001evening, late evening, late afternoon. We're all here. That's what counts. So, I'd like to call the meeting to order and welcome you. And uh Mr. Please, can you lead us in the pledge to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for it stands one nation under God indivisible with liberty and justice for all. I have a motion to approve the agenda with the following changes. Uh removal of item number uh 9.4 and move the superintendent announcements ahead of citizens for move. Second. All in favor? I motion carries. Uh, next on the agenda are the um is the budget here. Thank you, President Long and Ford and Superintendent Sachs. Before you tonight is the fiscal year 2026 uh financial budget. This is the same budget that we discussed on April 30th,
002our last work session, and is put in the journal as it legal ad for two weeks. Uh the general fund total budget for fiscal year 26 is $310 million 359,846 and that uses 4,5725 $572,627 out of reserves to balance. Our debt service fund is $12,846,950 and our special revenue fund or restricted fund is $35,4,88 for the public. I never heard anything comments otherwise from the general public on this and this is a budget that we're presenting tonight put forward to approve a sent to the state department of education for their final approval before June 30th. Question for Mr. B. What is the 1% reserve? Yeah, that was going to be about we estimated it to be about 11 and a half or 12 and a half depending on how we finish in 25 but we
003took how much out of reserves? 4.5 million which% once this is approved and then submitted are we able to um and this maybe is more of a question to to Dr. snacks. Are we able to um supply um our teachers and staff um some sort of like synopsis of of what snapshot of of what was approved and where it's coming from in which step. Um, just because I I I've received a few questions about where some of the funding is coming from because on the sheet we're not necessarily declaring this fund includes this addition or this change, that sort of thing that we did during the budget session. I just want to make sure that there's transparency. Yeah. Well, I think uh a couple things is that I think it would be good for us
004to be able to share after the board has approved this with all of our um staff, the budget highlights of what what is covered under the budget. Um things like the housing allowance and the investment in professional development, those sort of things. I think we we need to be able to share that. So, uh with what what the board approved, we can do a highlights. Yeah, that would to the to the staff for sure. Yes. Yeah. I'd love for them to be able to know what what it is we're doing here. Specifically, I guess um on the uh the worksheet where we outline specific things that were needs and and versus wants and what what the Yeah, I believe some of us actually shared one of Dr. Sax's updates for the staff. Yeah, we've had
005some of that also, but just so staff find everything. Absolutely. presented in the four workshops to get us to this point. Well, and one of the other things just to piggyback on what Miss Power uh was talking about, I think it would be also nice in thinking about us moving forward um especially uh now that our restructuring has occurred and thinking about what uh next year looks like is that we also perhaps do a some sort of um shared document that we can put or post that highlights what was accomplished at a board meeting. you know, sort of a review of the of of this this board meeting so that there's a little synopsis, there's a little cliffnotes version with a link to the board meeting if someone wants to go to it. So, we
006can find a way to improve communication that way. Also, yeah, I think that would help especially as our staff who are very very busy. There's cliff note version, you know, synopsis would be really really nice and thankful for also mean not related but it is related to the news but the current reviewing under consent on the uh financial report sheet that you share with the board. Um I I'll talk to you after the meeting or not tonight, but there are some items there that you know that are negative numbers. Sure. Yeah. And we make budget adjustments every meeting. Yes. Right. But you know, some of the costs are going higher than the estimates and some are well below and maybe there's something that next month we spend a lot of money that's been writing in
007that account that's on 8.7 and bus provides every month this other question. If there's no other questions, the superintendent recommends that we approve the FY26 budget as presented. Have a motion. So move. Second. Second. All in favor? I opposed. Motion carries. Recognitions. Council of the year. Mrs. Seaton. Are you online? No. I could um get started. She did have um something to say before uh I say it, but um to um the the board and um sorry, Miss Christiey's great. There was a technical difficulties. Sorry, Mr. Baker. I didn't mean to give you that. Mrs. Long, Dr. Saxs, members of the board, senior staff, and guests. It is a pleasure to have the opportunity to recognize an exceptional school counselor this evening. The purpose of the school counselor of the year award is to recognize
008a school counselor for outstanding service and achievement. To be eligible for consideration, nominees must be currently employed with Berkeley County Schools as a full-time counselor with at least three years of experience in Berkeley County and at least one year must be at the level they are currently working. Nominees must demonstrate evidence of strong leadership and outstanding implementation of Berkeley County Schools counseling standards. Nominees must also follow the following recognition criteria. Maintain the highest standards of personal conduct. deliver equitable, comprehensive preventive preventative and de developmental counseling programs, foster collaborative relationships with colleagues, students, and their families, and the community to promote student achievement and utilize data to drive decisionmaking. Jamie Lelo is the school counselor of the year. Jaime was with us in Berkeley County from 2002 to 2006 and came back to us in 2014.
009She is currently a counselor at Bunker Hill Elementary School. This evening, Jaime is being nominated by her principal, Paul Baker. It is more special this evening because Mr. Baker has previously been a school counselor. He knows the job responsibilities and he knows what it takes to be an excellent school counselor. Jaime's assistant principal, Karen Wgle, wrote a letter of recommendation for the nomination packet. In it, she wrote, "Jamie has an extraordinary ability to listen deeply to students, recognizing not only what is said, but also the emotions and needs that lie below the surface. Her patience and empathetic approach makes students feel safe, valued, and understood, even in the most challenging situations. Personally, I am so grateful to have had the opportunity to work with Jamie for the past 10 years. Jamie is an excellent school
010counselor, so compassionate and always willing to help. I am thrilled that she is our 202425 school counselor of the year. And at this time, Mr. Baker will take the time to give you more information about Can we give her a chance to at least say something? No, I'm sorry. I'm sorry. for some reason the Zoom would not would not load. Um, and I'm sorry I can't be there. I absolutely love this time every year. Um, always enjoy being here um to recognize the news school counselor of the year and Jamie is one of the best. Um, personally I am thrilled to have had the opportunity to work with her for the last 11 years and um it's she's just one of those people who is always willing to help and she's so compassionate. So, um,
011I'm thrilled that she's our 2425 counselor of the year. Thank you so much. Thank you, Jamie. You want to come on up? So, like to say good evening to everyone. Uh it's it's a real uh honor tonight to recognize someone who's made a huge impact at Bunker Hill Elementary, Mrs. Jamie Lebo, uh Berkeley County School Counselor of the Year. When I first came to elementary, the elementary level after working at the middle and high school level, um I thought it was going to be kind of boring. Uh but but but Jamie laughed at me and she had every right to because I quickly found out just how intense things can be at the primary level. These kids come to school with serious challenges. Many have experienced uh more trauma and adversity than I ever saw
012growing up. And a lot of them having haven't uh even been identified for special education services. And it's it's just a different world. And in the middle of it it all is Jamie. Uh she's she's always there calm, steady, uh completely committed, and she knows her students inside and out. Uh they greet her coming uh to and from school like uh in the morning when she's at parent uh drop off and in the afternoon when she's at um the uh the bus uh dismissal. She understands mental health diagnosis. I've worked with a lot of counselors that don't understand theory. They don't understand diagnosis and uh the counselor position in schools is one of the only positions where it requires a master's degree and uh she understands that. She got teachers on um on on when
013is a good time to uh make a CPS referral. And when they're unsure or uncomfortable, she'll stay extra hours, sit with them, and uh make sure uh they know how to get through um how to make that referral. And she always does what's best for children. She's she's motherly to the students, a mentor to other counselors, and a calm leader who makes us all better. So tonight, I'm proud to say congratulations, Mrs. Jamie Lelo. You are more deserving more than deserving of this award. What an honor. So proud of the wonder. Well, thank you for what you do every single day for the students of Bunker Hill and really the students are all across our school district. um the difference that you make in their lives uh by mentoring them, counseling them, putting them on
014the right path um just can't be overstated. And so, thank you for what you do and the impact that you make every single day on our students. Thank you very much, everyone. It's an honor. I'm very honored to have this award. Um I love what I do. I love the kids. I love the people that I work with. And of course, I couldn't do it without all of them and supportive admin. So, thank you to everyone here and everyone at my school. Look at all the counselors back there. Thank you. Oh, yes. And so on behalf of uh the superintendent, I would like to be able to present to you uh the superintendent's point of excellence. So, thank you to what you did. Yes. Hearing um Christy's words and then uh Mr. Baker backing her
015up. Um we're very lucky to have you in this county. We are so thrilled that you've decided to come back. Yes. Thank you again. Thanks. Thank you. You sure? Are you sure? Yeah. the theater recognition. I'm so excited. Can you tell me when I'm ready to go? You're ready to go. Excellent. I am Angie Melvin. I'm principal at Hisville High School and I have the distinct honor of introducing the West Virginia theater teacher of the year, our very own Kelly Cooper. I say a little bit about her because she is phenomenal. Kelly is only a fourth year teacher. She will be in her fourth year. Her seniors are her very first class and she has done things that are nothing short of extraordinary for theater at our school. She has developed great bonds with her
