001foreign [Applause] we're going to go ahead and open the meeting we are waiting for some uh technology to sort of catch up but it will catch up while we're doing some things on the agenda I'd like to call the meeting to order we reconvene in Open Session and adopt certification of closed session second we have a motion and a second all in favor signify by saying aye aye aye are there any opposed motion passes certification of closed session whereas the Dinwiddie County school board has convened a closed session on this date pursuant to an affirmative recorded quote and in accordance with the provisions of the Virginia Freedom of Information Act and whereas paragraph 2.2-3712 of the code of Virginia requires a certification by the school board that such closed meeting was conducted in Conformity with
002Virginia law now therefore be it resolved that the Dominic County School Board hereby certifies that to the best of each member's knowledge only such business matters as were identified on the motion convened in the closed meeting were heard discussed or considered by the school board please excuse me Jay snuff Junior district one hi server better Hannah District 2 Anderson Barbara Pittman District three I certified mayor Benjamin District Four I certified Cheryl and Merit District Five I certified Madam chair we have four present one absent thank you at this time would you please stand for the Pledge of Allegiance I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the Republic for which it stands one nation under God indivisible with liberty and justice for all okay thank you you may be
003seated the adoption of the agenda and amendments Madam chair if there are no amendments to the agenda a move that we adopt the agenda as presented second we have a motion and a second all in favor signify by saying aye aye are there any opposed motion carries recognition good afternoon everyone good afternoon I stand before you with the wonderful recognition today one that we are excited about because it is the recognition of our business partners so I'm going to start off by reading our resolution whereas public schools and local businesses are an integral part of this community and whereas many local businesses play a crucial role in supporting our schools and whereas the economic health of our community State and Nation depends on a strong public school system and whereas collaboration between local public schools
004and local businesses strengthens our schools and the business Community alike by providing a well-trained and highly educated Workforce and whereas an excellent public school system is vital to the quality of life in this community and the fundamentals to preserving a strong Democratic Society now and in the future therefore be it resolved that the Dinwiddie County School Board names the following businesses to the 2023 Virginia school boards Association business honor roll showing appreciate appreciation for the firm's ongoing support of this community's public schools your work has aided this community in focusing on the goal of providing the best public schools we can for every child who attends them board I now present our honorees and I'll tell you a little bit about them our first honoree is Dinwiddie County Workforce Development program with our rep please
005come forward [Applause] Dinwiddie County Workforce Development program continues to support our school system by working closely with our secondary students to provide knowledge and experiences that leads to a sustainable and fulfilling career through team Expo job shadowing senior government day industry day and summer work based learning team staff and the reverse career fair we thank you for allowing our students that earn the workforce Readiness diploma seal to be given the preference for job interviews at partnering employers Dinwiddie County we say thank you [Applause] our next partner is none other than browder's Towing and Servicing Center please come forward foreign [Applause] all right thank you brought us Towing for answering our call this year by providing float transportation for our central office to spread holiday cheer to the citizens of Dinwiddie County as well as our
006students that day you also provided transportation for our Dinwiddie middle school and Dinwiddie High School championship football teams as they celebrated their Victory I do believe on probably one of the busiest days of the year we use several Roblox in your Fleet that day your unwavering support for our students no matter the request is very much appreciated okay thank you lastly Touchstone Bank foreign [Applause] this year Touchstone Bank partnered with our Dinwiddie County Public Schools family and Community engagement team to provide our JD and the great Barber battle books to every student at several of our elementary schools along with the books Touchstone Bank staff recorded chapter recordings for those that needed audio versions they also gifted the students with the reading grab bag and even the company our leadership team on the bus of
007the day of our mobile reading pep rally thank you Touchstone Bank [Applause] on behalf of our leadership here I just want to say thank you for all your contributions to school year we could not have done it without you board do you have something you would like to say I would like to say that they have helped the school system immensely all these businesses and and the Workforce Development program but I would also like to say that I have connections to other organizations and they are at those two so they are not only helping the schools there helping the community in many many activities so um Dinwiddie County is great for that service and we thank each one of you for what you've done for not only doing many schools but Dunwoody Community thank you
008thing well for me I have to say this I'm just smiling and that includes Touch Tone because I have something in common with all of you all right um quite of course my nephew this is my cousin regardless of my cousins and I use Touchstone and I want to say congratulations and I'm so proud to be a part of Dinwiddie where you all are involved thank you what can I say thank you so much um it just shows us what a county can do what it can be when we work together thank you so much much appreciated and also you know big thanks from everybody um always being there and being available when needed thank you a lot all right thank you so much that ends our recognition [Applause] congratulations you can take pictures yeah
009you want them to come outside and take pictures and we have all honorees outside it's it's not us okay okay do we need to advance that we need to say anything okay what are technical difficulties are continuing but it is not our system that's causing the problem so we're still working on it uh student matters Miss Benjamin Madam chair I moved back we accept recommendation of administrator of administration and short-term suspended student number lt-06 slash two three dot dash one I said modifier modify modify the recommendation of the administration of administration and short-term suspend student number lt-06 slash two three dash one second we have a motion and a second all those in favor signify by saying aye aye aye any opposed that motion carries Madam chair I move that we accept the recommendation of
010administration and expel student number e-06 slash 23-1 finding that the student poses a threat to the health safety and Welfare of others second we have a motion in a second all those in favor signify by saying aye aye are there any opposed the motion carries expenditure reports oh Personnel Personnel this thank you madam chair I move that we accept the recommendation and approve the Personnel list as presented the other recommendations a second we have a motion and a second all those in favor signify by saying aye aye aye are there any opposed that motion does carry expenditure reports second we have a motion and a second all in favor signify by saying aye aye are there any opposed that motion carries minutes of the men's as presented for the May 9 2023 meeting in May
01125th 2023 meeting question in a second oh are there any opposed the motion carries thank you but what matters FBLA conference good afternoon Madam chair school board members Dr Wesson all the symbol stakeholders uh Dinwiddie Middle School FBLA National leadership conference 2023 will be held in Georgia uh Georgia well Congress uh Center and it will be held June 27th to through the 30th and will consists of various workshops team building activities networking and competitive events our first place State winner will be attending along with sponsors Mr Roselle and Miss Grant and they will be traveling by car uh and and I would greatly appreciate it for approval of this trip so I'm seeking approval it's a wonderful experience any questions about that from anybody Madam chair I moved there we approved the FBLA conference second
012I have a motion and a second all in favor signify by saying aye aye are there any questions all right my question yeah I know he said about car yes ma'am is that school school board car insured and all that and who's driving the car use of County cars what I have checked so yes okay round trip 994 miles yeah so I'm okay okay yeah oh all in favor signify by saying aye aye are there any opposed that carries thank you DH you're welcome DHS FFA officer retreat and several others behind it I got a little list today good evening how are y'all doing today well how about you good all right uh the first one is the FFA officers Retreat uh the FFA officers will be traveling to uh cyber Virginia to participate in
013planning and goal setting Retreat for the 23-24 school year officers will also attend a one-day Leadership Camp offered through Virginia FFA The Retreat is located at Graves Mountain Lodge it's 134 miles away the trip is overnight and they will stay on property and housing if the housing designation a male and female chaperone will be in attendance it is approved or requested that we approve this trip uh I think it's Syria Virginia is that how you say it Syria Syria Virginia 134 miles away and they will be at the Graves Mountain Lodge and how many uh we're like eight children two adults two adults that's where they film Dirty Dancing right it's cool second we have a motion and a second all in favor signify by saying aye aye are there any opposed the motion carries
014thank you I believe the next one on the list was the UCA Cheer Cheer Camp a grateful Great Wolf Lodge in Concord North Carolina uh the UCA Cheer Camp at grateful lodging Concord North Carolina is an instructional Camp the DHS varsity cheer team has been attending for the past three years the UC UCA Cheer Camp allows our athletes to learn new techniques and material to ensure success and safety throughout the season the entire the entire Varsity sideline cheer team will attend which is 17 girls the UCA Cheer Camp provides meals and stay as the camp is a four-day program athletes will travel to the UCA Cheer Camp on a school bus they will stay at the Great Wolf Lodge grounds for three nights and eat meals at the hotel restaurant during their stay the cost
