal justice so again there's a need for us to evolve and again continue with what's worked for us in the past but also evolve um to what's what's being active in our community and being able to do the best we can for that so now
017we step into the future so this is the exciting part so data shows that careers and jobs in the Commonwealth and NR Community to the biggest areas are Healthcare as well as engineering and Manufacturing so we're interested in expanding our health science programs looking at programs such as medical assisting sports medicine and medical billing and coding so we finished our second what we call opportunities day today and we have hundreds of students between the three School divisions that are interested in careers in the Health Sciences we have 40 spots at ranti for nurse aid that's it so every year we're turning away students that are interested in this that we could have different lers and different certifications and have these students if they choose not to go to a four-year School stay within our community
018and and be valued members of our community and our Workforce the other big one which is arguably a passion project for me so prior to becoming a school administrator I was a mechatronics and Industrial robotics teacher is engineering and Manufacturing there's a lot of engineering and Manufacturing and Prince George and den witty and the surrounding communities and it's only going to get more and more um attractive for for pharmace pharmaceutical companies like it was coming in the greater Chesterfield area um so looking at Manufacturing Systems mechatronics and unmanned aircraft I'm happy to report that we've written a grant through go Virginia in conjunction with the Cameron foundation for $625,000 worth of funding um that I'll present now because of snow on March 11th um but we're really excited about that and that's going to give
019a d additional um certification opportunities for our students and it has a return on investment of that 600 25,000 over 49% over a 5year period of time so again we're really excited about being able to offer students those those opportunities again surveys from the three School divisions indicate that we have over 300 students interested in engineering and Manufacturing currently in the three School divisions we do not have any offerings for those students so we've identified this as a need and again as we grow and evolve with rante we want to make sure we want we want to offer opportunities like this to our students some other fun in terms of the future um we've identified a need so again we've talked about how we're a market for all students not just students that aren't looking
020for an opportunity um right out of high school but again all of our programs for next year are going to be honor or have the ability to be honors level so again we've identified that a barrier for entry for some of our students Tak in our classes is that they can stay at the high school take three credits that are Honors that maybe aren't really associated with what they're looking for in terms of careers After High School because they're GPA seeking and what have you so we want to make sure that we're offering our students and they're doing the hard work associated with it so it makes sense that we can offer those honors level programs and everything um we're also expanding our current offerings so similar to how you would do at the high
021school with Spanish four and five we're doing mixed classes so if a class such as carpentry still has additional seats left over after the um Juniors or seniors that are taking that entry level class or there we're able to bring back students from the year before to continue to not only fill those seeds because that's not what we're looking for but to give students that are super passionate about that career Fai the ability to um further further explore and take on more of a contractor role in that particular program as opposed to just just a worker so we're excited to be able to offer that and collision repair technology formally Auto Body carpentry as well as masonry we're also looking at increased du enrollment opportunities with brightpoint again this feeds your former um model in
022terms of creditation um for next year and I'm happy to report as of today we have all but signed off to be able to offer nurse aid as dual enrollment for next school year so this is something when we go to different um recruiting events and everything a lot of the students are like I wish this was dual enrolled so nurse aid for example in one year a student can leave with their state license their CNA along with up to six college credits so and it's all free we like that um we have an opportunity with welding our teachers retiring so we've we have couple applicants that um we'll start the interview process with shortly but we have the ability and we have the conversation open with bright point to be able to have welding
023also be dual enrollment for the following year um another program that we're looking at as early as next year is student development STV 100 and they also have SV 101 but that's an entry-level orientation class taught up Bri point that ensures students are successful in college and Beyond this is a one credit class that depending on what we decide at ran and between the three School divisions we can get to a four credit model so students would give up four credits to come to Rowan and earn four credits as opposed to sacrificing a credit hour in that mix and again for the following year provided that we receive that grant funding and everything that engineering manufacturing program would also be um dual enrollment applicable and everything through bra point so we're excited for that finally
024I just want to share just a couple quick calendar updates and I have one wrong date on there I apologize for that the reverse career fair is Actually March 7th so it's next Friday so we've got students from all three divisions um participating that event it's a bright point event trades interview day uh we pushed back to March 25th just so that we could really focus on that reverse career fair as well but that's an interesting opportunity where we're bringing in business partners and instead of just the traditional career fair where you're going table to table we're having students interview with three or more companies that are hiring so that right out of high school if they choose to they have jobs within our community so we're really excited about that again leading to employment
025right out of high school Andor given them the experience of interviewing as they go into fouryear school and Beyond um that skills USA state championship as I mentioned is it's the weekend of spring break uh but it's April 5th so we'll have like I said um five deny students competing we're really excited about them representing not only deny but brante and our community as a whole and then career Signing Day where any student that has secured full-time employment after graduation tied to their program of study or in um has enlisted in the one of the branches of military will be recognized similar how you would do with a athletic signing de and that concludes uh my presentation happy to answer any questions if you guys have any questions for me at this time are there
026any questions that's well um I'm happy to see the new the new the additions the partnership with bright point and um I guess they I can say that we have a warm uh agenda of of the listing of classes or careers offered I was talking to my granddaughter yesterday and I asked her how was school today and she said it was chill and I said well what kind of day is a chill chill day but she said that was old oldfashioned same old thing so I'm glad to see that we have warm classes offered now at verante and it is what the what the students are asking for in the community you know do we have this so and we're opening up more so I thank you for your work for going out and bringing
027that in for us welcome thank you ma'am and I would just like to publicly thank Dr Le for his leadership he really has hit the ground running at realan and um for you know for the any of us that have been around a while the um things that you've done at that school already in just a very short period of time have been unbelievable the manner in which you work with our coord coordinators and our directors um and just opening doors for kids and providing opportunities for our young people I'm very excited to see what the future is going to hold so thank you thank you ma'am I would like to Echo that I I've been really really impressed with Dr lro and I want to publicly acknowledge out here you've I don't think we
028knew what you were inheriting certainly you didn't know what you were inheriting but you've done an amazing job um and sometimes less than ideal circumstances especially with all the water situations that to deal with in that building so thank you for what you do I always smile always got a smile yes and we're very proud I'm always very proud to hear of our dwit students so you said we have five who going five yes ma'am thank you very thank you thank you so much [Applause] yes so that the C recognition we so next we have the teacher of the year no the division okay forgive me teacher of the year um good afternoon to everyone it always brings me a great honor and pleasure to stand before you and recognize our teachers of the year
029I do believe that Dy County public schools has some of the best and brightest um when it comes to um all of our staff members particularly our teaching staff in particular and um we on an annual basis do the teacher of the year program um we run it in tandem with the state's teacher of the year program which is a very rigorous process and um requires the teachers to do a lot of self-reflection and thought um into um giving some essays as far as what their philosophy is on teaching um how they promote student impact and it was really just amazing to be able to look across the spectrum of the schools we have in Den Wy County and see all of the good things that um our teachers are doing across the community so
030while I cannot highlight every single teacher tonight um I'd like to be able to recognize um the seven teachers that were recognized across our School Division for a teacher of the year um as I read the U mini bios for each recipient when I call your name I asked that you would come forward and stand to my left the first recipient I would like to recognize today is Miss Tabitha Hayden [Applause] right Bonnie Tabitha is a third grade teacher at southernland elementary and is celebrated for her unwavering commitment in creating a safe and inclusive environment where students feel valued and supported I will also add that she also holds a special education endorsement and served us um in that capacity for several years prior she has a teaching philosophy that emphasizes education as a tool