016students. She is so creative and so dedicated. She'll be like, "Hey, can we try this or what about this?" and she is always willing to advocate for her program and her kids. One of the most exciting things is that with her leadership, we are now going to the International Thespian Festival for the second year in a row. And I've been at Hedgesville for a very long time. That's only the third time that we've been there in the 20 years I've been there. So, she is just phenomenal and I cannot say enough things about her. But here's Kelly Cooper, theater teacher of the year for Whisper. What? Kelly, my edge is my first school. So, I'm very honored to uh receive that award. Um just a little background on the award itself. I am nominated by
017my peers. So, I actually was nominated by Joshua Ree, who is the theater teacher over at Spring Mills High School. Um and then the nominees are voted upon by the theater teachers across West Virginia. So it was nomination by peers, voted on by peers. Um and then it was announced at our West Virginia thespian festival earlier in March. Um where I received that honor. Um unfortunately Joshua Reese cannot be here today. So I'm actually going to present not only my students but the Spring Mill students um as well as the Martinsburg and the Muslim students who received awards at this uh festival. uh they put in countless hours, dedication, research, hard work to get the awards that they received. Uh so uh Mr. Reese had a few things to say about his students. So I'm
018going to do that first before I get into the other students for today. Let's begin with the name that was announced more than once during the award ceremony. Julia Steman. Julia didn't just shine in one event. She excelled in three. She earned superior ratings in playwriting, solo acting, and scenic design. That means not only did her original play receive high honors, which I also got the chance to direct while we were at the festival. So, it was very exciting to get to help produce an original work and it was performed in front of the entire festival, which is really exciting. Um, it's an honor reserved for the most outstanding student written works in the state, a distinction which Julia has been bestowed two years in a row. So, not only did she win this year
019for her playwriting, she also won last year as well. Uh, out of the countless submissions, only two are selected across the state. So, it's a very high honor to receive that. Julia was also honored as the second place overall technical theater student in the entire state of West Virginia. A prestigious recognition for her exceptional talent, vision, and dedication to every aspect of the craft. Julia's versatility as both a performer and designer is rare, and her ability to express herself through storytelling, performance, and visual artistry is nothing short of exceptional. This summer she'll take all three of her works to the international desk festival where they will be adjudicated on the national stage and yes she will be attending in person representing both herself and our school at the highest level of student theater competition. Next
020allow me to shine the spotlight on Alexander Overholer who submitted a short film that captivated judges and earned him a superior rating in the film making category. Xander's creativity behind the camera, his storytelling instinct and his technical skills blended into a work that left a lasting impression. Like Julia, he will be bringing his work to the International Thestrian Festival this summer for a national debut occasion. And we can't wait to see how far this rising filmmaker goes. And finally, we have Abby Alexander, whose prop design entry also received a superior rating. Aby's attention to detail and her ability to bring story and character to life through her designs is an incredibly nuanced skill, and the adjudicators recognize that fully. While props design category is still in beta testing at the state level, it's not yet
021eligible for international advancement. Make no mistake, if the category had been eligible, Al Abby would be on her way to nationals as well. We are incredibly proud of her artistic vision and dedication to the often unsung work that brings the magical theater to life. If that all weren't enough, Spring High School was recognized as the number one overall technical theater school in the entire state. That's right. After earning second place last year, we moved up and claimed the top spot in West Virginia this year. This recognition reflects not just individual talent, but the collaborative excellence, hard work, and relentless passion of our entire theater team. These students, Julia, Xander, and Abby, are not only excelling in their craft, they are elevating what it means to be a part of this program. Their achievements are a
022reminder of the power of imagination, dedication, and courage in the arts. Please join me in giving them a round of applause they truly deserve. Moving on to my own students who earned recognition at this award um at this festival as well. Uh Teresa Dean Dio uh got a superior rating for her makeup uh for the play for colored girls who have considered suicide when the rainbow is a superior rating and she will be attending the international thespian festival in person with me and Mr. Ree and his students this summer. Uh Kaylee Jury uh earned an outstanding in novice mask making for the production of Romeo and Juliet. Uh William Coven earned a superior in his prop construction for Glenda's wand from the Wizard of Oz. He unfortunately is in the same position as Abby where
023props construction is still in beta testing. Um so he will not be moving on to the international level but he did earn a superior rating which is the highest that you can get at the state level. Uh Nathaniel Weber earned an outstanding in his marionette puppets. Uh he actually made Little Shop of Horror. So if you're familiar with the movie or the musical, he made one of the plant puppets, but he used a marionette style, which is not common for um that show. Kiana Rogers earned an outstanding in her theater marketing. So students are actually working real real world skills for marketing for our productions. her specifically focused on our fall production, the rise of Robin Hood, which uh focused on the classic tale of Robin Hood and how kind of he came to be.
024Uh Kiana worked uh both inside the program and outside working with local uh radio companies and the new uh the journal to uh get our word out um and which gave her an extended award at the ceremony. I also have Ellis Springer who earned a superior for her costume design for Meet Me in St. Louis. it earned a superior rating, which means she will also uh move on to the International Festival Festival. Thankfully, they do have an option uh to submit your projects digitally. Uh because to attend the festival, it's about $1,000 per kid. Um but the online version is 50. So, we do have options for our students uh to at least get their works adjudicated. Um and uh with me today I have Berg Vizen who earned a superior for their stage management
025for Rise of Robin Hood um at is eligible to move on to the International Despian Festival. So those are my students from Hedgesville High School. If you'd like to give them a round of applause, who is the international festival and where? Um it is currently at the Indiana University of Bloomington, Indiana. um they kind of move it around a little bit. Previously it was in Lincoln, Nebraska. Uh but they use a they use a um college campus. So we actually stay in the dorms um and several like professionals from around the world. Various theater companies all come together. So they will actually work with professionals um at this festival. Uh I did get to take my students last year which was really exciting. Yes, I will. Yes. I'm sorry. There were so many there were
026sorry there were like 35 kids I took to the international festival last year. Uh so it was a lot of undertaking to take them all. Um and it was very exciting. It was it was fun. It was very fun and a lot of uh big celebrities in the theater world also come to this festival to work with the students and also uh new works are also produced there as well. So kids get a lot of experience with various uh theater aspects. I'm now going to be presenting um the uh other two high schools, Martinsburg High and Muscleman High School. Yes. Okay. Um All right. So, from Martinsburg High School, we have Rena Molenex. Uh she earned three Yes. three overall um superior rating um besties in costume design, costume construction, and stage management. her superior
027ratings in this actually earned her um first place as the outstanding technical leader student which means that um it's kind of like a ratio of how many projects they submit um and the outcome of their scores. So because she submitted uh three projects and got superior ratings on all of them, she got first place. So she is our top technical theater student in the state. Um we also have Nathan Shocki from Muscleman High School um who got a superior rating in advanced lighting design. Um he will also be moving on to the international festival this summer. We also have Allison Lungbear uh who earned and Jamal Armitage Jr. who earned an outstanding acting duet. So as well as the technical produ production aspects, we also have performance aspects that we'll move in as well. So
028another round of applause for Martinsburg and Mus. Yes, they do. Um, I have uh coins of excellence for each of your students as well as you. Um, but however, how many students do you have that are not here? Oh, a little bit. Just just because you're at Hedgesville, so just the Hedgesville and then I can get uh Muscleman theirs as well. So, okay. Um, so I have one present with me. One, two. I tell you what I'm gonna do. How about this? I am going to give these to Carla and then Carla can distribute them. But I will give these to the our students here. They're here first if that's okay. Yeah, absolutely. Congratulations. Thank you so much. I appreciate it. Absolutely. Proud of you guys. Awesome work. There you go. Congratulations to you as
029well. So, thank you guys. What a what a what a great honor. I I always admire anybody that can do anything like that. Thank you guys. Next is our Mfield recognition. Thank you guys. Thank you. And last. Hello. You're on. I'm on. Good evening, President Long, Dr. Saxs, members of the board of education. Um, I'm here tonight to recognize our outstanding 2025 state medical day winners. On Saturday, April 12th, these students along with 10 other Berkeley County students travel to West Virginia State University in Charleston to compete at the West Virginia State Mathfield Day. Throughout this day, these students participated in a series of challenging events designed to test their mathematical thinking and problem solving skills. And we are proud to announce that three of our students achieve top honors at the state level. And
030so, at this time, I want to introduce you to them. Well, first, um, she's not with us tonight, but um, Lean Zing is actually a foreign exchange student from China that joined us this year at Spring Mills High School. she couldn't be with us tonight but um she had an outstanding math field day session with us. So she placed at our county um competition second at regional math field day and then she went on to place fourth in states and from this accomplishment she has been invited to participate in the prestigious um American regions mathematical league competition in Penn State taking place um May 31st to June 1st. So, but with me tonight, this is Cameron. I'll make him stand here. Um, this is Cameron Smith. He's an eighth grade student at South Middle School.