015of the camp is 450 dollars per athlete with fundraisers being held to offset the cost for the students we have 17 kids and two adults going to move that we accept the cheerleader field trip um to Great Wolf Lodge in North Carolina second we have a motion and a second all in favor signify by saying aye aye aye are there any opposed that motion does carry Hampton Sydney college basketball camp the boys basketball team would like to travel to Hampton Sydney college for a team Camp June 28th through 30th the cost is 200 per player 16 athletes and four coaches will be attending at the camp they will be you know working on their skills uh developmenting or developing team building activities for the upcoming school year are they spending the night or driving up
016there no they'll be they'll be overnight yeah the bus will take them drop them off and then come back and pick them up any questions except the basketball camp approve the basketball camp to Hampton City College second we have a motion in a second all in favor signify by saying aye motion does carry all right the last one is the jclc stem camp at Mountain success 20 uh 2023 Virginia Technological University Blacksburg so Virginia Tech the junior Reserve Officers Training Corps JROTC Cadet leadership challenge stem Camp Glory 23 the Fourth Brigade at Fort Bragg North Carolina and participating schools from Virginia and Washington DC will be con conducted at Virginia Tech um in Blacksburg During the period the 25th through the 30th of June the purpose of the camp is to provide provide Cadets with
017the challenge safe and activity field leadership experiment experience that will motivate and explore various facets of the aspects of discoveries being developed in the expanding fields of science technology engineering and Mathematics through individual and T building skills development on a college campus all Cadets will be billeted at Virginia Tech and female Cadets and adult female supervisory Personnel will be in female areas and to participate equally in the scheduled activities all meals including lunch on June 25th will be provided at no cost to the cadets JROTC instructors will serve as Camp Cadre trainers and staff we have 13 children going and two adults travel is provided by the JCL stem camp so they send a bus or how do they how do they provide the transportation for all the transportation they're coming down to pick us
018up from school on the 20th and they're bringing us back Charter Transportation charger okay that's right any other questions about the JROTC trip ma'am chairs maybe we accept the trip GRTC trip stem camp second any uh Motion in a second all in favor signify by saying aye aye are there any opposed and that motion carries thank you thank you Abram scholarship committee members good evening good evening um I stand uh in absence of uh now retirement Dietrich who served that committed well for a number of years um as you all know or you may not know um the committee rotates off two committee members and appoints to new members in intervals and regular intervals um at this time is the request that Miss Latrice Johnson be appointed as the chairperson to the committee and she
019has been well trained uh by Miss Dietrich um it's also the request uh that the board appoint Laurel Bishop to the Abram scholarship committee for a four-year term and she will be replacing Ms Dietrich so the chair Latrice Johnson members Richard Beville L Greaves Crystal Bailey and Laurel Bishop so we request that you approve those thank you are there any questions about the appointments to the Abram scholarship committee we have any questions that's a that committee works hard and it's a long entire thankless job but we are so appreciative of the work that they do we need a motion manager I move that we accept that the new committee members for the Abrams scholarship second we have a motion and a second all in favor signify by saying aye aye are there any opposed on
020those emotions Kerry thank you so much and thank you ladies for serving enrollment numbers good afternoon good afternoon um during our budget process we had mentioned um that we were looking into an enrollment study we wanted to have one provided for our School Division for the upcoming school year so um the end of March we issued a request for proposals seeking um qualified offers to provide us with an enrollment study MGT of America Consulting actually was the only one that responded to our RFP however after an interview with them Dr Weston Mr Walters and myself conducted an interview with them we were very impressed with what they had to say and felt that they were very capable of providing the services that we needed so we are recommending that we award a contract to MGT
021of America Consulting in the amount of fifty three thousand nine hundred and eighty dollars for an enrollment study for the up for the it's a 10-year study for the um beginning with next year and we should be able to have the results from this by the Fall um to start really delving into our budget development for fy25 just as a reminder for the board that having an enrollment study is a required part of our comprehensive plan yes and the one that we had had previously um really is no longer valid as we went through covid um so the numbers don't make much sense to us that was also in like 15. so we're almost due to have one anyway are there other questions about the enrollment study if not we need to approve the contract
022contract for the enrollment study we have a motion in a second all in favor signify by saying aye aye aye are there any opposed the motion carries thank you thank you uh Essa Consolidated grants Dr Clay good afternoon everyone so this this afternoon there will be a team presenting the 23-24 Consolidated grants um you have definitely heard a presentation like this before um but I think the process we have gone through this year has been different and then previous processes and I believe the whole team has learned from it I'm looking trying to see my team yes we have learned and it has been an amazing experience so I just want to say I am so thankful for such an amazing team of people um that come together their seamless teamwork is just amazing to
023me and they really have a true Care at the Forefront of everything they do for our students and our staff so I will say that this Consolidated Grant is very much focused on student and staff needs we looked at a lot of data a lot and really written in an effort to help our students and our staff meet success so I would like to introduce Martina are you coming up first and our team Miss Valentine misspires Miss Brooks Mr Moss is not here this evening but he was definitely a part of this process along with a lot of others from academic services and I'm super proud to be a part of the team with them good afternoon everyone good afternoon so to start off our grant development process we started off with our comprehensive needs
024assessment would consists of a stakeholder Group which included administrators oh I'm sorry but let me start over all right so our company um comprehensive needs assessment consists of a stakeholder Group which included administrators school counselor support staff division staff pre-k through 12 teacher School families and committee members we sent out Google surveys to a larger group of stakeholders to seek feedback from our staff and Community our original committee we split into subcommittees to inelastic data so the following errors was like professional development literacy science instructional resources attendance technology safety and behavior through this development of our Consolidated Grant think tank we created the 2023-2024 application focused on our needs and highlighted in the comprehensive needs assessment each coordinator created and developed a um created and reviewed the Consolidated Grant um Grant Think Tank and developed
025their part a final draft will prepare at the end of May in preparation to present to the board today good afternoon everyone good afternoon so as coordinator of the title one Grant which happens to be our largest Grant um I have the pleasure of presenting to you this afternoon on Title One um so Title One covers improving basic programs the purpose of the title one part a program is to provide Grant funds to do the following develop Implement and evaluate instructional programs improve student outcomes district-wide in the areas of literacy and science ensure that all children in Title 1 school-wide programs have a fair equal and significant opportunity to obtain a high quality education also to retain highly qualified staff in alignment with the Virginia literacy act which states that every student in kindergarten through
026eighth grade will receive core literacy instruction based on the science of reading research and evidence-based literacy practices also the goal to strengthen family and Community engagement through constructing meaningful activities events and opportunities to support all families with a literacy focus in short we just want to create meaningful powerful learning experiences for our students to also contribute to them being well-rounded productive citizens and also College military or career ready even starting in elementary school okay moving on to Title 1 part A so you've heard a little bit about the needs assessment a few times already now I'm going to move into highlighting some particular areas as it pertains to title one from the needs assessment and what we intend to do moving forward stakeholders were surveyed to gain insight and information that would help inform future
027Title 1 programming and practices the stakeholders that provided the most feedback via the needs assessment or parents and in my opinion to start aside from students they are the most important stakeholders parents requested the following they asked for more apparent universities to be offered as well as workshops and information sessions they've requested topics to include preparing for the sols and overall testing in general positive communication between parents and students information on social emotional learning and also reading to promote a love of literacy parents also shared some of the highlights that included their appreciation for the Virginia reads one book initiative which we're all familiar with JD and the great Barber battle and other activities as well as the parent advisory monthly book and resource boxes parents Express appreciation and interest in the school markets and
028little free libraries as a whole we seek to capitalize on all of the great work that has been done thus far to strengthen the relationship between home and school our parents want to support our efforts and we choose to do the same lastly we have Title 1 part A funds allowable and planned uses everybody wants to get down to the nitty-gritty which is what are we really going to intend to do with the money the money talks so Dunwoody County Public School proposes to use Title 1 part A funding 2. fund seven supplemental reading positions fund half of the family and Community engagement specialist position also known as face that's the lovely Miss Alicia Drake that we all know and love who has done a tremendous amount of work to strengthen again family community engagement