031for empowerment and lifelong growth she brings learning to life with Hands-On activities collaborative projects and real world applications that engage her students and make the material relevant to their lives beyond the classroom her leadership as a club coach has demonstrated her dedication to fostering teamwork perseverance and sportsmanship congratulations to you Miss [Applause] Hayden um I would now like to recognize Miss Kelly peram prise Miss param prise is a dedicated second grade teacher at Southside Elementary with 17 years of experience congratulations Kelly's Journey into education began with her deep admiration for her teachers at Sunnyside Elementary and her desire to give back to her community as a proud dewitty alumni she has dedicated her career to fostering relationships inspiring critical thinking and serving as a role model for her students Kelly's ability to make learning engaging
032and her passion for creating Lifelong Love For Education and her students exemplify her commitment to Excellence in the classroom and I'll also add she has one of the classiest dressing mothers that I know around one of our former um employees Miss Penelope peram congratulations to you Miss Kelly parin prise Mrs Shannon Crowder is a fifth grade teacher at Sunnyside Elementary congratulations and she has an inspiring amount of 26 years of teaching experience her love for Education stems from her childhood inspired by her cousin's dedic dedication as a prek teacher her philosophy of teaching to the heart first has created a nurturing environment where students feel loved and supported allowing them to thrive academically and socially Shannon's leadership roles including mentoring student teachers and serving as a science department chairperson highlight her commitment to fostering both
033student and teacher success congratulations to you again we'd also like to highlight the success of Miss Sabrina Marshall Miss Marshall is a kindergarten teacher at Den witty Elementary there you go you're welcome uh um whose 29 years of experience reflect her steadfast commitment to early childhood education as a two time teacher of the year awarde Sabrina's philosophy of being a pebble creating ripples highlights her understanding of longlasting impact that Educators have on students lives her dedication to literacy her creative approach to parent engagement and her ability to nurture young minds have earned her numerous accolades Sabrina's passion for shaping foundational skills and fostering a love for learning in her students has been truly amazing congratulations to you our next recipient is Mr Scott Watts who is a math teacher at dewitty high [Applause] school he
034has transformed the way students approach stem education over his career Scott has championed rigorous learning opportunities from introducing AP Calculus curriculum to mentoring students his belief that every student can succeed with the right support drives his dedication to building confidence and resilience in Learners Scott's Innovative teaching methods and leadership in math education have left an indelible impact on countless students preparing them for the challenges of higher education and Beyond his principle applauds his tremendous growth congratulations to you Scott from dewy Middle School we'd like to recognize Mr Daniel [Applause] Rogerson um Daniel is a health and physical education teacher at the middle school and he brings a unique perspective to educa ation from his time in the US Army and as a respiratory therapist Daniel's dedication to teaching students how to be exceptional human beings
035is evident in his creation of the County's first varsity girls wrestling program and his efforts to instill confidence and discipline in his students his Innovative approach to Adaptive physical education and his philosophy of fostering self-worth and confidence in every student make him a standout educator congratulations to you Mr Rogerson and now for our division wide teacher of the year recipient I would like to recognize Miss Ashley Hall congratulations Ashley gets two plaques today because she was nominated by mid Midway Elementary School as well as our division wide teacher of the year recipient we celebrate her today for her incredible dedication to fostering creativity and self-expression in students for 18 years Ashley has inspired Young Learners through engaging art projects such as the cherished Christmas ornaments and Legacy Stones which leave a lasting mark on the
036school and the community through ART she has created a safe learning space for students to express their emotions their identities and find Solace and creativity she has encouraged openness and self-expression helping her students to become more comfortable and discussing their feelings and their mental well-being her pioneering leadership and the new Visual and Performing Arts gifted program has also elevated the students creativity and her efforts in the Fine Arts Festival have made art a celebrated Cornerstone of the school's culture Ashley's passion for teach teaching and her unwavering belief in her students potential make her an exceptional educator so we salute you Miss Ashley Hall and she submitted her application to the state I don't know maybe two three weeks ago now um so we are awaiting their review and apply on her application but at this
037time I would like to give everyone here in the room an opportunity to celebrate all of our teacher of the year awardees for a job well done with a round of applause I'd also like to acknowledge if there are any family members who came to support our teacher of the year recipients we want to make sure we recognize you because we realize that they cannot be their best selves for us if they didn't have a nurturing and supportive family at home so if you're here today if you could please stand [Applause] also see that we have some colleagues from schools here as well um to celebrate our teacher of the year candidates once again we just want to say thank you to each and every one of you we know that your job is not
038easy but every day you show up and you provide us unwavering dedicated support we hope that I can't see Miss Robinson Williams we hope that you can stay behind and take a picture are you doing that right away recognition Okay so when the recognitions conclude we hope that you'll be available to stay behind for a picture if not we certainly understand but thank you so much for your time and thank you for your service [Applause] congratulations hello Dr Weston and school board members February is a month used to communicate love and during this recognition period that's exactly what we will be doing today we want to recognize our spell and be winners and so would winner Megan tab please come up and runner up Madison NZ Wanger please come up all right well we'll make
039sure Madison gets hers but Megan will be receiving a glass plaque I don't want to take it out because fingerprints will get all over it but congratulations Megan all right Megan will represent Den Woody on February 27th for regionals at the Richmond Times Dispatch so we're rooting for you okay on the 27th all right this month we will also like to recognize our school counselors who celebrated national school counselors week February 3rd through the 7th our crossing guard who celebrated national school crossing guard day on February the 12th our school resource officers and school security officers who celebrated school resource and school security officers day on Saturday February the 15th and now we would like to pin some speci honors to a few special people first up to the school boy clerks Bonnie Goen and
040Hannah Bernette Deputy clerk who celebrated School Board Clerk's week last week but unfortunately it snowed a lot last week so we weren't able to give you your flowers so Maran is coming up to give you your flowers thank you so much for all of your hard work those are just a little token of our appreciation okay thank you this month is also School Board appreciation month this year's theme is champions of opportunity advocates for excellence it highlights the efforts made by Schoolboard members to create Pathways for student achievement and Innovation board members today you are receiving a little token of appreciation we hope hope this book bag SL cooler that you're about to get will be useful as you travel to programs events or in the community it is filled with snacks and drinks to
041keep you nourished and hydrated as you continue to serve throughout the rest of the year as well as as you spend time relaxing with your family so please be careful there's soda water uh cookies everything is in there so make sure to keep it in your car so you can have a go to to get snacks as well Mrs Pitman I know you're watching we have your book bag coming shortly okay all right we thank you all for all of your hard work and your dedication um at this time before I um segue and go out to the hallway for pictures I would like to remind everyone in this room that we have two very important um events coming up the the 1 is March 3rd through the 7th which is National School breakfast week
042it celebrates the importance of nutrition School breakfast is and fueling our students as they come to school and get ready to learn um Schoolboard members and parents are invited to come next week for breakfast at one of the schools in celebration the nutrition services department will give away free treats for students who come to school and have breakfast and the date will be announced shortly via social media and Blackboard okay the last event is none other than our very own um Fine Arts Festival it is very important that you all come out on March 20th it will be held from 4: to 7: p.m. at Den wty High School there will be performances and artwork from our students throughout the county this event is free and it's open to the public and again I say
043thank you thank you thank you [Applause] we're going to take a short break now recipients and honores are going to get pictures and everyone in here are are invited to a cupcake in the lobby so we'll take about 5 minutes for that and then we'll reconvene e e e go back into session there I hope everyone has been refreshed with a delicious cupcake and a bottle of water delicious are we going to close the door okay just pull it hard P just pull it hard just pull it hard Mr Tucker there go bus the door I'm want to tr okay I need a motion to accept the expend the expenditure report Madam chairperson I that we accept the expenditure report as presented second it has been moved in second that we accept the expenditure reports