031Cameron has been participating in Mathfield Day since fourth grade, which is the first year you can participate in Mathfield Day and consistently consistently demonstrate strong mathematical ability. So, this year, um, second place at our county level, he took f first place at regional math field day and then he placed fifth in the eighth grade at state competition. Um, he looks familiar to you guys. He was just here. I can tell. He's a member of South Middles's robotics team and they just literally got back um from the competition in Texas. So, he's just a worldwide traveler. He is and you'll probably be seeing him for the next four years at a recognition ceremony like this. And then next to him is Nathaniel Lillard. He's a senior at Martinsburg High School and um he has been with
032me during his elementary and high school years in Mathfield Day. um long-standing commitment to academic excellence in math. So Nathan earns first at the county level this year and um about high school, he's at the 10th through 12 as one team. So they're one group of kids. So he turned first at the county level um fifth at regal math field day and then went on to win seventh at state competition and he's also been invited to go down to the Arnold competition at Penn State on May 31st to June 1st. And then um looking ahead, Nathan will be attending West Virginia University this fall where he plans to major in mechanical engineering. Congratulations. Thank you. Yes. So in closing, um I'm incredibly proud of our kids and their achievements at St. Anfield Day and um
033reflects the hard work of not only these guys, but of their teachers and their families. And so we want to thank you for your continued support of math and Berkeley County Schools and congratulate our winners. your joy of math or math question. Uh for me it's honestly just I've always been interested in math since an early age and uh just really gave me an outlet to uh pursue uh like uh further math and uh find something I enjoy. Actually Cameron is um we have a math olympiad for grades four through eight and I'm not sure if Miss Se told you but um Cameron won 8th grade for math Olympia also for the year. Wow. So he's just an amazing problem solving child. We don't have it for high school, but I'm sure people would be
034up there, too. That's right. Well, congrat congratulations. If you're looking forward, I have a small token camera. Congratulations for your achievement, man. Very proud of you. The superintendent's coin. Great job. And Nathan, what sparked you to have a love for math? English mainly it was the algebra side of things because it's a lot of you know rearranging puzzle like puzzles. I like that. Yeah. Yeah. I always saw it as a mystery. You have to solve the mystery. Yeah. Yeah. Very cool. And um what do you want to do when you get out of high school and go on to college? I'm assuming college. Yeah. Yeah. So like what college or career? Yeah. Uh, so I'm planning on studying architecture and um possibly hopefully MIT, but if not, Virginia Tech does also have a good architecture
035program. We're so I'm told uh Harvard too, but um uh so yeah, probably residential architecture or um restaurants, maybe hotels, schools. We always need someone to design new offer a unique perspective on that. Yes. Thank you. Thank you. So much Virginia Council of Mathematics Teacher of the Year recognition of Principal Beth McCoy and Principal Alicia Rickleman. Good evening. Thank you. We're continuing on the math ma the math road this evening. And um first of all, I just would like to thank you for the opportunity to recognize some great educators that we have here in Berkeley County Schools. Rachel Yates has been teaching in Berkeley County for over 20 years. She is a current fifth grade teacher at Mil Creek Intermediate School where she is not only a wellrespected colleague but a true educational leader. She
036is welld deserving of this recognition this evening. Die Panel, our academic specialist, has also had the pleasure of working side by side with Mrs. Yates and she would like to say a few words this evening. It is my honor and true pleasure to congratulate Rachel Yates on being named the West Virginia Council of Teachers of Mathematics Elementary Math Teacher of the Year. Rachel received this well-deserved award earlier this year, and tonight we are proud to recognize her outstanding achievements. Rachel's passion for mathematics education is evident in everything she does. In her own classroom, she engages students in rich, rigorous tasks that invite them to think deeply, work collaboratively, and justify their mathematical reasoning. Through her use of the thinking classroom model, Rachel empowers her students to take ownership of their own learning and become confident,
037capable problem solvers. But Rachel's impact goes far beyond the classroom walls. She has become a leader in our district, training staff in a thinking classroom and sharing engaging, thoughtful tasks to help all students learn to reason, persevere, and grow mathematically. Her colleagues respect and admire her ability to lead by example. Always approachable, encouraging, and generous for her time and expertise. Rachel is not only an exceptional educator, she is also a compassionate advocate for students. She truly sees each and every child, meeting them exactly where they are and helping them reach their full potential through care, consistency, and high expectations. Rachel, congratulations again on this incredible honor. You have earned it and we are so proud to celebrate you tonight. Thank you for the difference you make in the lives of your students and colleagues at
038every stakehold with our students and giving them everything that you have and even excelling and going above in what you do to help our teachers. so continue with their um skills. So um it's a it's a pleasure that you have earned and and we're proud that you're with us. So I can't I it's math. I don't get it. Yes, you did. anybody that excels in math. I don't I just told Kim Patton over in the other room about 10 years ago we all had to sign posters that said with math I can with math we can't. So I need one of those posters. I was gonna say we we we have a fantastic teacher if you need some help. That's right. Congratulations. Thank you for what you do for our students. We're so proud that
039you are here serving our students and teaching them the love of mathematics. So, thank you so much. Thank you. Thank you all. Thank you. thing. We It's really exciting. Um, this is when Queen recognized the elementary school mathematics teacher of the year and I get to recognize the secondary um I had I had the opportunity to go to Stonewall and um watch Mrs. Cook get recognized. It was really neat having two of our math teachers from Berkeley County Schools at um at that conference. Uh good evening President Long, Dr. Sax, board members and guests. It is my great honor and privilege to recognize an outstanding educator who exemplifies dedication, passion, and the true spirit of teaching, your 2025 secondary school mathematics teacher of the year, Mrs. Elaine Cook. Mrs. Cook is not only a master
040of the content, but she is also a champion for students who often need the most support. She teaches all inclusion classes, reaching some of our most val vulnerable um students. She sees their potential before they even see them themselves, and she works tirelessly to ensure that each one knows that they belong in her math classroom. However, what sets Mrs. Cook apart is her ability to motivate and inspire. Her co-teers speak with admiration about her energy, her compassion, and her deep commitment to helping every student grow. She doesn't simply teach math. She teaches our apple, our students. In her classroom, learning is hands-on, dynamic, and deeply engaging. Mrs. Cook was the driving force behind the implementation of the building thinking classrooms. Uh, it's a framework. It's a framework designed to get students actively involved in solving
041problems, thinking critically, and working collaboratively. Through this approach, she has transformed her room into a space where students aren't just learning math, they're thinking math. She engages students through real world real world connections by focusing on their individual strengths. Her lessons are about more than content. They're about building confidence, persistence, and loving learning. Beyond her work with students, Mrs. Cook is also a trusted mentor to many of her colleagues, not only in our building, but around the state. Whether it's offering guidance to a new teacher, sharing strategies, or simply being a consistent source of encouragement. She lifts others up and helps create a culture of support and excellence throughout our school. Mrs. Cook exemplifies what it takes to be an Appleman. Hard work, compassion, dedication, and she is driven by the belief that every student
042can succeed. She lives those values every day, and our school is better because of her. Please join me in congratulating Mrs. Cook. We are proud of you and grateful for the powerful difference you make every single day. And um I'm going to let Mrs. Jared, she's also one of our math teachers. she was to share a few words as well. Um, you know, I just want to fill you and tell everyone that not only is she an amazing force in her classroom for her students, um, she is certainly inspiring and energetic and passionate, but she she touches more than just the students minds. She I was her mentor when she came to Muslim High School. I was her mentor and I was Mrs. Porter's mentor. And I know Mrs. Porter and I would be like,
043"Oh my gosh, we're going to learn so much from her." Like, I feel like I became the mentee. She has encouraged me to question and to continue to grow. And she's been a champion in our school for M3T. And we are always looking and analyzing and questioning and growing. And that is definitely a youth thing. you have brought that to our wing and it's an honor to teach beside you and with you and learn from you and to teach our students together. We're so grateful to have you and it's an honor Virginia WBNCTN teacher of the year. for students and evidently the staff and uh I just told uh the individual that left for elementary um anybody that is a math wizu you uh I I have a hard time figuring out how you're so
044excited about it but I am so excited that you are so and what you do for our kids. So thank you so much. Well, thank you. And it's an honor to be here and um to teach alongside these ladies. Their reputation is what brought me to um to be a muscleman and to work for Berkeley County School. So, I wouldn't be here without them. Wow. And who do you have here with you tonight? This is my son, Joadia. And this is my husband. So, how old is He's 5 months old today. Awesome. He is very vigilant. And I I see him, you know, watching everybody who is is speaking and I'm going, "Aha, chip off the old block." Yeah, that's what I'm thinking. That's the next mass. That is I can see it. Although I
045must say that it's a Monday and when I looked over at him, he did not have his pass in. He looked at me gone up. But he is so precious and thank you for what you do and the lives of all of our future generations. So thank you for what you do to our students and again instilling them a love of mathematics. So thank you. And how awesome is it board that we have two West Virginia math teachers of a year right here in Perfect P. I think that speaks volumes as to the quality of educators that we have here in Perkins County Schools. And so I think you all are wonderful models and examples of what we have. Thank you for allowing us to have part of her each day for our students. Thank