029the other half of that we will utilize remaining funds to support the required set-aside for family engagement professional development and supplemental supplemental materials I like to add that you're probably wondering where the other half of that family engagement Position will come from and that will come from local funding thank you thank you good afternoon good afternoon so I'm going to talk about title 2 part A and um which supports the improving supports improving effective instruction so the purpose of title um two-part a program is to provide Grant funds to local educational agencies to increase student achievement consistent with the challenging State academic standards improve the quality and effectiveness of teachers principals and other school leaders increase the number of teachers principals and other school leaders who are effective in improving student academic achievement in schools
030and to provide low-income and minority students greater access to effective teachers principals and other school leaders so um we would are proposing to use the title to a funds to support our annual idcps professional learning conference which we have one coming up very soon in August um we also are proposing to support the ongoing visible learning initiative which will help teachers find new and effective ways to teach using Innovative techniques we also are supporting the letters training which letter stands for language Essentials for teachers of reading and spelling and with this training teachers find a new and effective way to teach using Innovative techniques excuse me um it provides teachers with a deep knowledge of Science of reading and teachers will become literacy and language experts um we also are providing on reimbursement for provisionally
031licensed teachers who needs um with assessments and tuition costs and we are providing funding for programs for an alternative path for licensure such as the Richmond teacher residency through VCU and the eye to teach program through Virginia State University um student stipends for Teacher mentors will also be um proposed to be funded and then support for recruiting retention efforts and also for supporting conferences from professional development okay good evening good evening so um I'm here to present on title three we get the least amount of money but we have one of the biggest jobs so we rely heavily on collaboration with Title One and Title II and local funding so title three is for our English Learners and basically the purpose of title III is threefold one is to support the academic achievement of our
032English Learners as well as their acquisition of English language the other one which is a huge um challenge for us is supporting that on time graduation we get many students at the secondary level who are newcomers to the country and our high school staff they do an amazing job getting those students um to that point of graduation graduation and then lastly it's all about providing that professional development for not only our Esau certified teachers but also our core classroom and our content teachers so for our little bit of money we're going to do great things we're definitely gonna um continue to support um the language instructional education program which is called leap and the English learner world and we do that by providing instructional materials to supplement the core instruction that the students receive because
033we are a Content immersion program our English Learners receive the same content and are held to the same standards of the standards of learning and then we supplement that instruction again the high quality professional development we have a lead ESO teacher who takes on a responsibility of creating responsive professional development to support our staff from pre-k through 12th grade and then lastly in collaboration with title one we use some of our money to promote our family engagement activities one of the things that we really want to do this coming school year hopefully in partnership with Community stakeholders like Parks and Rec we would really like to establish a newcomer Center for our families a place where they can go and be like a One-Stop shop and you know where do I get a school physical
034and how do I apply to you know get my child in school and what do I do about transcripts and part of that funding for title III would allow us to um hire a bilingual parent liaison or pay one of our Esau teachers after hours to support that initiative we are very excited um for the upcoming school year because we will have four esol certified teachers our population currently is at 130 English learners of those 130 we have six different languages but in Dinwiddie County now we have 13 different languages so title 3 does lots of things with a little bit of money okay and title four part a um which supports students and academic enrichment the purpose of title IV part A is to provide Grant funds to local educational agencies to improve student
035academic achievement by increasing the capacity of state and local education agencies schools and local communities to provide all students with access to a well-rounded education improve School conditions for student learning and to improve the use of technology in order to improve the academic achievement and digital literacy of all students so the allowable and planned uses for title IV part A funds is to support the responsive classroom initiative which um helps to train teachers integrating academics and social emotional skills for creating an environment where students can do their best learning we also would like to support mental healthy needs by providing outside mentoring services to schools support digital literacy through an online program called Neptune navigate which provides lessons for students and staff on how to be smart and stay safe in a digital world and
036includes topics such as digital citizenship cyber bullying digital footprint media literacy um also want to support substance and prevention and intervention through an online program through third millennium classrooms which will focus on prevention and intervention programs with topics such as well-being diversity equity and inclusion response and resolve nicotine alcohol those type of topics um what also would support the student performance and science through collaborative teaching and learning group consulting which will conduct this Consulting Group will conduct on-site sessions with our secondary on science teachers and administrators to design um and review classroom practices and provide strategies to increase student performance in science and we also want to support dual enrollment and increase the dual enrollment offerings at the high school by five courses and this would be in partnership with Richard Blaine College that's great
037[Music] at this time do you have any questions four questions from the board for any of the different titles I don't have any questions but I I was just happy to hear the desire of the parents I'm wanting to participate or do things to help the students at home and at school as well as the overall parental support cited in this report and I I like the way you explained it on team uh to all of you you um did an excellent um summary of what you what you did what you intend to do and also what you meant by it and you know so now we know what you intend to do with the money even if you just have a little bit of money you're still going to try to do the best
038you can for the students because it's Valentine's Day and there's summer that her goal is that part was to get the students ready for whatever they want to do starting in elementary and how important is that that we start at the lower at the um beginning and then you said you want to capitalize on their work and then um we talked about even the language we want them to learn how to communicate in this in this world and then the dual enrollment and that type of thing to even to get more teachers so I think it sounds really good so in a very good report you know thank you these particular funds do serve um pieces and parts of the population who are greatly in need of help and that's um it's very satisfying that
039we are specifically we're putting the money where it specifically needs to go and of course uh the fact that we're adding five new courses is wonderful and also we've added to the ESL positions which is grossly needed yes so we need to approve this title one a two a three a and four a grants correct ma'am that's correct our request is for the boy to approve our 2023-2024 Consolidated Consolidated Grant so I do need a motion 2023 2024 Essa consolidation Consolidated grants we have a motion in a second all in favor signify by saying aye are there any opposed and it does motion is passed and thank you all for your hard work thank you supplemental Appropriations for 2023 certainly got an update as soon as I sat down about the Virginia Tech trip the
040JROTC trip okay the update from Sergeant Richardson is that it has moved from Virginia Tech to Fort AP Hill for some funding reasons that they had okay so we need to um modify so we need a new motion or modify the motion this okay so we need a motion to modify the motion of proving the JROTC manager I moved that we accept the modification of the trip to AP Hill now from Virginia Tech for the stem Camp motor Mountain success okay we have a motion in a second all in favor signify by saying aye aye aye any opposed motion does pass thank you for your adjustment it's okay Miss Fleming all right so before you um now asking um for a little housekeeping um with our budget um during the course of this year several
041things have happened um with two of our grant with two of our funds one being the grants fund and the other being School nutrition Fund in which we need to have a supplemental appropriation um to our school division budget the grants fund we're asking for supplemental appropriation for two hundred thousand dollars this is mainly due to our school security Grant which got carried over from last year into this year which means that we really are spending two years at one time but we only had appropriated funds for one and um the the rule the law is that we can only spend what has been appropriated To Us by the Board of Supervisors and they have already approved this supplemental appropriation but I now need for our school board to approve it as well in addition