044as presented all of those in favor use the usual sign I I expenditure reports are accepted minutes from the last meetings I need a mo Madam chair I move that we approve the minutes from the last meeting as they're presented to us second it has been moved in second that we accept the minutes of January 14th and January 28th 2025 all of those in favor eyes have it board matters Walter be taking care of this Mr Hawkins good afternoon good afternoon um I've asked Mr Hawkins to come in case you have any technical questions that he can answer um so um we we did an audit of our uh playgrounds uh recently and discovered that a lot of our playgrounds as you know sit near major roads or busy roads and woods and that becomes
045an issue when you have children out there and you know children tend to wander and do their and we want them to be able to do that but we want to be able to do it safely so uh we went out and got uh solicited uh quotes from three different fence companies um and what we're going to do is we're going to uh enclose the playground area of our elementary schools uh tactfully in vinyl black fencing um this fencing will serve as an aesthetic uh Improvement to the area um because we're also if it's facing a parking lot or facing a main road we're going to put put um wind screens on them that may for instance say welcome to Sunnyside or whatever the elementary school is that we're going to do that in all
046of them with the exception of southernland whose F fencing and playground is all on the back they still get the vinyl coated fencing but it won't have the windscreen on it um the total uh Mr Hawkins did a great job of uh listing these separately to get us the best value we could and the total for this uh project on all four is going to be about $91,000 um we did get top-notch fencing you know Mr Hawkins has a lot of experience in fencing so he was able to go out and make sure that we're getting the proper you know diameter poles and the proper mesh and things like that um so we're really excited about that job and it looks like we're going to uh start that job in the next couple weeks um
047not sure what school they're going to start at but um anyway we're here just to uh basically um get your approval for this project and make sure that we're good to move on you have questions we be I have a I'm ask if we had a question at Sunnyside would they need a fence or what would you put it over there by the playground go around back on your in your packet it shows exactly where it's going to be but it's basically going to be along the road there what is is that Melvin all book Road and then down take a left at the woods and come around the backside yeah I I I really think that's a u a good project I'm glad that you decided to do that because for one reason you
048know kids now you look around you see them one moment they gone yeah and it's hard to have I don't care how much help we have it's hard to have enough help to just to watch all the children that we stick the eyes just won't won't well the ratio usually 20 to1 you know students the teacher so and when I saw this yesterday I thought that was a very good idea and I started kind of imagin the buildings and where they located like you said with the woods and whatnot and definitely close proximity to the roads and I think this a good um project that we undertaking y we're excited about it I think it's going to make a big difference for for our students and staff and you feel better you feel better if
049you have the duty to go out to supervise the students and you know if you have this gate they can't get out over on the other side or if it's two people there just watching them so yep will all the fences be accessible from an exit on the building yep they will go through nope they will now if they're going to like for instance at Midway if they're going to try to get to uh a part of the field day they'd have to go through the gate but they can exess come out the school building go to recess and go back into the school building without ever going through the fence the fence is using the the wall the building as part of the encapsulation can you remind me of what the material is going
050to be what's going to be n gauge black v p rails P top post tension at the bottom okay is that going to be a lot of Maintenance down the road like with weather and no sir we uh go ahead we got pricing on a lesser fence and then a better fence we had the choice between extruded and fusion bonded we went with fusion bonded it was only about 10% more and the longevity of it is probably twice as much and it's sturdier and heavier therefore kids crawling and climbing on it is less likely to damage it in the long run you get way more bang for your buck you have a Barb top it will be the standard twist that you would cut off if you were going to separate it we wanted to
051avoid having the standard metal chain link fence that looks rusted after time I just didn't like it look if as you're looking at your plans those those aerial photos were taken during summertime when the foliage was on the trees uh we actually started today cutting down some of the vegetation that would have been hanging over top of the fences to ensure the longevity to make sure that after we put these fences up trees aren't going to fall and damage our investment uh that was one of those things I took into consideration along with the Topography of the land and making sure we could get access to lawn equipment and uh like bucket trucks for lighting and stuff is what we chose to put in the uh the gates for Access later will they all be
052enclosed I think the second to last PCT just all right so D Elementary will be completely enclosed from the uh northernmost sidewalk around the existing fence if you want to go up to the top whoever's controlling that Bonnie sorry Bonnie there you go all right so D Elementary is coming around where they already have an existing fence in front of where their uh their boiler room is is following that same curve of their parking lot is coming along their paved basketball court so the basketball court is still part of it it cuts across and it encompasses their current swing set area and then we at the top of that ridgel line we took a straight line to the corner of the building so we'd have as many 90 and 45 degree angles as possible on
053that for Aesthetics if if you go to the next one all right that's Midway we designed that one so they could come out of the gym and never and never not be encompassed by fencing you come out of the gym the where you see uh I guess it be the top right corner of that picture the door is where that yellow thumb tag is so they have access from that door or the door going out into the major part of the field where they have access so if they go out for field day they're completely encompassed and the the playground we redoing the entire fence I'm sorry the black top we're redoing the entire fence around the black top as well because that was that was pretty well warn out that was one of those
054situations where in the the lower part of that drawing where we had to really take the the vegetation in consideration because there's a lot of old deciduous growth along that side that we wanted to make sure if it failed it couldn't land on our fence and damage it um you can go to the next one if you want Bonnie Southside is not 100% in Compass by it the sidewalk coming out of the building once they get down that sidewalk to uh the middle of that left Red Line uh the middle left hand thumb tack they're completely encompassed by them because there is a fence that goes along behind the old Rescue Squad building goes along the wood line and it reconnects over there towards the uh Wastewater facility that once you're in there you're completely
055you're completely surrounded there it system matter once you get that's connected to an already existing fences which yes there is a fence on that wood line and on that field Southside was important because of route one right there you know if the child gets there obviously it's a very busy Ro this is six foot fence right four same as they already have there it's four foot all right that is sunny sad okay so it's encompassed um around theground so the teachers come no ma'am there's a gate that they can go through Miss Pitman everywhere you see those yellow thumb tags where there's a gate with the the width of the gate denoted okay thank you that was a good point climbing over F uh this is sunny side that entire field we Ed part of
056the back stop on it we used part of the back stop on sunny side and we were able to get that entire field covered uh we made sure that we got their dodgeball areas and their their softball areas included on it as well and we also included their disting black top for for their activities they use on that that's that's on the uh technically it's the north side of that but on the right hand side of this picture that's what the trees we were avoiding as well the some some larger vegetation there that if it ever fell it would damage the fence and we made sure we stayed far enough off of that to avoid it [Music] okay all right Southerland is a different story in order to get the most square footage of playground
057area with amount of fence that was attained we had to break this playground up into two areas U the that portion you see there is the uh K1 yeah right so that's the far left of the school that's the youngest kids we were able to we were able to enclose their entire playground their black top and that entire uh field there with with a very short amount of fence to get the most square footage where they can have activities and still stay enclosed if you move to the next one miss goson uh this is the older playground where that is the fifth grade around to the third grade Wings where they're getting their uh I guess it's a a version of basketball it's including their entire Courtyard but it's also given access to where those
058Thum tags are for emergency vehicles to make it in and you are getting their entire playground enclosed there as well uh uh then the third section there was a very damaged section of mechanical fencing and the mechanical yard that is about 30t long that is going to be that's going to be replaced as well it was a it was a eyesore but it was also loose in the ground and it could have it wouldn't have taken much to fall on somebody so well we had a contractor there we decided we go ahead and take care of it okay we need a motion for this board members we'll entertain a moot motion I move that we approve the project second it has been moved in second that we approve the fencing project all those in favor