046you as well. National Board Certified is like this. Mrs. McKen's gonna do that. Well, at least was President Long, members of the board, Superintendent Dr. Saxs. Thank you for this opportunity to recognize our new nationally certified school nurse. And good evening. I'm Judy [Music] McHugh. And I serve as the nursing service coordinator for Berkeley County Schools. I have served in this position for um over five and one half years. I will celebrate my 21st year anniversary serving as a school nurse for county schools. And thank you so much for that opportunity. And tonight, it is my distinct honor this evening to recognize our most recent Berkeley County School nurse to achieve national certification. National Board Certification in School Nursing is a formal recognition of advanced knowledge, competence, and a personal commitment to excellence in the
047specialty practice of school nursing on behalf of the better health and education of school age children. To become nationally certified school nurse, the applicant must first complete the process of being eligible to take the national school nurse exam. So the candidate must first submit a copy of his or her license as a registered nurse in one of the United States. Number two, submit an an academic transcript or proof of current certification demonstrating attainment of one of the following bachelor's degrees or a master's degree in education with a concentration in school nursing or school health services from a nationally board certified school nurse approved accredited institution. four current certification by national board certification as a school nurse certification as a nationally certified school nurse. Third, provide a note on letterhead from the supervisor or district official
048confirming the clinical practice requirement of a minimum of a thousand hours worked within the three years prior to taking the exam. The thousand hours is roughly equivalent to a full-time school nurse working at least six hours a day for a school year of 180 days. At upon completion of this, she submits the individual would complete the online application, pay the required fees, schedule the examination appointment with the testing center center which is um through the national board certification is through PSI. Prepare to take the exam. Study, study, study. And then once you take the test, you pass, right? Which leaves me here why we're here tonight. Would everyone please join me in celebrating, congratulating, and recognizing school nurse Brandy Pulse, nationally certified school nurse. She serves as the school nurse at Tomahawk Intermediate. So we
049have nurse Brandy Pulse. We have her administrator, principal Christine Muro, and we are very blessed. This is a token of our appreciation, Brandy. Thank you for seeking our CLA certification to demonstrate your expertise, your knowledge, and not to mention your utmost commitment to student and school safety. Thank you Brandy for going beyond lenture to validate your specialty knowledge and skills through this rigorous tutorial your national certific examinations. Brandy thank you so much for serving as a clinical expert dedicated to providing quality evidence-based clinical care for our students. Thank you so much for your committed commitment to lifelong learning, student advocacy, and professional practice. Congratulations on your achievement and commitment to school nursing. Honor to have a certified been school nurse that national certified school nurse. How often do you take that test like other the
050national certification for teachers? Um is that every 10 years? No, I think mine's five. Yeah. Well, you don't have to take the exam again. There's a reertification renewal process and you have go the certified school nurse is required to go above and beyond the required certification um CEUs with with our nurses. So every five years you have to show proof of documentation of 45 CEUs and also per hours. Wow. Wow. Congratulations. That's quite an achievement. We're so proud that you're with us. Thank you so much. It really is an honor to be here. It it is the best nursing job that I've ever had and I've been in nursing for uh almost 20 years now. So it truly truly is a blessing. I'm I'm blessed. Well, we're we're very thankful that you want to even
051go further in what you your RN degree and then uh just keep going. Is there something past this or are you Thank you. Thank you so much. Well, Randy, I know that you said that you were blessed, but we're blessed to have you taking care of all of our kiddos. So, thank you so much for what you do. Thank you so much. Oh, thank you so much. Appreciate you guys. Thank you. Dr. You have a few words. Um, no. I I have been in education for see this is year 18 for me. And um I've worked with a lot of nurses, but there's something really special about Brandy. She has this extra drive to do not only what's right, but what she feels is ethical and moral and like she just all these things come
052out with her. And I could not ask for anyone better to service our kids and our community. and I'm blessed to have you because you know I get a little spicy sometimes and she's even spicier. So we need a good match. So it's a good time. It's a good time. But I appreciate you. Thank you all so much again. You been doing We story here at Falls um board Dr. sex. Um, President Long, actually, I couldn't bring myself to live. Patty had somebody else do it. So, I just wanted to let you know that Patty, we do apologize. Michelle's felt bad ever since. I speak for that. Well, um, just to kind of recognize you a little bit tonight, I only have a few words and myself short. I'd like to take a moment to
053recognize and highlight the outstanding work of Patty Barry. She consistently goes above and beyond expectations overall, stepping in wherever needed and ensuring that the office runs smoothly and efficiently. Her proactive approach, reliability, and willingness to assist with any task no matter how big or small are invited to our team. In addition to her addition, her exceptional work ethic, she brings thoughtful and uplifting presence to our office culture. One small but meaningful example is her habit of keeping candy jar stock for all our staff. An act of kindness that many have come to appreciate during the busy and stressful days. These simple gestures reflect her genuine care for others and her desire to create a supportive and welcoming environment in our office. Her dedication and professionalism and compassion truly makes a difference and I'm grateful that
054she's there. on behalf of the board, I just want to say thank you so much for what you're doing. And I talked to Mr. really he was just so he couldn't almost get the smile off his face talking about you and how wonderful you are and how much you helped and and just how appreciative you are for your hard work. Thank you very much to the department. We feel like a family. We really do. What lie did they tell you? I just say what a trick. I love it. excited to come here and speak about our move that's coming up for probably quite elaborate. I was kind of intrigued. I want to hear. [Laughter] Thank you all very much. This is Thank you. Quite an honor. really one I did not see coming. Evidently, look,
055look at my entire superintendent. Thank you so much. Thank you. Thank you so much. I'm sorry. Start the long and volunteer to mock. Yes, but I'll let her get in there. Okay. Let everybody get all right. So, Dr. Sax, President Long, and distinguished board. First of all, I want to say that good volunteers in the school system are very hard to find nowadays. We've had several at Tuscora, but we have one who really stands out, but we're here tonight to honor her. That's our read aloud volunteer, Ros. Some of us, you can't tell me you don't know this after we've been sat there for an hour. I'm telling Erica, she's gonna know. She has to know. a surprise. We've come to been a readaloud volunteer for six years. Started at Jaredtown and then we were
056lucky enough to get her. This comes as after a three decade career as a reading specialist and an administrator in Indiana. She brings joy and excitement to the classroom at every visit, which I have personally seen when we were both in Mrs. Emerick's class and Mrs. Zangar's class. She's very passionate about children and educating them. She does more than simply read aloud. She creates memorable, enriching experiences for the students. Each story she shares is accompanied by an engaging activity. And the students really do look forward to GG coming. It's thoughtfully themed around the current weather, the season, an event, or a holiday. Students eagerly anticipate her visits, and we feel truly fortunate to have her as part of our learning community. Raj, your storytelling has brought books to life, and your engaging activities help our
057students connect deeply with every story you read to them. Whether it's bringing in your craft set to create Mother's Day cards or doing an outside lecture during the fall, your thoughtful efforts have inspired curiosity and joy in our students, many of whom would have never had these experiences without you in their life. Thank you for making reading an adventure and for being an amazing part of multiple classrooms and our stories. Yes, please. To do something a speech to give a speech now. This is so what happens when you move from Indiana to West Virginia. Here are maybe That was awful. This is a lot of fun. I I had the privilege of talking to Dr. Long earlier today and I I went and looked up the meaning of your name. Do you know the meaning
058of your name? I have no idea. The meaning of your name means rose. Specifically, it carries connotations of grace, elegance, and natural char. you are the embodiment of and I love how you have taken that and given it to all of our kids. So, thank you for your heart. Thank you for wearing it not only on your sleeve but then extending it to all of the there and the staff. Thank you for all that you do for us. Thank you very much. And and I am not graceful. trip over my own toes. You might be able to slip over your own toes, but I think grace from where I'm sitting, you are gracious. You are gracious in how you treat others and how you give of yourself to all of our kids. That's very gracious.
059I have been so fortunate to know people who kind of get my eccentricities. This is awesome. Oh, one one more thing. He's he this is usually his job. He usually hands this out. On behalf of myself and the superintendent and the board, I want to give you the superintendent's point of excellence for your service that you've enjoyed. Thank you so much. I'm a hugger. We're both good. Thank you so much. Thank you. Dr. All right. Thank you very much. Uh, President Long, board members. Um, I want to appreci appreciate the opportunity to provide you some announcements for our board meeting. I want to um uh provide a little bit of an overview of some uh uh initiatives that we have coming up um which you may have heard about tonight. I'd like to share an
060update on our summer device take-home plan uh as well as a little bit of the background behind it as and teachers the strongest possible start this coming August. One of the clearest ways that we can do that is by ensuring that our instructional diagnostics which are implemented through I Ready um are able to be provided to help um uh teachers understand where students are academically and that that can happen right away. this past year. Um, that was not not able to occur until about five to six weeks into the start of the school year. Um, and so it's very important to us as we think about our academic planning for next year, we can do those instructional diagnostics as quickly as possible so that we can assess where students are and where we need to
061provide targeted instruction based upon their skill on those grade level standards. I like to think of of the school year sort of like a a little bit of a race. Students line up at the starting line, but some are still lacing their shoes or waiting to be handed one. By allowing students to keep their devices over the summer, we're helping them show up ready with their devices charged, tools in hand, preparing to learn. You know, really when we think about this um being able to to start off this the school year on the right foot, this is not a criticism of our instructional tech our instructional technology staff who work tirelessly every single year. It's really about adjusting our system so that the work that they do is even greater and has a greater impact.