042the school nutrition fund has just a blossomed um did you know Ms Elder is doing great things and so we are serving more meals which requires the purchase of more food in addition you know we if you've been to the grocery store you know food costs um are extremely high or have been high this year um so we are requesting that we increase that budget by six hundred thousand dollars um also we we also have the revenue to offset that as well so she is doing she is doing very well in that area so we're asking to have an overall appropriation of eight hundred thousand dollars to our school board budget I have a question social nutrition um are we taking or we're not really taking in any money anymore but we are getting reimbursed
043we're we're getting reimbursed for all of the meals that we serve that are part of our school lunch Federal program but we also have a um write extensive um great um a la carte program as well where students are able to buy certain things salads all kinds of things at the high school um I think we I think the high schools maybe I'm not sure if we offer that at the middle school or not but um I do know that that is a um um also a part of this program that is doing well so it depends oh yeah she's here yeah I would say that's a self-supporting program is that still true oh yes ma'am here you want to speak to that so it's basically we're just getting permission to transfer the funds where
044they need yes ma'am and all the schools have a la carte yeah and they're doing exceptionally well so so we we need to appropriate this money in order for her to be able to finish spending out and paying all of her bills to close out the year okay what was the reason why she improved was less than this okay supplemental appropriation appropriation for 2015 and 2023 of eight hundred thousand dollars the right now okay uh we have a motion in a second to approve 800 000 to the supplemental appropriation all in favor signify by saying aye aye are there any opposed and that does okay thank you categorical transfers for the 2013 budget um again um we are categorically funded by the Board of Supervisors and um I believe we spoke about this during our
045budget development process as well and um at our one of our previous meetings um we do two things that have happened over the course of the Year such as Transportation fuel costs and some things that have happened in maintenance one being the uh HVAC units at the middle school which froze up over our Christmas break um that was a costly repair of you know 290 000 um so because we are categorically funded we can only spend money in the categories in which um we have been appropriated by the Board of Supervisors so we um went and asked them to allow us to transfer some money among our categories there there is no new money here it's just transferring it between them we had money left and and or we are going to have money left
046in the instructional category um due to vacancies and that type of thing throughout the year so we're asking to have um some monies moved from instruction to um maintenance to cover additional utilities cost and that um one unexpected um HVAC issue we had um and then also um technology we would like to use that to um um purchase the tablets for our transversa program for our school buses so um again we are just asking to have some money moved among categories and the Board of Supervisors um did approve this categorical transfer questions about the transfer I don't know how much just some money you don't have an idea what it you don't have an idea of the amount that we're transferring or we just yes it's on here I'm sorry um it's um it's on
047the on the screen yes ma'am but y'all be glad to tell you it's 1.1 million from instruction oh I see it in it yeah okay so I want to call and say that um uh you know move that we um transferred at 1.5 million to um category from categorical transfer for the fiscal year 23 uh budget from instruction to maintenance well it's also some attendance removing some money from Administration attendance and health out of there as well to supplement maintenance of a million dollars Transportation 50 000 and Technology a hundred thousand okay so so the main dollar payments instead of 290 for the HVAC what was the other The increased utility costs and um some also um additional repairs that we've had to do um throughout um there's no salaries no there's no there's no
048salaries involved in any of this this has nothing to do with compensation whatsoever in other words you're getting things done with what we have just moving it from one account to the other yes ma'am one but yes ma'am allowed budget amount to another yes ma'am and you know we we typically don't have to do this you know but because we are categorically funded you know it's a requirement we we don't have the ability to just move money among these you know at will so we we do have to have approval for that um other questions about the about the move do I need to restate the emotions yeah go ahead and restart it Madam chair I move that we um trains approved categorical transfers from fiscal year 23 budget second all in favor signify by
049saying aye aye are there any no's it does motion is carried okay thank you very much thank you new business so is there any new business pardon me none we're back in business technology technology is caught up uh superintendent matters Dr Winston um yes ma'am is Pittman we're going to start this evening by um as you know our head start the Improvement Association um is every year they come to provide us with an annual update about how their program is going and I guess I'm going to be inviting um Mr Tyler um to come to the stands are you coming Miss Kelly or just okay okay you'll introduce whoever else you have with you yes we're glad to have you this evening thank you so much um Dr West End and I remember the Bulls
050and all the education Advocates and stakeholders uh thank you for giving the opportunity to come before you this afternoon I have with me you know we're going to share this mic because they're both about the same height so that that works well this works well but we have with us our Head Start director uh Miss Kelly uh who's the super and we have with us uh some other staff our educational coordinator uh our parent engagement staff and our site director uh with us uh right here from Dinwiddie we're excited to be here uh because we have good news uh good news but we need your help at the end I'm the director of the Improvement Association uh across the approve Association been existing over 55 years uh we operate the national known Head Start program
051uh in the count of Sarah Sussex greens Emporia Brunswick and of course I didn't witty we prepared a presentation to go over some information that might be helpful for you uh we are mandated by the federal performance standards to give all our service area a annual update a pre-order update on the progress that we're making with Head Start families so uh I want to go cover a couple things I think so so important well first of all just the other week we had a the graduation ceremony for the Head Start kids and families and it was just awesome uh you're very own uh Reverend Northern was the speaker there I know your superintendent have done that before and it was just great to see all those families uh throughout Dunwoody uh there uh I'm proud
052to say the day that on June the 6th the Improvement Association was invited to Washington DC because we will recognize National for having a holistic approach to moving families forward to self-sufficiency uh we're so excited uh that from this area of Virginia and that was the national uh conference uh you and I know as educated the most important years of any child at the earliest from birth to five and for that reason our board director was The Honorable Charlie capes the chair uh uh many years ago with 30 some years ago in backupun how can we work with families to prepare the educationally but also prepare a future Workforce and they concluded by utilizing or implementing the Head Start program so we have been doing that for 30 some years with a record success so
053with that what makes hairstyle different it is we are mandated by federal law to provide comprehensive service to families not not just education does the education piece does the health piece there is a mental health piece there's a nutritional piece I mean the various component giving cases an example of what happened in dinwidden and your your school student tend to work so closely with us but there was a family here in Dinwiddie for about the mother was still been driving her kids on the road well last year okay and she had an accident of course the mother passed so that if the father and the children well the father was incarcerated I think was in your District district three the followers incarcerated so the mother who Hispanic family came over to keep the children so
054no mother no father they're about to lose their home so those kids could not come to school where the Improvement Association work with one of your staff we stepped in found resources to take care of the mortgage help with food utility Etc such that that family would not be become homeless though just one of the examples come to my mind immediately but one of the things we want to go over uh briefly and I would let her do some talking in terms of how many families serve and some of the progress we make again good evening I am Keisha Kelly the Head Start director for here we had a total of 64 Scholars we still operated within our four classrooms we have four teachers for teacher assistants and four support staff which to include food
055service family service and of course education on this year alone we conducted over 256 home visits 128 parent-teacher conferences went on seven field trips and had four community events that we hosted and we assisted over 10 families with Comprehensive services to include food utility mortgage and rental assistance although we helped every at least my family in all districts this year we did notice that our greatest need was in District three and we're proud to say that we did assist all of those families with what they needed as you know we have the same curriculum we operate the same early childhood education curriculum as Dinwiddie public schools and that is the creative curriculum um and we look at the areas of social physical language cognitive literacy and math and our hopes is that by the end
056of the year all of our students are operating at not at least 80 percent of growth and as you can see here in these areas we did exceed that 80 percent um over the past few years class has been the topic of conversation we do have five class observers that go inside of our classroom and what they do is they rate the quality of interactions between teachers and students students and students in the area of emotional support classroom management and instructional support So if you look on your graph you will see the Improvement Association in the blue and the Nationwide scores in the orange and as you can see we did exceed the Nationwide score so let us know that inside of our classroom there is quality quarterly quality learning and interactions and happening in