059use the usual sign all right it we the motion is carried thank you thank you yeah I got you well I may need you again for some technical um so uh the next the next uh project we have before you is uh it was an emergency procurement of our uh board ER at Dey Middle School um it's kind of a interesting situation the night before the first uh bid meeting on on the property we did have a mishap um in our one of our boilers at Dey middle school and it was destroyed it was a total loss so we had to quickly shift and change from bidding out all of our boilers at Dy Middle School Midway Elementary and deity Elementary and just do an emergency procurement for the middle school and then do the
060other two boil separate which will come at a later date um but we did we were able to get a a good price with the trusted reputable uh uh technician that's going to install this boiler um and they've already been awarded the U contract it was $517,000 they were the low bid um and they have been awarded that through emergency process and it's being paid for out of the County uh fiscal year 25 County CIP money um but we we did bring this before you it it has already been you you know procured because it was an emergency but we did bring it before you so that you were you had knowledge of this and didn't know what was going on we will be bringing the other two buildings boilers before you uh at a
061later date are there any questions that we can answer they already started the work no ma' they they have what they had to do was order the boiler um the other the other in nice thing about that well I say nice it's not nice but it's going to help us is that um we are going to be able to do an insurance claim on this and that'll help fund some of this for us yeah I think you you told us before it was just one boil at the middle school and now yeah and that one boiler is doing well you know I know uh Matt and his his hbac guys are working hard to keep that boiler keeping de many Middle School comfortable and as long as we don't get down into the teens for
062a prolonged period of time I I it'll it'll handle it um but we want to make sure we got it up to full capacity so good thank you yes ma'am approval we already well we have we have procured it but it would be nice to have border approval okay I need an entertain a motion mam chairperson I move that we approve the urgency procurment boiler replacement and upgrades at the uh Middle School second it has been moved in second that um we um approve this project all of those in favor use the usual sign we have it's approved thank you thank you uh the final thing uh for approval this evening is as you know we work with the Virginia School Board Association um they provide us with policy Services um this is our yearly
063um our annual we bring to you the agreement and we're asking for your approval um for us to continue in this agreement with the Virginia School Board Association um I believe it the amount is $2,500 um and they provide us with the Poli policy excuse me policies we can adopt them or we can adjust them based on our own need but I just need your approval for that for us to continue we entertain a motion we use them anyway this is nothing different this is something we use every year so when we bring the policies for first review those usually are what has come from Virginia School Board Association we will entertain a motion Madam chair woman I move that we approve the the 2025 2026 Virginia Schoolboard Association policy Services agreement second it has
064been moved in second that we accept the 20 25 2026 vsv policy Services agreement all of O those in favor use the usual sign I I all thank you it's approved superintendent matters so the first is the ARs update do you want to talk just a little bit about your experience going back to it was definitely full circle um I I'm a graduate of the governor School in Petersburg so um I think you know my time in dwy schools that was probably about like eight or so years ago um and I'm like oh that's so recent but also so far away and then you know graduated five years ago from the governor school it's like things have changed things haven't changed um I think it's pretty exciting to see see all the new changes um
065some of the changes that are unfortunate are a bit disheartening but you know they've got a lot of school board members that are you know prepared to address that um some of the things that we had discussed at our most recent Advisory board meeting um they had applied for a historical Grant um and they're doing some fundraising efforts uh to repair the roof um if you don't know the governor School used to be the old Petersburg High School so it's been around for quite some time um a lot of people's grandparents and great-grandparents uh were potentially students there um so there having to do a lot of work to uh do repairs to a very old building um of course if you're someone that's done any work in code enforcement or what have you know
066that there's also a lot of uh restrictions and requirements for historical buildings as well um so they're you know just trying to get the money for that um they also received a $6,000 uh Grant from vdoe to upgrade the school's uh security apparatus um every instructional space Also in uh the school so every classroom is going to receive a Smart Board um so they talked about the installation of those uh they are uh we approved uh a salary study there um so they are going to be looking at um bringing in a third party to look at how much the teachers and faculty are making initially the proposal was just for teachers another Schoolboard member there had pointed out that it shouldn't just be teachers it should be every faculty member um so they're going
067to do a salary study for that um and they compared the salary that uh faculty at the governor School are making to Chesterfield Richmond Petersburg you know comparable um districts and they're definitely on the bottom um and you know just because of how they Reed their funding you know it can be a bit of a frustration trying to figure out how are they going to pay them more um so they're going to use that salary study and hopefully the salary study just gives them the extra uh boost to go ahead and uh do what needs to be done there and the last thing is uh they were changing the school days uh to afford for inclement weather um so I know one of the benefits that uh the students at the government School get to
068enjoy I know I enjoyed it um is having a 52 minute long lunch break um but they are now cutting it down from 52 minutes to 30 minutes um and then adding that into instructional time uh to make up for all the snow days that we've gotten I had a bit of a push back against that uh because I know how much I benefited from it as a student um but nonetheless you know they're they're doing it for uh you know just state requirements yeah um but no everything's going well at the governor school so very excited looking forward to what we'll be able to accomplish throughout the rest of the year okay thank thank you are there any questions for Jason from all okay rante update you want to go do more or you
069going to left we we going to leave it like what we so we going to we're going to pass Roan based on what we heard earlier which was a complete report thank you um are there any citizen comments did I miss oh I did budget 603 yes I'm forgive me for that I have it written and didn't went going on anyway anxious I do recognize that I am now the one standing in between everybody in dinner and so um I I probably should be planning better to do this presentation moving forward forward but I am very um happy to stand before you and talk to you about um our fiscal year 26 budget um our proposed budget um I will say that um and I have Christy here as well she's close by she has
070all of her notebooks and she I told her bring her brain and bring her notebook in case there were some questions that so she has both of those on her tonight um and this budget really is about how are we going to continue to manage the present but continue to but also create the future uh while we're doing that um just just a brief history about where our funding comes from a lot of people do question that um the majority of our funding does come from the state um and then it comes from the locality um and very very small portion of our funding comes from the federal government so I know there have been a lot of questions lately about what's going to happen to Federal funding um I don't have any indication that
071any of our federal funding is going to be disrupted in any way I do feel like that will be coming to us it just might come from a different location um but most of our money comes to us from the state and from the locality and that's why because we're not um we cannot generate Revenue here in the county um and so that's why whenever we want to do a new initiative or we want to do something that our budget current budget cannot support we have to lean on our locality to help us in that endeavor I just want to talk to you a little bit about dwy County Public Schools and I know know that you know this um we are 100% accredited um our goal is to be the premier school district and
072the Commonwealth we really mean that we can do that I know that we have the right people to do that work um we have currently 4,000 students um and you'll see that we're building our budget this upcoming year on smaller number um just to be somewhat conservative uh we do have over pre 100 preschoolers that number continues to to increase um but we do not receive we technically don't receive um we can't count them in our ADM when we're asking for funding we have seven schools that are prek through 12 and we participate in three regional programs um the appom matics regional Governor school which you you heard Mr Brown talk about this evening we also have Maggie Walker's Governor school and code RVA um Maggie Walker and code RVA have been recent in the
073last six or seven years um and we also have Career and Technical Center um at Rowan we are considered by the state of Virginia to be a small SL midsize I don't know what that really means because I had do to be small and midsize organization but we are the fourth largest employer in dwy county and I think that that does mean something here um our buses safely travel over about 1.8 million miles a year that is amazing because when I look at other school districts some of them are comparable but not in size but they're huge school districts and they don't travel that much but because we're so big we travel a great distance and that's why snow days we tend to take different kind of snow days because we're so big we also