062I want to stress that this is a pilot. It's modeled after successful initiatives in districts like Canal Cabell where I was for the last seven years, Monellia County as well as Lowden County to our our our east where 98 to 99% of students have been returning their devices in good working condition after the summer months. These districts report strong instructional and operational outcomes from their summer device programs. In addition, we get better by learning from each other. Just like teachers share what works in the classroom, as a superintendent, I do the same thing and I lean in on other districts to find out what they do that is successful as well. So, we're trying to make this very clear for our families. Our messaging has been explaining that the pilot is designed to eliminate delays
063this fall um and reduce summer redeployment costs with staffing. Um, also we're making it clear that families can opt out by contacting their school and many schools have already communicated with families um by providing um information on um their device roll out but also on providing forms so that if a family does want to opt out, they can do so. Um students and families are also responsible for their devices under the existing agreement that they've signed um including if a device is lost or damaged over the summer. And importantly, uh, Apple Care and Safeware insurance, which has already been purchased by the district, um, and and that the district provides, covers 100% of accidental repair costs that devices may incur. This removes the financial burden from our families and limits district repair costs. At the
064heart of this decision is a belief in our students and our families. The overwhelming majority, 99% or more, I think will do the right thing when it comes when when it when given the chance. These devices are tools for learning, and we want to give our students continued access to them as a resource that supports growth. If the results this fall do not reflect clear instructional and operational benefits, then we will absolutely re-evaluate. But I do think that we owe it to our students to try and to trust that they like us are invested in their own success. So I want to thank um the district team um and those that have been working so hard as well as our schools to be able to get the appropriate messaging out to our families. Uh next,
065I'd like to be able to uh provide an uh an update on our student achievement results. So board members, I have here underneath my computer. I apologize. pass this out to you. Um, take that whole stack and pass it, please. Um, wait a minute. I'm sorry. I think Mr. Murphy got them all. Actually, I see there's a little bit difference here. Want to take this one and pass it that way. Mr. Murphy, there might have been a misstapling there. So, if you could just Well, they're all math. Yep. Just there's a staple. Oh, there they're stapled. I'm sorry. There you go. You're good. You got two. And then if I can get one more back, Mr. Wright, I apologize. Thank you. Um, I am giving you all uh a snapshot of our current district-wide performance
066um that I think underscores our ongoing efforts to improve student outcomes. Um, and this is based upon the 2025 GSA as well as SAT math performance. A formal release of this data will follow once ELA results are finalized. But I want to note that this information is preliminary and raw and accountability accountability data for the West Virginia balance scorecard is going to be released by the West Virginia Department of Education in the fall. But there's a couple highlights that I want you to look at as you look at some of this data. Nearly all elementary and middle schools met their state established growth targets. uh a huge accomplishment this year um because last year um that was not the case. So very excited in in the fact that most all almost every single elementary school
067and middle school met their established growth targets by the that was set by the Department of Education. Eight elementary schools exceeded the state average for math proficiency on the GSA. Districtwide math proficiency also increased by nearly seven percentage points u across the district which is a significant step in the right direction. As you take a look at the math performance that I've I've given you, I've tried to show you the trends from 2017 on. So, you'll be able to see that year overyear um whether or not it was staying stagnant or whether it was not. If you look at the 2024 2025 results, um you will see that specifically in our uh elementary schools, many of our schools have the highest performance that they've had since 2017. And so I I think that that is
068very commendable and it's early indications of we're on the right path. Um, and so while I think that it's very important to to to state that we have a lot of ground to cover to reach the level of achievement that we know our students are capable of, this progress reflects the hard work and commitment of our educators as well as our leadership teams. So, what's next? When it comes to our GSA and SAT math performance, um, our ELA results, you'll actually see the SAT ELA results here, but for the ELA on the GSA, the general summit of assessment for West Virginia, I'll uh be sharing those as soon as I can because right now we don't have the we have about 90% of those results in, but about 15% of those responses are undergoing hands
069and scoring and that can take 10 that can take 15 or so days. So we are awaiting that. So we should have that very soon. And I will be sharing the ELA performance data as soon as those reliable results are available. And uh on the June 11th board workshop, I'll be providing a cumulative report um to the board on the student achievement on both GSA, SAT as well as our fi end of the year um diagnostics for kindergarten through uh 8th grade. question. Yes, sir. Um, just in reading this, um, I'm looking at the front page. Uh, the annual target is set by the state department. Correct. That is correct, sir. Okay. And then I'm looking at Hex Hill Middle. Yep. They uh they had a 31.18. Their goal was 29.99. And yet they they're
070showing the decline. Is that because of the previous year? So that so that would be a decline from the 2023 2024 school year. Um it was a minimal decline. It was only one percentage point, but um that'll be something that Mrs. Clutner, uh Dr. Woods, and of course uh the Hedgesville leadership team, they're going to be they'll dig into this data, determine where um where they can improve. And of course, one of the charges that I've issued to our principles because I shared with I've shared this with them is is that you know, lean in on your colleagues that have had some significant success. Uh, as an example, when I look at Mountain Ridge Middle School, they had a nearly 15% increase in their mathematics scores this year. Um, and so, you know, we encourage
071our principles to lean in from each other and say, you know, what did you do? How, you know, what did you do differently? um replicate um you know the same thing applies when we look at um our elementary scores uh you know Bunker Hill had nearly a 12% increase uh Winchester Avenue great job over at Winchester 35 a.5% proficiency increase uh Mil Creek Intermediate I saw Mrs. McCoy here a little bit ago, a 9% increase. Um, you know, Orchard View 6%, uh, Tomahawk nearly five. So, again, you know, I I stress to our principles that if maybe you are a school that wasn't as pleased about the results, you know, lean in on some of your colleagues and um and see what they were doing that was that was working as as well. When will
072we get um all the schools? Um, well, so you have all you have all the schools for math, but you're going to get all of the results for ELA as soon as we have the hand scoring back. Okay, we have about 90% back so far. And so I'm hopeful that in the next week and a half, we'll have a a better indication there. And it appears that our um our growth uh in improvement of student achievement is slightly better in ELA than it was in math. So that's very promising. and and these scores are not reflected of the final scope score this year. So these are not the account these are pretty close. Uh so in years past the data that I'm sharing with you was embargoed until the fall. The the state this year
073made a decision and I think it's the right decision to not embargo this data so that we could share these results with our schools and with teachers so that we can make instructional changes. Um there may be some small tweaking of scrubbing of the stores based upon for example a student that let's say didn't have full year uh academic eligibility um or or there was an anomaly in the testing or what have you but for the most part these are pretty close. When you say scrubbing the results would you explain that so everybody in the listening audience knows? Sure. So when we talk about that um when they certify the uh achievement data for accountability purposes there are sometimes students that that if they didn't have the appropriate amount of seat time would not qualify
074to have their score actually as a part of the the metrics. So they would remove that student if the student uh perhaps transferred from one school to the other school um that could be that could be an indicator. Uh there are certain students that um are on specialized assessments. Um and so there again, those are the types of things that they would make sure to to ensure that it is as accurate as possible and it's truly reflective of the instructional practice in the school. This change the status of some of our schools that are on their list for the state department. Well, uh that is yet to be seen. Uh because again when the when the state in the fall certifies the data and and um applies that to this the um West Virginia balance
075scorecard, they will this is going to be a designation year uh for accountability purposes for designating whether or not a school is a a um uh what's it called? Holly CSI. A CSI school which is a comprehensive support school. And they what they do is they'll recalculate everybody. They do it every three years. They're going to recalculate everybody and it's based upon the performance of all the schools in West Virginia in this year. So while we've seen some increase especially like at Winchester uh Martinsburg you know Martinsburg Middle North um they they increased three and a half% which is which is commendable. Um we've talked about that they have been working on um expectations and behaviors and school culture um discipline and they've gotten that in order and now they're going to be starting to
076focus really on instruction. Well, they've they've clearly already been doing some of that, but we're nowhere near where we need to be. And so when those rankings come out from the state, we don't know how Martinsburg or um uh Winchester would fare. I I would gather to say Winchester will be in good shape based upon this performance. Um but some of our schools, you know, depending upon if all those other lower lower 5% schools had significant increases, then it puts us on alert. So hope that helps. Some schools that are missing. We don't have our primaries on here. That's what I just he said. I was like, wait a minute. Yeah. All of our all of our schools that have third grade or higher are on here. So the ones that take GSA. So I'll
077be sharing with you at on June 11th though the end of year I ready diagnostics that will show kindergarten through second grade proficiency as well. Okay. Well that's what kind of it does it is misleading because when you look at it you're like well we have more schools than that. But the issue is is that these are the only schools that are assessed on the state summit of assessment and these are the scores that go into I would say our district ranking in the state of West Virginia. Next year we will only have how many primary schools for third grade? One. One. One. Yes sir. Um moving on. Um I want to also um say thank you to all of our speech pathologists across the district. Um today May 19th is speech pathologist day. So
078thank you for what you do. And my goodness, look what a what a good-looking bunch of uh staff members we have there in providing services to our students um and making sure that they are learning how to uh express themselves and speak uh speak well. Uh so thank you for what you all do. Uh also we are celebrating Asian-American and Pacific Islander Month across Berkeley County Schools. And so we want to uh pay special special attention to the fact that we have um many students in our school district which um should be celebrated based upon where they're from. So congratulations to um our Asian-American and Pacific Islander Heritage Month. Um our graduation dates are May 22nd at Spring Mills which is this Thursday. We also have just a quick little update on that. I know
079that there may be uh a little bit of a weather concern. We will be making a decision by Wednesday at Is Carla in here? I think she is. 10:00 a.m. um as to whether or not we'll have to move that one indoors, but we are watching that carefully. I remain optimistic um and look forward to our first graduation ceremony at Spring Mills, followed by May 27th at Martinsburg, May 28th at Hedesville, and May 29th at Muscleman. I cannot wait to congratulate all of our high school seniors for a job well done. Uh last day of school will be on May 29th. I would like to invite the board to join uh cabinet with me as we do um a new tradition in Berkeley County Schools. Just as we did a bus driver sendoff on the
080first day, we will do a bus driver sendoff on the last day of school to thank them for delivering our students from home into school and back again safely for the hard work that they do. to join me at 5:30 a.m. on May 29th at the transportation complex. So, we'll be there. I love our staff, but that's early. You might want to come at 6:30. There's not a whole lot. Well, then we'll be there at 6:30. See, that's a little bit better. There you go. All right. Uh our next regular board meeting will be June 2nd, 2025 at 5:00 pm at the Muscleman High School Auditorium. The meeting will begin at 5:30. Uh we will have a reception at 5 and our meeting will begin at 5:30. Um because at 5 we will be having
081a reception to recognize our retirees. So I love that. Absolutely. Uh board members, I know I covered a lot. So if you have any other questions uh regarding anything that we covered here this afternoon, please let me know. Be happy to discuss it. I think I I I'll go first. I don't know if anybody else is going to say anything, but um I know you and I have had conversations um uh regarding the pilot program for the the summer device um holding or retention for for students. Um I I want to just this is just a formal you know just expression of of saying I I do share some concerns um that I know uh parents and and staff have have shared with me. I might have from a different perspective. Um my my concern
082revolves around the social emotional aspect for our kids. um they're constantly for nine months, you know, inside and ahead in a computer or or whatnot. And I am one of the parents that would force my kids to go outside um in during the summertime and explore and and and figure out what they could do outdoors. Um and sometimes it was a very much of a fight to get them out from behind a screen. Um, I I know that in our conversations there are alternatives to help because I I know that some of this is is to reduce, you know, summer slide with uh with students and to help kind of get get our staff, you know, working more efficiently in the beginning of the next school year. Um my my concern is that we are
083going to potentially and I don't know this this is just a an observation potentially have um repercussions from this that from a social emotional aspect that we weren't necessarily anticipating and that that and that might not be something that we could do we could assess in one particular summer. Um, it might take a few. I don't know. I just know that from me and and what I would do with my kids, I would be opting out. And I do appreciate the fact that you have given that as an option for our parents and I appreciate the fact that you have listened um to myself, you know, um when when we've had conversations about this, I do appreciate that and that is one of the the um bright spots about this is that you you do
084listen and I do appreciate that. Um, and you encourage us to speak frankly and I have no problem doing that either. Um, so um, again, I appreciate the the ability to provide you feedback. I don't necessarily agree with it, but um, we'll see what happens with the with the pilot. I have a little bit of concern about the screen time. However, uh I think when they're taking those devices home the summer, they'll it they would be using them for their uh educational purposes and they can't get on them for much of anything else. So, I would see them being on their cell phone or their own devices more than uh a school device. So, that's potentially that's where I come from from that. I I don't think we can blame the school system for them
085being on their device all summer. I think that's a parenting decision obviously decisions, but that that does bother me that kids are in general uh are on their devices all the time because we see adults are constantly on their devices. So, well, and if I can say I I share that concern as a parent myself. My my wife and I, we are very rigid about screen time with our own children. And and we actually set protocols of of limiting uh the time in a day. Um and it's very minimal. Um and and I would say that as a superintendent, I I have the same concerns when we think about screen time during the school day. That's why some of our instructional programs that we implement, we we are very specific like I Ready is 45
086minutes per week. Yeah. For ELA and 45 minutes per week for math because we want to protect u our students and not desensitize them. And and to be honest with you, we also want to make sure that our teachers and our schools have enriching hands-on learning activities that sometimes include technology but most of the time do not. And I think that that's important. And I think that the summer learning toolkit that we have that that um I don't know, Miss Trumpman, have we have we actually put that out yet? Yes, it went out to parents on on Sunday and it's on our website. Excellent. It while it does have some activities and links for them to use with their devices, it also has many things that are not technologydriven like um activities at our local
087parks or readalouds at our local libraries. And so again, um, we're trying to have a balance, but I do I absolutely recognize that and and maybe that's something that we need to think about as we continue to move forward is is more awareness for our families around screen time at home, you know, and giving them guidance, not not requirements, but just guidance for them to think about. So, thank you for that feedback. Appreciate that. Go ahead, go ahead. No, I'm good. I I was I'm glad I'm there. Okay. The uh I I took Mr. butts published in the paper this this past week are financial reporting and I I looked at and I added the general uh fund and the special revenue fund which is in the special revenue funds food service oh there's Mr.