057the classroom and in January some of the staff from Dinwiddie County public schools had the opportunity to come and do a walk through of the facilities and see some of the great things that we are doing with then head start one of our biggest components is parent engagement and I can say that on this year we did have an increasing amount of parent engagement who had came out and helped so that we're getting them prepared for kindergarten and working together as we know that parents are their child's first primary teacher and that is the outcomes that I have for you and I would like to say thank you all for your continuous support it is truly appreciated thank you now that's the good news now this is what we need your help well we Franklin
058in any Walk of Life there are challenges and we just be Innovative how we overcome those uh historically the school system had provided transportation for the kids uh and the families but we do have families who don't have transportation to get to them from school and our program are housed on your program to house at Southside Elementary but we know that the school system has some challenge in terms of staff will see their licenses so one of the hurdles we're trying to overcome now is how do we get those needed families most in need to school they have the privilege over the years the school systems have provided the transportation but now in talking Mr Waters who's a fine General work with them we don't have is he doesn't have adequate bus drivers so that's
059a challenge we have ending with how do we get those families who don't have a a adequate reliable source of transportation to an education facilities that's a challenge the other child we have been I mean 1990s I've been with the proven for a few years I'm gonna say how long but quite a few years um I remember when they first wrote The Head Start Grant Initiative for dinwiddy I think it's Palmer or something out of work during that time um those mods have been there a long time and they're okay but I think the family deserve better than the modulus uh in Brunswick we're in the school system the housing the school system and the Border supervisor put them on up to build a facility there and substitute building facility and Sarah uh thank you
060from Sarah are you from Sarah no I'll throw you some Sarah uh but uh someone one of my staff to you from Sarah don't I see you from Sarah um but in Sarah win the housing school system but the mods out there I think it doesn't sometimes reception is not always fact because it teaches us a wonderful job in the classroom uh but we would like to have a more conducive atmosphere for learning for the children so we we we're in the process and we're working with the superintendent and staff to explore other space Indian wedding to move those uh the Head Start classrooms now so what the fans have approved for dinwidden is to form an Advisory board for the Head Start program at dinner with it uh we just can do we have
061to get the federal approval it has been proven your superintendent have agreed to serve on that and I think a couple other people already in Denver with him so hope for the next couple months we'll be meeting to look at the challenges how we can uh overcome those such that this comprehensive service will continue ending with it I want to thank you for your service to the community I know I've still in school board for a while so I know the challenges I still on the board of supervisor I understand the challenges of what you do and I also know the important work that you do in terms of molding your community so I want to say thank you thank you superintendent her Personnel her working so closer with us in our partnership to serve
062the families now if you have any questions we can entertain those at the time if I can answer I'm sure they can and if anybody have any questions for us questions for Mr Tyler if not thank you so much for your time thank you the local Plan update for Esser [Music] okay I can I can start we can catch up um one of the requirements of receiving sr3 funds um is to provide an update to our school board and the community um every six months with the funding for um that we received under this plan so um the American Rescue plan act arpa um provided the Winnie County public schools with 5.9 million dollars in funding um for uh the pan through the pandemic These funds um must be spent um between March 2020 and
063September 2024. um one of the requirements of this update is to provide any changes to the safe return to in-person instruction and continuity of services which we do not have any changes at this point in time it Still Remains on our website but there were no changes in this six months about returning to in-person instruction and learning we do have however some revisions to the spending plan um and um I already mentioned that we this the plan must be reviewed and updated every um six months and this will be the last review um for this this These funds they must be spent by September of 2024 or rather they must be obligated um we do have a liquidation period of a year for these funds so um also um we are finally able to probably
064uh not probably sorry we are finally able to put the last plan together for this um funding now that we have received um bids for the construction projects that we were waiting on um and to determine the funding that is left in in all of our user funds so um one of the requirements for this funding is also 20 of the These funds must be spent on learning loss um which is um close to 1.2 million dollars and we have already spent that and exceeded this requirement so that of course is not a problem for us whatsoever so um really there's not a lot of change as far as um the positions go that we updated you with the last time um the director of Special Projects administrative intern um the DHS student support specialist
065in elementary school teacher a high school math teacher a floating nurse and the indirect cost which is paying for the grants manager position also El tutors um the coordinator of transportation and a technology intern from FY 2022 so these are the positions that have been paid or will be paid out of this grant um either in the you know the current year the past year or the upcoming year in addition we have summer learning programs so the summer of 2021 summer school was paid out of here um these funds and it will be supplementing um summer school funding this summer as well the virtual learning platform which is virtual Virginia was paid for the last two years some internet service in the previous years for quarantine students class coverage late bus coverages um retention and
066recruitment bonus that was provided this year our site-based substitutes and curriculum writing which will be done in the upcoming year as well then the projects that we have ongoing are the HVAC upgrades um to Sunnyside Midway Dinwiddie Elementary and Dinwiddie middle school and this funding is split with the HVAC grant that we received and sr2 funding we did do a window replacement at Sunnyside um and also South Side Elementary deferred maintenance projects which started this week um trying to um finalize those and some of the funding for that is split with sr2 and local funds as well our next steps for this um Grant is to amend it based on the latest updated information that we have and the latest costs that we have and to monitor the spending just to make sure that all
067monies are obligated by the end of the spending period and our reimbursements are are completed on time um we are still open for any type of um stakeholder input you're welcome to send it to either one of these um to email addresses and you know certainly get get back to you with that as well and I'm certainly open to any comments or input by the board as well at this time questions or observations for Miss Fleming question but miss Fleming has been giving us good updates from maybe with two three years ago about Esther how we were going to spend it and what we were allowed to spend it on and that's really appreciative that we have that information before us and we know that oh thank you if we have it yes ma'am and
068we're doing it in the way with it that they intended to be spent it's been a work in progress so but we we're we're gearing down with all of that the land lab presentation yes so um you'll remember I guess it was several months ago we um well there was an impromptu meeting called together and uh to talk about the future of Dinwiddie County Public Schools you know I think we do a really great job of managing the president and sometimes we forget our bigger job is to think about the next five and ten and even 20 years long after we're not the people sitting at the table anymore and what would be left behind um what would the world of work look like and so um we brought together a group of very smart
069people to help us think out loud and we started with ag thinking our FFA and thinking okay what could that world look like and I will tell you to be a part of this planning team has been an unbelievable process and so tonight what they're going to bring you is a look at the work that we have put together of the past months and what we would like to do is to bring this to you to say here's where we are in this moment here's where we'd like to go next and before we do anything you know certainly we'll be bringing it back to board for approval as far as money and things like that but I think we've got a really great proposal for what we we see or how we envision the first
070land lab or the first of many uh future driven projects for Dinwiddie County Public Schools so I'd like to invite the members of the team to come forward um there's quite a few of us here this evening um and they're going to present to you the Dinwiddie High School land lab proposal thank you Dr Weston and thank you board members for giving us time to present to you this evening when we first started I guess dreaming is the best word of what this could be uh like Dr Weston said we started with kind of a singular focus and that was AG and as we've met and visited and dreamed some more we've kind of found a lot of opportunities to expand our proposal to include lots of different content areas and lots of different grade
071levels within our division and so what we've brought to you this evening is a proposal that we have for something that can certainly be implemented to touch our students at many different grade levels in many different curricular categories so tonight we're going to talk to you a little bit about where some of our inspiration came from a little bit about our vision and what we would like for this to be some of the specific curricular opportunities that will exist obviously Logistics are a big piece as as is funding and then our proposed timeline so a lot of our inspiration came from the Isle of Wight land lab some of you are familiar with the Isle of Wight land lab it is a beautiful facility that is incredibly well run for their agriculture students we had