074have served over 700,000 delicious meals and I will just give kudos to miss Elder she does a great job in our nutrition services we have about 10,000 devices C currently and we have onetoone instruction for all of our students and our maintenance team um takes care of about 900,000 square feet um in our small midside organization and I just wanted you to see last year's operating budget um the majority of the money first is about instruction which it should be and then beyond that it's maintenance and then transportation and then all of the other areas we do make sure that every learner has a space here in deny County um I talk to you about preschool um there was a time I think about eight years ago when we may have had a couple of
075preschool classrooms and now we have preschool at every single school um so there is something for every child we do understand that we've got to get to them before they're 5 years old um we don't believe that they have to come to the public school setting for that but we do want them to have a quality early learning experience uh we have virtual learning that's afforded to our um students we also have college bearing um college credit bearing courses um you've heard a lot about radwan Technical Center and that's expanding um our children also can participate in um our students can participate in Chesterfield recovery Academy if they they are um in recovery from an addiction they can be high school students there so we are part of that um um we have a partnership
076with them um they can go to Encompass Learning Center and once again that is not about Behavior that's about students that don't fit well in the traditional learning so they go to the Encompass Learning Center great program over there we also have rid so we have school at night for students that need another kind of setting uh we also have gdd programs for both students and adults um and we have students a couple of students that attend Keys Academy and Petersburg that's a partnership we have with them and then finally we have a lot of accelerated opportunities and I've really been very proud of the opportunities especially at our Middle School level where we have a lot of middle school students now going to the high school and getting high school credit in the eth
077grade the bottom line is we really are trying to prepare our young people for their Futures not the future that we selected but the one that they're selecting so all along the way we're trying to figure that out and so here's kind of evidence that we're moving in that right direction currently our 4year graduation rate our ontime graduation rate is 92% um which is very impressive um you know eight years ago it was about 85% so we are moving in the right direction our five-year graduation rate bumps that up even further 52% of our students go on to postsecondary education um 101 college credits were earned last year 100% of our students have a career and academic plan um which helps them to guide their course picking when they're choosing courses it also helps when
078you're talking with a student if you know if there's been a discipline infraction you can say how does that goal align with what you just did and it also allow keeps the parent engaged in what the students are doing um 47% you heard Dr Le speak about this we have the highest number of enroles at Rani Technical Center so 47 % of their current enrollment um is our students um two of our students last year received an associates degree and we have 16 that are on course this year to receive that um so I'm very excited about those opportunities as well and last year there were 552 credentials earned at the high school level bottom line is that we want every student to be enrolled enlisted or employed and it doesn't matter we just want
079them to be ready for the pathway they choose but we want them to have lots of opportunities our vision and mission is to make sure that the vision is to make sure that every student is life ready and has a path to lifelong success we talk about here the most important day for our young people is the day after they graduate um all the things leading up to that are great but it is about what are they going to do the day after they leave us do they have a path toward that lifelong success so that they can be um take care of themselves um and we want to make sure that that we Engage The and we we believe that they can be this productive citizen if we Engage The the entire community in
080that process so we try to keep that why or we do keep that why in front of us at all times I think sometimes when we go especially to other like we go to the county and we start talking about well here's the school systems budget it really isn't about the school systems budget because the children that we're educating these are our schools these schools belong to Dewy County and there are a lot of benefit that come from investing in the education of young people and these are some that came out you know looking at the research when we talk about Economic Development the first thing businesses want to know about it when they bring a business here tell me about how your schools are doing because that will tell them a lot about what's
081happening out in the community Civic engagement you know educated students and and Civic engag It Go hand inand you see a reducing crime rate for places where you see high Gra graduation rates um so there are lots of benefits in the community and I think you know helping the community to see that this is these are our students regardless of whether we have students that attend dwy County Public Schools there is a benefit to me as a citizen there's a benefit to me as a taxpayer to make sure that we're investing in the public school system so the budget process really never stops right Christie all right so the minute we stop them the minute when we we think the budget process is over it starts again so as you can see we started back
082in July with this budget um cycle and so I just wanted to remind you that we've been in this process since July um when the new fiscal year began July 1 um and Christy and her team are monitoring the revenue um making sure that we're on top of the CIP request doing an audit of the previous year which takes quite a bit of time um and then you can see in October December we start moving into this budget cycle um and that's what we've been working on we wait wait till the governor's budget comes out in December and once the budget excuse me the governor's budget come out then the house and the Senate got to get together so the house has their budget recommendations the Senate has theirs and then they've got to agree
083and that's that's usually Quite a feat to get the house and the Senate you know to come together um this is probably a very unusual year for us because the house and the senate had very similar recommendations um and they were able to put forth the general assembly budget pretty quickly so tonight I'm going to talk to you about the governor's budget what that currently looks like for us um and then what came out of the general assembly what that could look like for us but at the bottom line is it's got to go to the governor and he either signs it or he vetos it so that's where we're kind of in that waiting game right now so once we go through that process um we needed to establish some priorities and you know
084we've met with you all in work sessions to and to talk to you about the goals and the value and what the data is saying and what needs to be in the budget we have to look at what our enrollment is because the enrollment really is going to dictate to us the amount of money that's going to come from the state department we also need to look at our existing expenses the things that are non-negotiables the things that we are going to have to take care of in our budgets we've got to gather stakeholder pin um input which we did through internal advisories through external means to make sure sure that we have lots of voices at the table what's important in this budget we've got to look at our policies and our requirements both
085in um whether it's Virginia code or federal law to make sure we've got all of that covered and then finally and probably most important we got to make sure there is an alignment to our existing uh comprehensive plan so after we done all of those things we came up with the following three priorities for this budget season number one is compensation uh number two is Safety and Security and number three are is an investment in our Capital our small capital projects and that's what I'm going to be focusing on tonight I will not be talking to you about the large Capital but the bottom line is what you're going to hear me talk about are the things that have had the great we believe are going to have the greatest impact on the success of
086our young people um and we really have prioritized their needs um based on the importance to St learning so I said before about enrollment I want to talk to you about enrollment I want to show you what are moment currently looks like so since the pandemic which I know I'm not supposed to say covid but you can see that you know um after that we took a pretty large dip um we did have a number of students um that left us and um and so that we have not really recovered from that yet we did go through that 10year enrollment study now what they reported to us is that over the next 10 years our enrollment was going to be relatively stable um I took the word stable off that this slide because for me
087I don't think it looks stable enough for me to say the word stable um what they did say to us though is after five years come back and do like a refresh because you know having we have something a very unusual um experience with the 2020 to 2021 school year so maybe come back you know after it's been 5 years past that time so we can take a look at what the enrollment is looking at looking like at that point so right now we are hovering right at 4,000 students which is significantly lower than we built our budget on last year we built our budget on 4,100 students last year um in this school year fiscal year 25 we learned quickly that we had built our budget on 4,100 students and we started the school
088year with less students than that and so we knew during this budget year we had to be very very conservative and so we have um made sure that we can balance the budget even in this school year because we got to make sure we make those Corrections right now so let me show you with the governor's budget what his projection is now we are going to build this year's Budget on 3975 because we think that's going to be a much more conservative number um moving forward um so remember this is the second year of the banum so there's really not a lot of surprises from the governor's budget and furthermore you know he's and there's about to be a new election and so you probably won't see a lot of new kind of incentives or