088That's so I added those two numbers together, not the debt retirement, but the other two and I figured that's what we're spending in a year directed either by the staff in this office or the support staff at the school. But we're spending $345 million and $400. $345,400,654. I think it was 50 cents in here. Am I right? In the year. Yeah. And that capital budgets and the bond, right? That's right. School building, but just just spend the money and all the 261 day employees, all theund 200 day employees, all of these employees were focused roughly or in 180 days of instruction. That amounts to 1.9 or 1 million918,892 a day. We spend almost $2 million a day to teach our children. You can debate the pros and cons. I will in the moment, but Dr.
089Saxs just said we by the dispersement of these devices to do the diagnostic lose from five to six weeks. Yeah, that's 25 to 30 days. That's 50 to 60 million dollars we're losing by having this worrying about whether we got all the devices back or not or whether we are giving them out in a timely manner distribution and also you have to collect them at before the end of the year. You can't do them the last day the day after the kids go home on May the 29th. So we're spending50 to $60 million that we are not having the diagnosis. We have the diagnostic tools delayed in going on now. So that's a big big number. But I do want to acknowledge that we have a student in this county, a representative student whose first
090name is Noah and his last name is accountability. And that frustrates all of us because Noah, no accountability student is getting away with disrupting classes, destroying a taxpayers equipment and being socially promoted and all these other shortcomings. And it's not all of our students, but it's costing us and students who are dropping out of our school system to go to other school systems that the legislators made. And I think that the frustration that we heard about this practice there's some is expressing frustration but no accountability of some of these little rascals that are doing all this damage in the city. the the administration asked us to support this power project, which I do because I I don't want to waste 50 to 60 million dollars next fall waiting to get devices passed in. But in
091the same breath, you all better start kicking some butt at the school level and other thing when these teachers are being talked back by some of these my I'm not going to say my French here. Padrol instructor would be proud of me right now, but I'm not going to do it. But we need to get some accountability for these students who are damaging the equipment and we just hand them another device who are losing their chargers and everything else. We have to have some accountability on these things. It's it's up and down a thing. And I keep saying our vision up there needs to one more word. I don't know how it would be simple, but it needs accountability. We're pushing our teachers to produce results like this. We're pushing our students, but we still
092have this undercurrent that just frustrates the daylights out of people when we hand out these devices. And we know there's going to be things. Now, I know there's a replacement process and everything else, but if a kid doesn't have any money, he damages it, let him work it off at the school. They can do something to repay what he's damaged. And if they're losing things because of irresponsibility, they can replace it. So, that little accountability needs to be addressed. Not just on a on a statement here, but we're spending almost $2 million a day. And I support you, Dr. Saxs, on trying to get those devices to be ready to come out of the gate the first day of school next year. I commend you and staff for doing that. But I also don't want
093to see no accountability on these people who are irresponsible. If they don't want to take them home over the summer, I know you have it in the process. make sure the parents understand that. But we've got to sit down because we're just perpetuating waste of money. And I think that is a justified concern expressing people. But it the money that we're wasting and lost devices doesn't compare to $2 billion a day lost instruction. I do. Anything else? I don't think we needed you after all. Thank you. Yes, that concludes my statements. Okay, next on the agenda, citizens forum and I think we have a couple people virtual. Are they ready? Yeah, I have Sherry Breach is first. Um I don't know if we want to see her or just here. Just here. Uh, I just
094wanted to share that she'll have three minutes and if she's in the middle of a sentence, I'll let her finish that sentence and and we'll go to the next person. Are you there? Mute. Yeah. Miss B, you please unmute. I sent her a reminder through Zoom also. She hasn't unmuted yet. Maybe I have to text her if you want to. Make her I'll go to the next person. Next on the list is Ann Marie Corley. Mr. Corley. Yes, I'm here. Okay. Uh, once again, I did you hear me say that you would have three minutes and then if you're in the middle of your sentence, I'll let you finish that sentence. I did hear that. Okay. Thank you. Good evening, members of the board. Uh, President Saxs, thank you for or Superintendent Saxs. Um, thank
095you for the opportunity to speak tonight. Um, I'm here to urge you to reconsider any proposal to abolish uh the policy on equity and inclusion in our schools. These policies aren't about giving unfair advantages. They're about making sure every student, regardless of race, ability, income, or background, has a fair shot at success. I'm a special ed teacher and I always make sure that my students have the maximum amount of opportunities um at inclusion because it is such an important part of their day. Um the students I teach are are um typically on alternate standards um and need intensive um interventions and instruction in my classroom. Um but getting them in with their peers is such an important aspect of their day. It's also an important aspect of our students um in general ed classes. Um
096but when we res remove systemic barriers and create supportive environments, we don't lower standards, we raise outcomes for everyone. Equity and inclusion are not political buzzwords. They're an educational necessities. Decades of research show that inclusive schools improve academic important performance, reduce disciplinary issues, and foster critical thinking and empathy. These are skills our students need to thrive in the real world. If we abandon these policies, we risk silencing voices that are already under represented and we send a message to students and staff that belonging isn't a priority. That's not just harmful, it's shortsighted. We all want schools where every child can succeed. Equity and inclusion help us get there. Let's not move backwards. I also believe that if we um abolish this policy that we will be on the wrong end of history. Um I don't
097believe that um the mandates from our federal government um will hold up to court and I do believe that they are going to um be fought um vehemently in the court systems um and I believe that if we abolish that these programs now um that we will be backpedaling in the future. Um, I appreciate your time um to speak to you tonight. Um, and hope that you can consider um my thoughts wisely. Thank you. It says the button to join is not allowing me to click. It's on. She needs to unmute her mic. Did she log off and then log back on? I think I thought she already did it. She disappeared and came back on. Well, she's there. Could it be a different window? Like a different window has popped up on her screen
098and it's not I don't know. Yeah. Is that through Teams? Uh Zoom. Zoom. Do you have the ability to call her phone number? Why don't you try to call her maybe directly with the speaker phone? Yeah, we can do that for just convenience for this moment. Sherry, this is uh Jackie Long. Um we are going to since we you you can't get unmuted, we're just going to let you speak through my phone. Okay. Oh, she'll need to log She'll need to she'll need to log off probably. Wait a minute. Wait a minute. Hold on. One second. Hold on a second. I found I found the unmove button. Well, wait. There's a different ones. Okay, you're on. Okay. Sorry about that. That's why I prefer to be in person. Good me. Good evening, Dr. Saxon board
099members. My name is Sherry Breach and I find myself needing to address you once again. Although I would much rather prefer to speak to you in person as you can tell why my circumstances beyond my control made that impossible tonight. My comments comments will be somewhat brief because all of you should already be aware of the concern I will be publicly addressing if you have indeed read the email that I sent last evening. I'm speaking tonight not as a concerned grandparent as in previous presentations but as a very concerned taxpayer. The BCS notification that was released yesterday evening regarding the decision to allow students in grades K through 11 to keep their districts devices during the summer left me momentarily speeches speechless. But then outrage took over. I have been affected by thousands of DCS
100decisions throughout my 36-year career with this county and also since my retirement in 2013. I would admit that some decisions were good, but many were full-on mistakes. I've lived them. In my opinion, this decision ranks at the top of the list as being a total mistake. I take issue with your claim that this is a pilot program. Pilot programs begin with a small sampling group, not a full district-wide initiative as the starting point. There are approximately 18,442 students currently enrolled in grades K through 11 in Berkeley County that will be allowed to keep their devices over the summer if they choose to do so. Let that number sink in for just a moment. As well as how much all of those devices cost the taxpayer initially. Someone is not being realistic to think those devices
101will return in this fall in a usable fashion by everyone. They will be lost, abused, misused, sold, taken with them when people move out of the state over the summer, etc. But at that point, it will then be too late to correct this terrible mistake and those devices will have to be replaced again at taxpayers's expense. Someone is living in an alternative reality to think otherwise. And indicating that students will be responsible for the care and return of their devices is indeed laughable. It might look good on paper, but in reality, I see no accountability being enforced by this county. Remember, I've lived it. It is my hope that everyone listening tonight will be willing to alert others of this ridiculous decision by our central office. It is time for all of the taxpayers of
102this county to be made aware of the unnecessary abuse of taxpayer dollars that will be happening by Berkeley County Schools right before our very eyes. I continue to be amazed that this county central office forgets to include their principles, teachers, andor staff in its decision-making process. Shame on you for not listening to those in the trenches. If you won't listen to any of them, then maybe you will change your ways when vocal tax payers such as me begin to share this wastefulness which can only potentially lead to a lack of support from the community which you so desperately need. Thank you. Thank you. Uh next on the agenda is monitoring items operations update. Uh Mr. Keelog overview of the transportation efficiency report. Well, good evening. Thank you for your time, President Long, members of the
103board, Superintendent Sachs. Uh this evening I have with me a gentleman you met but in a different status because he couldn't wear a jacket tonight. But Mr. Derek Graham from North Carolina. You met him last month. And I believe his alter ego might be up there. Spencer Jenko. Is he on? I see that. No, I didn't see him. He was on under my name earlier. I am available. I am here. That's Derek's alter ego. I've gotten to know these guys pretty good over the last six, six, eight weeks. But uh I'm gonna let Derek and Spencer take over and explain what they have found and their recommendations for our efficiency study. Thank you. Somebody just going to say that whatever you like. All right. Uh thanks uh thanks for the opportunity to be here the
104evening. Uh President Long, Dr. Sax, members of the board. Uh it gosh, it just seems like uh just a few weeks ago and and in fact it was uh that we were here before you saying we're ready to hit the ground running on this transportation study, an ambitious transportation study that you had uh that you had requested and we're uh we're glad to be able to share results of that with you. Uh Spencer Jenko is in uh is in Missoula, Montana, and uh you know, you weigh in on whichever side you want, but we're going back to the math eventually. All right. In this in this meeting, so uh Spencer is is our optimization consultant and a lot of the the things that we looked at uh our mathematical results. Uh we visited uh we
105had a couple of on-site visits and we were joined by a couple of other folks. Pat Starkin, a retired transportation director from Wisconsin and Calvin Davis, an assistant transportation director in um in Virginia, formerly from from West Virginia. So uh without uh without delaying we'll just kind of jump through the uh kind of the major findings and then uh after we get through these these slides maybe a dozen and a half slides then if you have questions we'll be glad to to do that. Uh we first started looking at uh at the fleet. How do your how do your students get to school and uh nice fleet of Burkeman County Schools buses basically two you know two different kinds large buses uh 78 77 capacity and then a smaller set that have lifts on them.