072the opportunity to travel to the alawite land lab to see firsthand what their facility looked like some of the projects that their students are involved in in their day-to-day operation and so that's where a lot of our inspiration came from because it was a real life tangible example that we got to witness firsthand so we do have a video that I'm hoping is going to play okay if it doesn't come we can make sure that you guys get the link to view it foreign [Music] with emphasis on animal plants soil science and business this program is student built Andrew grow in your future starts with planting your roots at the alawite County Schools agricultural land lab so we chose to include that short video clip just to give you guys kind of the same visual
073that we were able to have when we went down and visited certainly the facility looks impressive and aside from what it looks like the opportunities that they're giving students are even more impressive their students foreign their students are involved in a lot of the day-to-day decisions a lot of the day-to-day activities at the land lab and that is the exact type of experiences we would like to replicate for our students in many different areas I can show students at PowerPoint I can show them a video I can explain something to them but when they get to experience it Hands-On for themselves it takes on a whole new level of meaning and they have a whole different level of ownership in the project and so we just wanted like I said to show you that to
074give you kind of the same inspiration that we had and to help you kind of dream with us as to what some of the possibilities could be so as I stated we did tour the facility in early December we got to talk with their instructors and their Farm manager about their planning process and what it looks like some of the decisions that they had to make and things that they went through as I stated you know primarily this does have a little bit of an agricultural Focus really with the animal implant systems but we have identified lots of ways to tie in other curricular areas as well and I think Ms wolf is going to speak to that a little bit so their facilities uh this just kind of lists out exactly what they have
075they do have two buildings one is a classroom building that has a classroom facility a small kitchen a shower facility bathrooms and laundry they also have a barn facility that has small animal stalls a stall for large animals a demonstration space and a small shop area they have approximately six acres of fenced in pasture that they have sectioned into four paddocks they have a small Pig enclosure being from Isle of Wight they do work very closely with Smithfield Foods they were a large part of support for the program they have two chicken coops and two rabbit breeding cages they also have a large vegetable garden with two greenhouses they're able to sell a lot of the prep the produce that they produce and they also have a cattle and good working facility with squeeze shoot
076and scales and so I've talked to you a lot about what Isle of Wight has but we really tried to focus on what this could look like for Dinwiddie what made sense for us what would be beneficial for us to have for our students what opportunities are our students most interested in as we come to a new time in you know society and in agriculture so here are just a few pictures um that were forwarded us from Isle of white um starting in the top left corner that was when they first started the project the students actually operated the tractor the auger to put in all the fence posts and actually build the fences for all the livestock species they have a couple pictures of some goats cattle a few students working in the garden
077in the bottom that is kind of like a panoramic shot of the front building so on the right you have the classroom and a left you at the barn area and like she said the classroom has everything from a small classroom um a kitchen area showers um and the barn does have those stalls shop tool area and the bottom left is a picture of some children that they had come to their facility so just kind of like how we have our kindergarten AG days they do something very similar to where the various elementary schools do get to come and experience the farm and I will just say that through our planning we've identified a lot of potential crossover for Community groups we want this to be a shared facility not one that just belongs to
078one specific group but one that's truly a shared facility amongst the division and the community as a whole good evening so our vision so at Dinwiddie High School we want to have a non-traditional setting we don't want our students just sitting and getting we want to meet our students needs this goes from our exceptional education students all the way to our honors and high Achievers we want to meet each student's different learning style we had a student present in May Bailey and she was an exceptional education student and just think about as you hear this presentation how this land lab would impacted her life more her life skills the DHS learning lab land lab will enhance students experiences and so just looking at each one of those bullets so bullet one students can learn better
079when they're able to touch feel this is not just for our Ag Department but as Miss Bishop stated it is for our other contents as well in today's times we need to expose students to as much as we can as possible so they can get the opportunity to do so Hands-On learning Partnerships can be formed and from these Partnerships our students can get internships or jobs and then lastly the lab can expire Inspire students to pursue other careers exposure is the key I just wanted to add sensory experiences for our students and elaborate on what Ms Walker said sight touch taste smell hearing believe it or not they will get to see the animals and the plants grow touch them feel them which actually had an experience this year where a young man was having
080a a breakdown and it was a potential discipline issue and we walked him into Miss Bishop's classroom where she was growing the baby chicks and the Ducks and he picked up one of the chicks it immediately calmed him and when we try to take the chick away from him the chick moved closer to the young man so he really took ownership of that chick and I think throughout the year um he asked to go back and visit that animal uh Taste of course what they grow and we don't know it could be a thing where it turns into food for our community and food for the animals as well now there may be some smells we don't want to smell but at least we will know it is a learning lab so that's a good
081thing um also hearing um I think all of those things are very important for our students and also the students taking ownership and seeing a product where they have put their hands literally literally to the plow so we want to say that we are very excited um and elated about this program and I also at this time if I may I want to give kudos to this committee and to um our AG teachers and students who do a great job at our school I just wanted to throw that in there and thanks to all of the work that Miss Woolfolk and Mr George have done as well so we want you to definitely hear this take it seriously because this is a great opportunity for Dinwiddie High School and our dewitty community so our goals
082as you can see to increase student and Community collaboration and engagement improve student college career and Civic Readiness and then provide Hands-On learning opportunities in multiple curricular areas today well it's evening now good evening so we've heard a little bit about the curriculum opportunities you know when you think about this you first just think well it's just about AG but as we imagined it it's so much more than that and really possibilities and opportunities from kindergarten on which is very exciting so the land lab would not only be beneficial to just agriculture that department but would offer cross-curricular projects Hands-On lots of opportunities for students which you know I think we are a division that is about creating opportunities and taking down barriers you know I had an experience this year with the high school
083students where I asked him about his goals what do you want to do when you graduate and he said I think I want to do something with animals he was a ninth grader and I said well are you taking like an agriculture class well no you know so he he didn't know what the possibilities were but when I think about that students and this opportunity what a wonderful way for our students is to determine is this the pathway that I want to go down so very exciting things ahead and I will let Miss Wolfe kind of get into the details of the courses good evening so as you can see we've kind of broken it down um into our CTE courses in a moment I'll show you a lot of the Cross collaboration with the
084core areas and there are I guess Endless Possibilities really when we did our study the the biggest area of growth specifically in our area and across Virginia because we're not only looking at how this aligns to our courses but how this prepares our students for entering the workforce and our animal systems Pathways providing job opportunities for our students within those um like a vet assistant Veterinary veterinarian vet tech environmental Sciences there were a lot of different areas and opportunities within not only plant and animal systems but if you think about some of the other opportunities within our culinary arts department being able to utilize the produce showing the students where their food is grown as well as our energy and power and some of our Building Trades classes because they that entire department has worked
085really closely together all along so I do think that this is going to allow students to take ownership of a lot of the different areas um and bring a lot of Pride to what they're doing on their day-to-day our Middle School courses we know we have a strong agriculture program at the middle school and we're looking to expand our business courses into the leadership development into more of an entrepreneurial kind of thing so that students could see themselves in any of these different Pathways as they emerge from the middle to the high school as far as our core areas we have really been focusing a lot on science at our Middle School level and I think that this this spring we had our first ever science days um I think our kindergarten AG days have
086been tremendously successful and so we would like to see continued growth and in those Partnerships from elementary to high elementary middle and high Additionally the state has put out I went to a conference recently for Science and the need for all students to be educated on environmental literacy and so we are working on our environmental literacy plan and how that will really come into play to make sure that all students have a Hands-On what they call me which is a meaningful Watershed meaningful educational Watershed experience so we want to make sure that all of our students not only understand the agricultural side but how important it is to have sustainable agricultural practices to ensure that our animals are well taken care of that the land is well taken care of that we don't create erosion