089anything things are in his budget but when you base the budget um let me just um draw your attention to in your folder I'd shared this with you before that long sheet of paper so if you look at the the second line the second column there it says fiscal year 26 budget second year of the banum okay you can see um you can see the um that you can see all the things I'm getting ready to share with you we've just kind of um we've put them together but so we have based it when they pushed it out to us they did not base it on 3975 um we actually were you know would have been receiving money had we had 4,100 students but because we're going to base our budget on $ 3975 and
090be realistic you can see what that's going to do to the governor's budget and the amount of money the governor was introducing to provide us so he was projecting more than that amount of money that that's there at the bottom but because we're reducing it by 125 children um it's significantly going to show us that we would really be at a deficit of $985,000 to begin our budget planning which you know is not a good place to be um but you know we have been working already this school year on making some reductions we knew it was coming so we want to you know we've been very conservative and um you know and we've in our staffing and things of that nature so you know you can see that on the back page there um
091there really was to be an increase but it you can see there's a reduction in state funds of $0000 um but we should have you know we would expect to see receive more than that okay now um so what we did was we said okay we're starting basically we've got to find we've got to figure this out we've got to balance this budget so we met with every budget holder to identify the potential areas of reductions and one of the biggest things that we did is we had eliminated 11 position these are positions that either somebody was either retiring leaving the position and we said do we need the position is it a position we have to have is there another way to make sure that we're not interrupting in um we're not interrupting instruction
092and we can still um take care of young people and so we were're able to eliminate these 11 positions and we are able to find $931,000 so I really applaud the teams for being able to do that just to give you a sense of the student growth over time um back in fiscal year 2021 you can this um you can see the the budget that we received and the number of students we based our budget on over time and as chrisye and I were talking today we said that probably a couple of years ago we probably shouldn't have made the budget at 4,100 students then we probably could have started to reduce that number so it would it's been such a drastic number right now but we are where we are in this moment um
093so you see and at 14 and the 14% And the 10% that's when we received an additional money for atrisk funding when they came back to us and gave us that money okay I also want to show you about what we've done with compensation over time um on the leftand side you see once again the S soq funded pay raises um this came from the state so in fiscal year 22 it was 5% and then and it was 5% in 23 5% 24 3% and 25 and we're proposing 3% this year but I want to show you on the right hand side what you as a school board approved and we were able to provide to our teachers it was above the 5% over these um years and also above the 3% in the last
094year but this year being the conservative year that we really need to be we think we have to stick with the 3% and most every other school district is doing the same ask a question yeah of course okay so um with theq funded positions we have less money that we'll be receiving um going with the lower number but then the pay increase is cons the conservative number is 3% so if the increase is going up and then the S soq funding is going down you know how are we bridging that Gap like where's that extra money coming from it's it's going to be from our ask of the locality and that's what I'm going to get to about this is where we Le we ask the locality to lean into this because I'm going to
095show you what their transfers been for the last 5 years so this is when you go to your locality and say we need you to provide this much support for this year okay um yeah but that was a great question thank you just want to show you where we are relative to teacher starting pay um and um you can see there um I think the red line shows where we are now it looks like it's showing T it does um but we we yeah I'm not sure why that I don't know either but we're not Chesterfield County and we're you know um and so but you can see how close we are to the top um as far as teacher starting pay just mve yeah it's okay it's all right um but we're really close
096to the top as part of starting pay for teachers um we um actually got some data Emily and Christy both got some data from the school rounding school systems our starting page is pretty strong our um the pay at the top of the scale is pretty strong right um it's in the end where in the Middle where we probably need to do some work for teacher pay um but we do a really good job the the Loyalty Factor as we say the longer people stay with us they can make more money by staying here rather than being at these larger school districts or starting you know because you can see deny Count's right up there you know at the top with henrio we can't compete with hrio henrio gets their raises from their local always
097and they do um 8% 9% 10% almost every year can you explain a little bit more what you mean by the middle like is that mean we're not giving raises like everyone else is or yeah I think it's it's I think it's our scale it's the structure of our scale yeah it's it's staggered like um between zero and like five years it's like 67% between steps and then it goes up to like 1% and then it goes to 1.25 and it goes to 2% between steps and then it eventually gets to 2.25 for like the last five or six years and so um if you look at it like you know when you start out so when you get to the middle it hasn't been um as much percentage between the steps as it is
098towards the end right and so it's not an even where does that scale come from did we create that scale yes we did we had a teacher we had a committee of teach that developed it um I want to say it was like in 1516 it's been about almost 10 years yeah it's it's been about 10 years and um it used to be there was the same percentage between every step and so what what came out of this committee was we wanted to reward people as as it got further on and of course anything you do at the very beginning is going to trickle all the way down so to fix you know to do different very so um yeah so one of the things that needs to happen you should be doing an a
099compensation study about every five to seven years um so it's been 10 years since we've done the one with teachers um and it's already time for us to do the one with other staff as well and so NE in next year's budget that is going to be one of the things that we talk about is because we need to talk about that because if not at some point I think the teacher skill is going to get it's going to the middle is going to be you know won't be able to handle what's happening to it you I so I just think we have to take a look at that I love what we do on both ends of it but we voted to make some changes to that last year correct that was to raise
100the to raise the um starting salary yep to raise the starting salary which we've done for the past maybe six or seven years here we've we've done you as a board have done a great job um raising the teacher starting scale because it used to be that Den Woody was closer to the bottom than the top but you know that's you know one thing that can get them there the other thing you know that that is an attraction but also benefits are also an attraction as well you know so we got to figure out what it is that's going to get people into a community and want them to stay here right so there's the answer to your question Mr Brown so here's what the local transfers look like over time so in fiscal year
10121 that was the year after covid um there was a 0% increase in the transfer in fiscal year 22 um um they provided us with a 3.3% increase of $500,000 and then fiscal year 23 it was $300,000 and fiscal year 24 is $200,000 I will say the majority of those times it's usually about um supporting teachers um so the county T has historically liked it to be about something so when they do provide the transfer um you know they're providing it toward like teacher pay um they've been very supportive of that but as you see last year it was 0 per. so we had a 0% in fiscal year 21 we had 0% in 25 so in those years in the middle there it's not even keeping up with cost of living any none of
102those kind of rais none of those things right so we've really had to lean on just take Taking Care of trying to solve the problems internally fortunately you know we've been able to take care of things like we've had um Grant funds and things like that so we've been able to be somewhat creative in what we've done but um this is the year where it's we really do need the county to lean in and I don't know if you're following the news and you're watching other school systems but almost every school system that I've seen has it's millions of dollars that they're asking their locality for you know I think in Chesterfield it was like 20 some million that they were asking the locality so everybody this year is saying okay we need help you
103know with that so you see there our request is going to be for one on the governor's budget $1.5 million and this is just for um the operating budget right for the part that has to do with salary increases um and that's a 99.3% increase okay in inside the budget also are some required increases salary increases we have to do because that is what the governor put in his budget so it does you know we have to do salary increases but also we want to take care of our people I do believe that smart people and talented people can work anywhere and I want them to continue to want to work here and we got to pay them accordingly and I will tell you that we do sometimes tend to leave people and it is