106Uh there's a handful of vans that Berkeley County Schools operates for activity trips a couple days at each high school. Uh Epic uh operates some uh some vehicles, couple of larger school buses and then some vans. Uh Barity Travel is also contracted for not only activity trips but uh but also a good bit of uh to and from school transportation for large for smaller uh groups of uh of students. Uh one of the things that that we looked at was uh in terms of the fleet was the preventive maintenance. State of West Virginia requires each bus to be inspected every 20 days but not more than 40 days. Um and we found and this was just you know most of the things I'm going to share with you we didn't have a chance to do
107a deep deep dive but you know the one sample that we looked at and this is the same thing that we heard from staff is that uh that 40 days is not able to be met that it's that it's uh you know what you see on the chart there 43 43 44 46 days for between inspections of of school buses and uh obviously recommendation is to focus on the timely preventive maintenance of those inspections. We do have uh we do have mechanics that are out driving bus routes on a fairly regular basis. We don't have to believe the driver shortage that that's been going on nationally. Uh but that is that's certainly a a contributor. Uh there is uh just a couple of noteworthy things. There's a an inventory system that's been installed at bus
108garage that uh that's helping the garage to be more to be more efficient in the maintenance of buses. The uh there's a lot of there's a lot of things that really help your fleet, right? So the the picture there on the first uh on the first page is uh you know it's a standardized fleet, right? So so nearly everything out there is uh is manufactured by Thomas Build Buses and it's a young fleet, right? So, uh, the the state of West Virginia is very gracious in its replacement formula. So, you're able to keep your fleet very young and that does help u you know that does help in the maintenance by by not having you know a fleet full of aging aging vehicles. The standardization is good for the mechanics because basically they're working on
109the same vehicle all the time and for the drivers they're learning to drive the same vehicle all the time if they go from one to another. It's not a big uh not a big learning curve. Um the uh again I mentioned the recommendation is that um you know we would like to see it be the exception rather than the rule when a mechanic has to go out and drive bus route um because they're they're important maintenance things to be done. So uh there's a lot of onboard technology on the buses that you that you have. There's a lot of really good stuff going uh going on interior cameras and recordings that are used to help support drivers when there are discipline issues. We'll mention it later on uh as well, but I mean there are
110dig discipline issues everywhere in every school system. It's not anything that we saw worse here than in than anywhere else, but it does happen. And so drivers have the capability to pull the, you know, pull videos and mail those to email those to administrators and uh so they have that information to support them when they're doing um when they're reporting discipline issues. Uh there's exterior cameras on on buses uh that uh that can be used to identify vehicles that pass stop school buses. The interior audio system that the drivers use to get the kids attention. Uh it's uh you know my experience has been North Carolina for the most part. We don't have those on North Carolina school buses. And and as I was out observing at schools and saw drivers, you know, you know,
111basically saying, "Hey, here's this guy on this study and he needs to count how many kids are on here." you know, they were able to get the kids attention in a very orderly fashion and uh you know, it just worked really well. Um the newer school bus uh the newer school bus signs on the newer school school buses, I don't know if you had a chance to see those in, you know, out there at O Dark 30, but the the the backlit uh illuminated school bus sign, it really it really pops and makes it makes it safer for kids. So, so kudos for that. uh GPS providing real time locations and uh and historical locations for the transportation department and uh and schools to use. Uh there's RFID scanners that are capable of of logging
112when when students get on and off the bus. So uh so one thing that we noticed and we wanted to make sure to point out is that school buses are not lacking in technology. There's good good investment in technology. A lot of good stuff uh that's uh that's on there. There are Oh, I didn't mention the the tablets. So there are tablets on the buses that uh drivers use drivers use pretty regularly now for doing their pre-trip inspections. They can report when something uh you know when there's a mechanical defect that needs attention by the garage staff. Um but there are also some other things that they can do uh turnbyturn directions and those kinds of things that uh that might be useful for substitute drivers and that sort of thing. So, uh, it it
113works hand in hand with the parent app that you guys use for letting parents know when the buses are coming. Um, special ed transportation, it's um, so special ed transportation is is extremely challenging uh, everywhere. This is not just county schools because of the number of programs and because of the different requirements and the different equipment that's that's needed. Um, one of the things that uh that we're recommending and it's already actually had started when we got here was transitioning so that the special ed bus routing database goes into the edge routing database. There had been historically there had been some reasons through through weis or for some other reasons that not all the special ed bus routing data had been in the same routing database as everything else. And so, uh, so that even
114even though that's going on right now, we wanted to go ahead and highlight that as a recommendation that that that information get in there. Um, we, uh, you know, we want to make sure that every student who has an IEP and is being considered for transportation is looked through look through an appropriate lens. This isn't to say that it that it is or it isn't, but it's important that that each student be considered before we do anything providing any sort of special transportation first and foremost. Can that student ride the the normal school bus that's going, you know, that's going through his neighborhood, transporting his non-disabled peers? So, is he able to ride that bus? and then considering all the other options before you get to contracting out for that student's uh for that student's
115transportation. uh we would like to see uh and I could I could make this recommendation for a lot of school systems um is having an interdep departmental task force that would that would you know sit down and discuss those issues and look through that lens about the transportation for students with special needs where programs are loc based on the services that they need and and the programs that that are located at the schools they're assigned to. Can I just I just want to clarify though that in the edulog system it has students and routing what we don't have is we don't have the routes of special ed students in the edgelog system. Is that correct? Right. That's being transitioned. So yeah the data in fact and you'll hear Spencer say the analysis that he did
116focus mainly on the general ed uh because it wasn't in the same database. Yes sir. Okay. uh other transportation segments. There's there's just a lot of things that that make transportation more complicated and and more expensive. Uh McKenna Bento transportation providing educational stability for students experiencing homelessness. Uh they are they are entitled to return to their their school of origin and that can get expensive depending on where that school of origin is. Uh the overflow transportation situation that uh that you guys have here. So, we have some some children that are going out of district because they're being uh they're being overflowed and I guess I don't have to explain that to to you folks because it's your term, but uh going from, you know, the school that's closest to them to a school that
117has that has room for them, that gets expensive. Uh as well as pre-K students that uh that have an IEP, they're provided transportation. A lot of that is done through through Epic. and being, you know, being just pre-K and just the ones with the IP, they're kind of scattered out. Um, so our recommendation is the broad recommendation that is just to look for opportunities to serve additional students such as those listed there on the Berkeley County Schools school buses. It's not to say that it can be done or that it can't be done. Um, but you know, the recommendation is to continue to look through for those opportunities. uh discipline on the buzzes and I I basically mentioned mentioned all this uh no extraordinary problems with uh uh with discipline. We would recommend and uh
118we would recommend that you continually work with school administrators. So, you know, just to stress the importance of responding to disciplined reports from bus drivers and providing communication back to those bus drivers that are involved in in those incidents and at the same time continually remind the bus operators of the importance of maintaining good discipline on their buses and the processes for uh for communication. It's uh you know the bus driver has a lot to do other than just discipline on the buses and school administrators have a lot to do other than just take care of discipline issues on buses. Uh but it is a part of the thing and the more communication that you can foster um the better. You know, we heard from we heard from drivers and school administrators alike that they
119support the other and they understand. Uh but certainly a reminder doesn't hurt. Uh the technology in the uh in the operations, not just on the bus, right? So there's over 100 users have access to the Samsara GPS, right? So, a lot most of those are uh are school-based folks, but they can find out where the, you know, where the vehicle is, and if there's a, you know, if there's a bus that hasn't made it to school yet, they can look up and find out why. That uh that system had 96% healthy equipment, right? When we looked at it, it's very good. The equipment's basically up and running. The Edgelon parent portal is the uh is the app that will let parents find out when the bus is coming and how far away it is and
120that sort of thing. There's over 3,000 approved student access requests in that system. Um, we already mentioned the routing, the edge log routing. Currently, the general ed and the special ed being brought into the routing system. Uh, Edgelon web query. Uh, it's it's in your app called find my school or find my bus stop or whatever. Takes some stress off the transportation department because parents can look up and see where their bus stop where their bus stop is much like they can in the parent portal lab. Uh we would we would like to see uh you know at the at the beginning of each school school year to continually reminding parents the benefits they can get from that transportation app from that parent. Uh the uh the route management training uh provided to staff especially