087problems or disruption to the environment as we continue to grow this experience for them so when I did a cross look for our science standards there were so many that crossed over with not only environmental science life science our AP environmental science there was a ton of crossover and so we would like to be able to utilize some of the funding opportunities in the future that the um Chesapeake Bay Foundation has put out so we'll be exploring those opportunities to see if there is additional things that we'd be able to use and grow this for our science department as well so I I did steal the graphic if I gave credit where it was due but this is really how my brain works when we give students experiences that cross over multiple areas then they
088can start to see meaning behind why they're taking science why they're taking mathematics why it's important that they pay attention to those core classes and how it relates to real world content and I think that engaging our students giving them something to look forward to each day is going to have much more impact not only on our assessment scores but on just the overall well-being of the student as Mr Garns pointed out about student Behavior student engagement attendance I think we're going to see a lot of other pieces that are really going to benefit our students across the board um so this is kind of what we had mentioned before we already um tie our kindergarten agriscience days um all of our kindergartners get to experience a day at the greenhouse with our agriculture students
089leading the different workshops but they're all tied to their science standards um and so we will continue that and hopefully grow that and then when we're building our literacy plan we want to make sure that we do have those meaningful Watershed experiences K through 12. and continue to grow our eighth grade science days I'm sure there's going to be a lot more coming forward especially once we start meeting with our different Community partner groups like Miss Bishop mentioned we want this to be a community facility that allows opportunities across to maybe 4-H and Cooperative Extension so that the community would be able to use that as an even an adult or Community Learning environment so I think that's end of me good evening so the land lab you know has work based learning written all
090over it I mean it doesn't get any a more conducive environment or setting for work based learning than a land lab I mean that is is experiential and Hands-On as it gets so we want to just lay out a few of the possibilities with work based learning in the land lab supervised agricultural experiences are actually one of the eight um high quality work-based learning models that are accepted in the state of Virginia and that's when we're actually doing a work based learning experience in um our agricult agriculture classes my work study program so think about our work study program this is a program that we operate at the high school where we place students in training stations throughout the school during the school year this year we had 10 students placed in work study right
091now our work study positions are um they are in an office setting right they're performing clerical work they are learning valuable communication skills answering the phone greeting parents um interacting with adults and staff members which is invaluable but wouldn't it be nice to be able to offer a work study station that is outdoors all right that is focused on new Pathways I mean it doesn't just have to be agriculture you think about uh you have to think big with this you think about the energy pathway which is going to be huge as Dominion builds these offshore windmills over the next 10 years okay you think about solar power okay engineering I mean there's lots of opportunities um for work based learning at this land lab some are work-based learning so right now we just started
092some work-based learning right we have 30 students placed throughout the county this would be a new uh workstation again in a Hands-On outdoor setting the you know when when um you know 90 of the staff um you know is on summer break the animals are still there right there's still work to be done at the land lab okay um school-based Enterprise so that's another high quality work based learning experiences that that is accepted in Virginia so that is when we're actually producing a good or service for our school or community so again the opportunities are endless and not just in agriculture so if we're going to grow plants so we're going to have a sale of some sort at our land lab wouldn't it be nice for the marketing students to be able to Market
093that right wouldn't it be nice to develop a website for this land lab okay so there's just um you know you can make this huge you have to think big Community Partnership so it's really not you know again we don't even even need to think in terms of the DHS land lab of course we're gonna oversee it and administer it and but it's really the Dinwiddie County Land lab because we can partner with with with various Community organizations I mean Ms wolf mentioned 4-H we've already talked with the folks to the 4-H and AG extension about things we can do together with land lab daycare centers I saw just the other day where Adam's acres is already advertising for the day cares to um to sign up for fall field trips well hey what about
094the land lab you know um The Cooperative Extension and then what what a nice potential meeting destination you know for our CTE Advisory board for the AG Advisory Board wouldn't it be nice for the Dinwiddie land lab to be the place that other divisions in the state want to come and Benchmark you know so there's just a lot of opportunity with this with this project Logistics so what were what I was charged with when we got on this was to start thinking about how do we get uh to the point where all these creative people can start doing their work um so whoops I think I went the wrong way um so what we talked about was um we sought to find a location that was adjacent to the Dinwiddie property but we wanted it
095to be away from the property enough to whether we could have a functional agricultural setting but still within the property enough to where we can get there within class time so that you didn't have to go too far so it was kind of a challenge but we were able to find a place if you look at this uh from a topical view that's the Dinwiddie baseball field so if you get out there in right field behind right field there's a stand of trees it's about four point they say it's about five acres it's probably closer to four and a half acres of trees there and it's a flat area that can be used but it's a nice place it the nice thing about it is if you clear those trees there uh the area that
096says area of expansion that's usable area too so what we're going to do is we're going to have it them come in and clear those trees and then also clear that area of expansion in one's fail swoop so that we can expand into that and add areas for uh future paddocks um what we would like to do is have a company come in and clear-cut that land and use it for mulch and in that case because it's such a small area it would probably cost us money to have that Timber removed if we brought a company in so our goal is to work with local farmers and local Timber Harvesters and get them to come in and do it at Cost and just come in and take it and just give them the mulch and
097have them do the work for us uh you know in kind so we're hoping not to cost any money for that and I think we are down going down a good path to getting that done um this was a concept drawing that we had done by uh actually a dinwiddy Alum uh uh Brian Gammon who owns uh uh a uh I guess an architectural design company and this is kind of a proposal of what what it would look like um if you see there The Barn at the top uh and again we're in right field if you're starting at the top moving down to the classroom into the pins and then you have room for again the paddocks four paddocks and then an expansion now this is just a concept this may not be exactly
098what it looks like but we wanted to make sure that we could scale it out and it would lay out to look something similar to what our Ag and again the creative people wanted to look like and um so we're really excited about this and we even added if you look on the other side of Carter Lane there coming from the school of walking path through the uh through the little wooden area there which I think just adds to the Ambiance you know you know we want this place to look nice so is there a pond already there there is not we would that would probably be a retention Pond I envisioned you know a blue Pond like you'd see out in front of the doctor's office they said that is not what it's going
099to look like um so I'm going to lead the creative part up to other people I think so but I think that it's going to be very functional and one of the things that we talked about is when people drive down Carter Lane we do want it to be very uh aesthetically appealing from the outside you know we want this to look very nice you know very classy and you know we wanted to see this and be in these kids to be proud of and take ownership of it you know and again if we're going to have other other communities come in and use this you know we want this to be very nice so that's our goal um so I guess I'm the funding guy too um we do have a number of funding
100sources um I'll start with the the harder one uh grant funding we're finding ourselves in some situations caught between educational grants and uh agricultural based grants a lot of agricultural based grants want you to have a source or or a project that is going to lend itself back to helping the community or lend itself back to helping the workforce there are some and we're working on that but there are some that are educational based that want you to lend itself to helping the agricultural educational Community uh there are some for the Chesapeake Bay Watershed region and uh you know Carly has a lot of those that she has in mind so we are going to seek grant funding and we do have some vdoe school construction funds that we can use so I think that
101funding this project especially since we're going to be seeking a lot of in-kind work especially initially from the Timber and the grand clear ground clearing and things like that I think this this project is is going to be I don't want to say easily funded because nothing is easily funded but I think it's going to be you know we're going to be able to fund this so I think I think that's the end of the slide but maybe not oh timeline sorry what happened let's do let's do isn't it exciting all right so the proposed timeline you can see up here would be fall of this year possible land clearing as Jeff spoke to and then the spring of 24 Land Development fall of 24 the actual building construction and then the hope would be