104about money to go other places sometimes they chase the you know it's something about the signing bonuses it's about it's so hard to keep up with all the incentives that are out there now for employees um um we did uh there is an increase in the instructional academic supplements this year we had some increases in custodial Building Maintenance and exceptional Education Services that we have to take care of and then we also have in there um it is almost time for our comprehensive plan to be Rewritten and there's money in there for us to um cover the cost of a consultant to help us to develop that so break that down a little bit further for you here's the what the compensation looks like for Priority One um 3% for all employees is $1.4 million
105for teachers it's $882,000 we broke that down because the county does typically like to see exactly how much it is for teachers all others is $530,000 we added one additional ESL teacher there because that those numbers are continuing to increase we have 12 different languages now in our school system and we do need the support for young people and we want to um take a part-time speech position to make it full-time and you can see what those costs are there and we also are requesting that um all of our sros have been Grant funded in the past that we've paid for two the county has been paying for one but all except for one are coming out of those grants we were just informed of that this year so we are requesting the um County
106to um to transfer all of the financial responsibility of the SRO to the county for the upcoming year so that would mean six of them would be in their operations operation bu budget and one would continue to be Grant funded okay and so what we would need for the county is once again it's that $1.5 million um which would be a total of $17 M72 th000 for the upcoming school year and that's just for as I said that's for um just the fund 205 now there's some other things that we did not put in the budget but do sometimes we think that we need to consider should additional funding become um available to us health insurance um we received notice that we have a 12% incre increase in health insurance this year which is at
107a cost of $156,000 so right now I know I hear everybody so right now we have not included that in the cost um but you know so right now the worry is um do we push that out to employees but when you push that out to employees it doesn't feel like a race right so you've given them 3% 3% is not a big increase then you push out Health Care to them it just you know but at some point we got to talk about that because I think believe it's over $6 million right now that you all as a board pay for health care insurance for employees over $6 million that yes most of people local great yes that happened to us last year you so hopefully it'll come back at a lower number for
108us we do have some five instructional positions that we would like to put back in the budget should additional money be available and primarily that is because we like to keep the class sizes K3 at 20 20 to1 not the 22 and 23 and 24 if we can keep them smaller that's better for our teachers especially with all of our literacy efforts uh we have an additional counselor at the elementary level that we'd like to be able to keep and we'd like to add an additional social worker because there's just so much need that um really the middle school and high school need their own social worker and then we need a couple of social workers that can just work with elementary schools um because this dividing up is is really um difficult for the
109social workers and I think the principles would appreciate having more support as well so as I said the general assembly over the weekend so this is hot off the press did come together and it was pretty remarkable that their budgets look very similar they both agreed to the 3% they both agreed to raise lifting the support cap they both agreed to um uh special ed funding and also they both agreed to a $11,000 teacher bonus um so that was pretty incredible uh it is for this year year so we've got to we're going to probably have to figure that out um so you can see on that long sheet of paper that I gave you all the way to the right shows you what our funding would look like with the general assembly but the
110good news is with the general assembly we would receive an additional $166,000 so this is a more favorable budget um for us and so we are very hopeful that the governor will sign off on that okay so if that's the case then what we would do if the governor signs off on and that becomes the budget then instead of the $1.5 million we're asking the county for we go back and ask the county for 1.1 million because we are still going to need the support for the um pay increases for employees um but that also would put back in there those five instructional positions that social worker that um counselor and um the health insurance is that right chrisy or did I speak okay um so that puts those things in there that we've prioritized
111that should additional money become available okay and but it keeps the SR is funded by the county and that's if the governor signs off on that okay so this is what with the governor's budget where you can see the percentages once again instructional is where all the money is and then beyond that is still maintenance and transportation um and Technologies a smaller number but it just shows you where the money is being spent and this shows you the revenue our state revenue as 70% of our money comes from the state about 29% of our money would come from the um County and then you see less than 1% of our money comes from federal okay um just give you since the entire entire operating budget would be$ 61.3 million we anticipate we'd start the year
112with zero because we don't typically carry money over we ask for any monies that are left over to be put into Capital so we can use it for capital projects so we would start with zero balance and end with a zero balance the end of the next year school year so the second priority is really goes to fund 302 so I want to talk to you about that and I know Mr Walters came and talked to you in depth with this so I won't go into too much detail with it um but for those people that are here in the audience and those that are at home priority two was about Safety and Security and so what what we are asking for um from the county is we would like to uh in them to
113invest in a uh security system um management for um all of our all of our localities uh this is exactly what they have at their um what they use in the county what this will do is it will integrate our system with the county system so for example if we had an intruder in one of our schools immediately they can camera into they have the same system we have so we're all connected they can immediately see where it is what they need to do and how they need to get in there so it just connects us all right now what's happening is all of our security systems are basically aging out and with the matter of next five years or so we will our systems will no longer we can't even find parts for the
114systems that we currently have we can't keep up with it this will allow us to have a system in place that this company will come in and manage the entire process keep everything updated over time but the other benefit is it keeps us connected to the county as well so they will update any kinds of software and firm firmware um there'll be a maintenance plan that'll be in place um it will take care of all of eight of our buildings um and and it'll do take care of 100% of our equipment um and so there's just so many benefits to this we've already met with Mr massingill and with Miss Howton to go over this process with them and about the benefits of us being you know um having the same type of security system
115in place that we have I do believe that schools right now are very soft targets uh I worry about school systems and I think that you know you always think that things won't happen to your school system in your small community um and I just feel like we need to do whatever we possibly can to make sure that our schools um are the safest they possibly can be um for our young people and the people that work in them and I believe that this system will do just that and so this will cost somewhere um it will not exceed $4 million um it's a six-year kind of investment on the front end um and that's what we're asking the county for the next six years to invest $667,000 for six years and I have Mr
116Walter here can go in more detail if You' like him to talk to you about that um and then finally the last priority is the small capital and you know that every year they provide us with $150,000 I'm going to tell you $150,000 goes very very fast um because we have aging facilities and if we're not making major investments in our facilities we have to dip into things like the small capital for our facilities but also to do things like take care of cars um to take care of you know when things happen in our buildings that we didn't plan on or when we have to add a new classroom we got to put Furniture in it and so it becomes a place that um we really haven't had a lot of Reserve to lean
117on in case in times of like that so what Mr Walters I know he shared this with you as well if we could increase that to $300,000 that would allow us to fully Implement a small Capital plan and have money and reserves from year-to year for emergencies that would take place in our aging facilities um it would be able to take care of our paint schedule that now we put in place that it is quite costly um it would give us some contingency funding should there be um emergencies that take place furniture replacement we have a schedule for that now that's was implemented this year but one of the biggest things had to do with our Fleet replacement because P previously it was like oh we need a car so let's put a car in
118for this year now we have a plan that outlines we need a fleet we are driving more and more students to in from places uh we have more kids that are homeless so we're driving all over the different counties and all over the region um so what this will do is we would partner with a rental agency and we would shift from owning vehicles to leasing vehicles and we would have 48 Fleet uh 48 fleet vehicles over the next five years and for the next five years it would start to reduce the cost of fuel and maintenance because you're driving a newer vehicle over the next 5 years versus some of our vehicles we have names for them because they're so much they're older and um you know they're our beloved vehicles but you know
119having them on a fiveyear cycle especially when we're driving them so much is much smarter from a safety standpoint as well so we have a great plan to do that and we do believe from a small Capital um process if we raise that to 300,000 we can cover this a process in the small Capital plan and I do thank Mr Walters for his resourcefulness he said I have a problem but I have a solution which I like that okay um so the bottom line is this that um we are trying to reduce we're trying to make sure we have a plan for lowering any kind of risk that are happening whether it be in our schools on our streets with our students with our staff and so I feel for me asking the county this
120967 th000 additional funding to do just that is nothing compared to what could happen right um and so I think this six gear commitment um is exactly what is needed in order to move our school forward move school system forward so we're asking for addition $150,000 for the small capital and the 667,000 um six-year commitment um for the um in order to U fund priority three okay um just to give give you a sense of fund 302 this is what we have in small Capital right now I just want you that looks very exciting because it looks like we have a lot of money in small capital I will tell you that most all of that money Mr Walters has a plan there's already plans in place and a lot of these things are already
121underway or it's scheduled for the summer um a lot of that there's a um we still have a million dollars right now that's attached to Sunnyside and their electricity issue out there so we're still trying to work through that and what we're going to do there um but if we add the $967,000 we we we expect to spend around $1.4 million that would leave us with about $1.2 million at the end of next school year but it's it's constantly moving because we do foresee there being things that if they don't start investing in dwy Middle School we've got a lot of projects that are needed there uh that we need to start doing some some much needed work at Den Woody middle school so the total request from from the budget is this for fund
122205 we're ask asking for additional $1.5 million and what that would do is take care of all the compensation cost and it would move all of the SRO um and we ask and we're also as a secondary asking them to fund all of the sro's we still want to keep them we just don't want we want the funding to be in their operation budget in fund 302 we're asking for there to be an increase in the small capital projects and we're asking for them to also um fund the 66 um $7,000 uh over the next 6 years as well and so our next steps are this nothing for you to act on today this is all information for you to go back and think about and you know talk about talk to your constituents about
123uh we do have a 2 by two meeting that's coming up Miss Benjamin and I will be meeting and I think Mr Walker and will'll be meeting with Mr massingill and his team um to talk about the budget further uh we have board work sessions that are coming up so we'll be talking about the budget then um we do anticipate uh The Joint board meeting is coming up in uh March 12th 12 11 11 12th thank you March the 12th um at 6 o'clock we'll be presenting there um and then we need the county to consider you know what they're going to do for us um and then the county will approve their budget we'll approve our budget and the like so there's still a lot of conversation to be had um and we still
124you know anytime you can have a time to sit down with your constituent or your partner on the other side and help them to understand the kinds of things that are needed in this budget um we're that's greatly appreciated we know that many people in the office up here have meetings scheduled as well with theirs I just want to say thank you um you know for for on behalf of all of us because you know what we're doing here is creating the future that our young people deserve and I just really thank you for that and I believe that this this is the budget to do just that so we'd be happy I'd be happy to answer any questions you might have or anyone here might be would be happy to answer any questions Dr
125West I have one question you you're always so thorough I appreciate that but I feel like in the last year or so we had a conversation about our budget breakdown and it was like 80 something percent comes from the state is do you know those numbers what percentage of our budget 70.5 70.5 and then whatever 80% of our budget is Personnel but yes so where I'm going with that is there was like a small percentage that was federally funded less than 1% less than 1% so there's there's talk in the news about that going away yes how does that affect us if it does so so and that's what we uh we we've not received any guidance from the federal government government but what we're hearing from the superintendent is that we do not believe
126that the funding is going to go away it just might come from a different office it might come from state level it might but we believe the funding will be intact for children so we have no reason to believe that fous worst case scenario what parts of our okay division are affected by that so it it will have Major Impact because we have people inside of um some of our federal grants so we have people inside of special education grants we have Title One grants we um where we have a reading facilitators um we have um who else inside of the behavior specialist Behavior specialist um um and also professional development um is that yeah conferences professional development monies Mentor teacher Mentor monies so it would impact us right so we'd have to figure out
127a way first to take care of the people that are inside of that that's why it's you know it's when you put people inside of Grants it's you know iffy um with ESL there's money inside that not much but um CTE we have money there for equipment um but you know from the you know so I think we I don't see foresee it going away because it is for most vulnerable CH children um I just feel like it's going to come from a different place but we don't know I mean w souland Elementary is a title one school yes so we would lose what additional funding that we would receive from yes so title one is one of our big that's our biggest Federal grant that we receive and actually you know um Miss Valentine's
128going to be coming to talk to you later about all of the schools you know we're trying to move all of the schools in that direction because they do qualify so we're trying to move them they're currently yeah come here to clarify that point you just made you're saying that we're going to look at moving our schools to being well the elementary schools so our ele all of our elementary schools right now except for Midway are tital one schools all of them okay um and so um but Midway over the years the um demographics of Midway is changing right and so they have been kind of on the cusp of being able to qualify for that so there's always been conversation do we don't we because the minute you do that then it's now the
129resources get spread you don't get more money this is the money you get but it gets spread amongst five schools versus four schools right so there's been conversations about that I don't think any final decision but I know they will come to the board and talk to you all about that but right now it's the four schools except for Midway I just wanted to clarify that the federal funding within the budget in which she presented tonight is not any of those title grants that they are all in our grants fund and our grants fund was is not part of the operating fund which it was not presented tonight because we don't need any County funding you know any request for our grants fund so we will be bringing that back to you when we come
130um for the presentation for the public hearing so I just wanted to make sure you knew that because technically if you look overall I don't know the number off the top of my head but our we we do have more than less than 1% of our budget funded by federal I just mentioned that this is how we're funded in this very small sliver of that but we will go into every detail so you'll get to see what every Grant we have and what's in it yeah um me when you said less than five 1% in dollars and cents what would that be like it's 334 that I can tell you H it's on the bottom of here um Federal funding is $339,950 okay yeah and it it's um the Medicaid um recovery cost that we
131receive for we are part of the Medicaid um program so we can file claims for the services that we provide so um 180,000 of it is for that um the E rate that we receive is um considered Federal funding and so um that's about um I think it's 94,000 and then um our jro TC program the money that we receive to run that is like 65,000 and so um all three of those are considered Federal funding within our operating budget thank it's my understanding though that in along with this talk of doing away with the Department of Education they keep saying the states will handle the funds so it would mean a whole new application process for everything which would kind of put us on hold or standby for a while and in a state
132of flux but hopefully it doesn't mean that all those funds just disappear right and and you know with all that happening then we're going to have a new governor so that can be a whole add to a whole another level of um you know because what happens in that see makes a lot of difference to our schools and budgets as well well Dr Weston I want to thank not only you but all other members of the School Board office staff when you put together these presentations for us you give them to us for us to review you then appear before us to help explain them to us then you remain there while we ask every silly question we can think of and I just thank you so much for the detail you go into to
133make sure that we understand what it is that we're getting ready to approve or disapprove so thank you so much good team a great team we done with question oh thank you Dr Weston but you ready for me we got to continue ready for me to come keep going okay no no citizen comments okay board member comments we start with um Dr pearon no I think I've said all I need to say so far this evening okay nothing you ready to go to dinner but thank each person for staying but I do want to say congratulations to all our teachers who made teachers of the year and um to us all of you are teachers of the year because you um take care of our students every one of you teachers staff administrators we appreciate
134you what Dr W I guess she said enough to oh she's oh you okay you Dr Weston superintendent um superintendent comments you commented enough are there any other comments would we like to have I would entertain a motion for adjournment M Madam chairperson I move that we ajour second it's been moved in second that we adjourn all in favor all right I have meeting the J