102that in the spring of 25 it's the last minute pieces the fence building and things of that nature and then we could welcome students in the fall of 2025. and that would be the ribbon cutting so before I do questions I just want to say thank you to this team um that has worked really hard and imagining what this could be for our Dinwiddie staff and students I just think the opportunities as Carly said are endless and it is very exciting just what this could bring to Dinwiddie County something to definitely be proud of and something that divisions around us would say what is happening there let me go see what that's all about I also want to say thank you I see some current FFA students here this evening so thank you for coming
103to show your support and for the FFA alumni group I do see some alumni here this evening as well just thank you um for being here and thank you for supporting this project it will further Community Partnerships and again we're just truly excited I always like to say The Best Is Yet To Come and I think this is part of The Best Is Yet To Come for Dinwiddie County Public Schools so do you have any questions for the group this evening I don't have any questions but I don't know if you could tell but I was excited because I I could not imagine what a land lab would be because all I saw was the tractor and a farm and I'm like okay but after you all explain what it was all about that's exciting
104you know and Miss Wilford your correct um this would help students to develop an interest in the variety of content areas that you just I want to think of myself because he taught me something other questions or observations about the project I'm just real excited about it um you know definitely a big proponent fan of FFA and 4-H obviously um but I guess same time you know we do new robot funding yeah um you know we did get cut real bad this year so I mean that's something we need to watch you know definitely know I'm like I said 100 behind it'd be glad to help with anyone in every way I can but same time you know sometimes you know might is awesome but same thing with just Nikki Brown that the money piece
105it yeah maybe maybe start small and go big by all means so maybe as a next step for us before we cut down any trees um we come back to the board with some more specifics relative to funding to show you what we can Fund in this moment and that kind of thing and get your approval on that before moving forward before we start cutting everything I'm all full moving forward I know I am just just the money issue I just don't want to start and we can't finish it yeah well I mean honestly you know we have big dreams I'm a big dreamer myself yes let's say anything you know we just maybe we just need to start cheaper parts yeah if we could get some of the pieces in and inclusive in our
106curriculum and then move tomorrow extensions of what we're currently doing and that would be easy to implement versus the new parts absolutely but thanks committee for doing all your hard work I appreciate it definitely yeah anything else we have a whole research paper you can read too we put together a whole research paper going to doing greater Hypes and I like to tell everybody I grew up on the farm so y'all know I'm with you so and I'm all I'm anxious to see what else we can do with the form of them what they did when I was a kid and you all just brought out all the things that can be done now you know solar and other energies and growing other plants and other vegetation just so much we can do now and
107I can see us going just Higher and Higher and um as the time comes and um and I just want to be around to see it thank you so much team we need to keep our eye too on agribusiness making sure it's not just agriculture yes because agribusiness is um many of the students who are involved with FFA are not necessarily going to be in farming but they may be in agribusiness so I think that's a an important side of it thank you so I hope what you heard though that you know the way kids learn is changing and it's changing just as fat I mean we can't hardly keep up with it and so I mean we've even talked about artificial intelligence and how does that even come into play here and so we've
108got to be constantly reading and thinking about what it is that we're doing and how can we work differently and stay ahead of this because our kids are really a far more advanced than we are um so I'm very excited about this as well very good uh citizen comment do you have one person signed up Mr Bill Meyer and you come to the mic and state your name and your address please Chris bielmeyer 5916 Cox Road Wilson Virginia thank you um my name is Chris I am currently sitting as the alumni president for the Future Farmers of America alumni here in the county so uh one of the reasons I'm here this evening is to speak to you about this land lab and the opportunities that it does give our youth um one of the
109biggest things that the FFA and I'm gonna speak on behalf of the FFA but also agriculture but the FFA is leadership building our future our Future Leaders um in today's society leadership is something that is waning you can see it as a business owner and you can see it if you just work in the supervisor side of things a land lab puts responsibility upon students that they actually have to take and do something with it without having somebody necessarily sit right over top of them or just teach them out of a book uh one of the biggest things how many of y'all know how to change your tire on your car okay how many of you know how to milk a cow okay now if you actually take and you had the opportunity to learn
110to milk that cow what what better um at the CTE advisory council meeting did we the last one we had we were served breakfast and many of y'all were there who else is there students from The Culinary department now what if you took and you had that same concept you've got the culinary Department sitting right there talking about how they prepared it and right here you have land lab students talking about how they grew what was prepared by your culinary Department um this is an endless opportunity as the committee has put before you on the side of the general Republic and the citizens I'll speak on behalf of that now we had a meeting to discuss this Dr Weston was there along with many of our board supervisor members and Farmers from the area the
111ideas of technology and agribusiness were brought up at that meeting because of the importance of knowing where agribusiness is going today um it's a huge huge opportunity for any student if they want to be involved in agriculture but don't come from a farm they can definitely do it but you have to have somewhere to start at and school is a good place to start and this land lab gives them an opportunity to put the hands on to the book um and that that's priceless the opportunity that we have here I think that many districts many school systems in this entire State and in this entire country would be doing cartwheels just to have the opportunity that they don't have our students need to know where their food comes from every day more Farmers go out
112of business there's less agriculture to feed us I don't know about y'all I don't like missing a meal um and if these students can learn how to grow a basic garden and put their hands on it and not only grow it but even potentially learn how to preserve it at the end of it that's what the land lab can do it's an opportunity to put it from the ground to your table something that we don't have yet so I hope that this moves forward I know funding is always an issue with every project that we do it doesn't matter what it is and unfortunately everything's going up but I know that this committee that sits behind me and is uh is here and and proposed this and um Mr Walters I know that everybody here
113will do everything they can to make it happen so thank you all from the community thank you from alumni and if the alumni can help in any way all you have to do is ask thank you thank you board member comments I'll start on this then Mr sniff um just thank thank everyone for everything done all year long you know hope everyone enjoys the summer be safe have fun Benjamin but I think I've said enough today because I've been speaking on everything I believe but um do have a nice summer and I think all the teams that work together to get us new information on new new studying new projects and anything to benefit our students I appreciate it and keep keep doing it because I'm an average I listened to radio and I watch
114TV and every day I'm seeing something new and I'm thinking where's this world going to what are we going to do to prepare our students and I can see that we are on board to do some of the things that's gonna be occurring 25 and Beyond so Dinwiddie we're on board and I thank you all for doing what you do to everything everybody said I'm on purpose read my comments as we went uh thank you for all that you do and have a wonderful summer I think the land lab is exciting and it's um hopefully we can draw it down to small portions through this portion in this portion and this person try to um accomplish the big goal by doing it in Parts um unless one of us wins the lottery and then we'll
115all donate that's right Mr Bill Meyer thank you for your comments and or thank you for your support for the the project and in the community Dr West yes I would just like to say a couple things one is um we are really uh focused on future driven leadership about a week or so ago or two weeks ago Miss Pitman and Miss Haney and Mr George myself and we traveled to Culpeper Virginia to see their new um Career and Technical Center because we are looking into breathing some new life and energy into rawati and how we can make some adjustments there and it was really an exciting field trip to see what they've done the building was completely solar it was it was just really an exciting exciting place and I think we came away
116with a lot of great ideas um and so I think it's nice to kind of go and see what other people are doing and but then you bring it back and you say okay what's possible here like what can we take away but we want to make it ours so it was a great experience last week we had the opportunity to spend the day with the division wide leaders I'm to talk about systems leadership and and the kind of leaders that think about how their their work is always connected to each other and um and how to be more future minded when we're making decisions and so I'm really excited about the the year ahead and the work that's in front of us because I do think we have the right people at the table
117to make all those things happen um learning any other observations or comments we do need to return to a closed session to work on some meeting dates for the summer or some adjustments so I need to entertain a motion to return to closed session ma'am chair I move that we returned a closed session for that discussion you have a motion in a second all those in favor signify by saying aye