121in special ed routing because we hadn't been doing the special ed routing in Edgelon. when the staff are are identified to do that then uh some route management training is going to be is going to be probably needed either internally or externally or whatever and then you know finally in in in in this list and a lot of what Spencer is going to talk about it relies on good data right so so keeping the routes updated reflecting true wrership is is basically it's an important best practice in transportation planning So, and I I'm pretty good at talking about slides that haven't shown up yet, but I'm going to go ahead and do it do it anyway. And uh that is uh there many districts will say, you know, if a student hasn't ridden the bus
122in 10 days or 20 days, then they would be removed from the bus stop assignment in the system. And that's not to say they can't ride the bus again, but that's going to say you're not going to get, you know, if this student's not going to ride, you're not going to go two miles up that dead end road and back every day and you know that student is not going to ride. So to keep those routes updated allows you to do some planning as you go through the through the school year. Uh the staffing, the current organization staffing certainly um is the department's not overstaffed. Um there are uh there are a lot of folks out there that are driving routes at some point during the day, some of them every day. We do have
123this this situation here where uh we do have this uh segregated kind of transportation system between general ed over here, special ed over here. A lot of times I believe the term that we've been using is siloed. But it is Yeah, you're right. It is safe. Yeah. um when whatever it is when you know routing routing is where some of that comes together right is where where the the uh you know whether you were talking about general ed special ed uh special programs whatever that uh that you can consider all of that together in the in the routing system and so that's that's one reason that we really want to see the uh you know see all of that brought together so uh whether it is uh you know whether it's the yellow buses and
124even having some visibility into those students that are being transported on uh on vans and the contract carriers. Having all that information in there together, it makes it easier if you identify a student that can be moved off of a contract carrier onto a yellow bus. Then you have all the information right there. So I don't realize how much I talk with both hands until I can. I did battle with sidewalk and sidewalk and water. So anyway, um so so recommendations in terms of of staffing. All right. So so there needs to be and I understand that there's some some transition in the in the department over there and we're that's not part of what we were looking at, but we we are here to you know tell you that there needs to be a
125position identified to focus on routing students, right? And uh that should be transported on the on the special ed bus. Somebody has to do that routing for the for the special ed students. uh somebody has to be responsible for doing the routing and the associated technology whether it's the GPS or the tablets or student writership the parent app all of that uh that takes you know that takes someone to do and uh again the you know the mechanics and you know part of this is just kind of my you know my opinion but uh you know it's just it's just a real shame that the mechanics are not able to keep buses you know inspected like they're required to be because they're out driving the routes. And honestly, um you're losing, I think, probably some,
126uh, you know, some good mechanic candidates because because they're mechanics. They're not bus drivers. They don't want to be they don't want to be driving the bus. And that's, you know, that's not just with that particular repaired position, but that could that could happen. Well, to to say uh about mechanics driving the bus, I mean, that started years ago. It was supposed to be just once in a while, and it was once in a while, but when we started not being able to get drivers, it's turned into Yeah. I don't have to tell Eric, he knows it's the only daily occurrence for those guys. And just as you said, how can they work on the buses if they're on the bus driving it? So that's not what we hired them to do, but I know
127their job description is mechanic/bus operator, isn't it? So yeah. Yeah. And that's a that's an that's an important distinction, right? So, so if I'm hired as a as a mechanic/bus operator and it's understood that I have to be able to move buses around from one part of the county to the other and maybe drive an occasional you know trip if the district's in the mind that's different than you know you know you call on me every day and say here's here's what you know here's budget arrive today I feel bad that they have every day yeah I mean it's not it's it's not necessarily designed that way but it's it's it's what we have right uh and then a position to uh to focus on activity trips and the other contracted operations. Uh that's something
128that's in place now and uh is there's there are I forget how many how many activity trips during the course of the the school year to keep up with 1600 trips a year. So yeah, there's a lot to a lot to keep up with and u you know being able to keep tabs on the contract with invoices stuff. uh a few uh few comparisons to other school districts. We grabbed some in nearby uh in nearby states that had about the same number of students andor uh routes and buses. And and really we just wanted to make the the point here is that you know what we're suggesting is to to increase the number of resources dedicated to routing buses is not out of line with what other districts your size, other transportation operations your size
129uh do. a lot of the ones that we had listed and we honestly didn't cherrypick. We went more looking for uh how many routes they had and then and then wrote down how many routers the other way around. Um so u yeah that it's it's it's just one piece of the of the operation but it's it's something that I think would benefit uh school bus safety. So, the drivers that we talked to, they have a they have a safety focus. That's what we would expect. That's what we would hope for. And in fact, they do. That's a that's a you know, that's you know, kudos to the folks that do their training and their leadership and meetings that they have and all that kind of stuff. Uh we weren't crazy about the number of buses
130that we saw loading and unloading at individual campuses. Um just a you know couple of quick pictures that we grabbed there where you have students walking between roads and buses to get from the bus to the school. It's not ideal from a from a safety perspective. That was uh the the top picture there at Hedgesville is is uh we had buses and car poolool and no students out in the middle of that lot but a lot of different kinds of traffic at the same time. So from a safety perspective could you know could be improved a little better and then improving writing efficiency and hopefully this is getting to your stuff Spenc. Um so the the efficient and this is part of what we were you know a big part of what we were asked
131to come in and look at is to how to improve routing efficiency. So, you know, to design and operate the runs so that they arrive at the park at appropriate times so that you don't have buses getting to school, you know, 20 minutes before they're allowed to be released from the buses and and you have, you know, kids riding the bus for however long from from home to school and then they sit on the bus for 20 minutes is uh you know, is not ideal. So operating those runs the way that they're designed to do that, identifying who plans to ride the bus, which students are going to be riding the bus, design the routes to fill the bus as much as possible, um without the route time being, you know, inord inordinately long, making
132good use of the hours contracted by the bus drivers. And uh you know, you've got you got a lot of good bus drivers out there with a lot of hours available to you. So um you know making good use of that removing student names from the routes after they don't ride for some period of time whether that's 10 days 20 days um and then um combined runs when the number of students is reduced so that it opens up capacity. And I know there are some challenges there doing that mid year, but uh basically that's what we do in in school transportation planning is when if we if we have some attrition and a a bus route gets light on capacity, we look at ways to combine that with another route to to use the capacity
133that's available on that on that bus. Now you asked us the way they're going to state law. of being slave being assigned to a classroom. What routes? Bus routes. All right. So, you don't have to put the uh Ramy. Do we have the flexibility to change a bus ring? 50%. Yeah, I would say this is something we and we addressed that in the in the larger report and I would say that's something that uh you know that you guys probably want to to look at as to how you want to how you want to best handle that. Um, but yeah, I mean I understand what you're saying and that's kind of why we put the appendix in there that that that has some of that. Um, so it's not necessarily straightforward, but uh, but there
134is but there's definitely some flexibility. So I'll just leave it at that. Um and then and yes and and President Long mentioned the 50% and that's the recommendation is that if there's you know if there's a route that's changed some uh by some amount let's make sure to document that uh you know how it changed and whether that is or is not more than 50% of the driver's well and I think that because I know I've already gone through this presentation with you that what he's going to be sharing with you in a second is a scenario of where potential savings could occur in the future. future. It is going to probably require us to take a strategic look at all of our routes and what we can what we can modify this year than
135we want to be able to modify this year. But what we can't and it's going to be more longterm than um we need to be able to pro what we really need to be able to do is assess for transfer season every year what we might need to have major changes to. And so there may be a significant number of changes that could be warranted and it's not to reduce staff, it's to reduce routes so that we have actually bandwidth of staff to cover routes. Right. So that's user mechanics. That's exactly right. And so I think that that's going to be something that we want to be able to modify what we can now. Uh but if if we can't based upon code and those sort of things, it may be a change that we
136have to wait for another year. Sure. Sure. and and I realize by you having to click my slides, it means you have to pay attention to what I'm saying. So, I apologize. Uh just a few uh a few recommendations that came from our our financial review. We we did the review of some of the primary funding sources and expenditures. Um most of the uh most of the bus operators and the aid seem to have at least some extra capacity in the in the workday. Um the relationship between Berkeley County Schools and Epic is uh is such that actual expenses are paid as we as we understand it rather than a daily rate per vehicle. It could be that that's a more economical way of doing uh doing contracting. Uh Varsity Travel is an important partner
137uh with uh with the school district and does an awful lot of work and I'm sure you guys are are aware of that. Uh it is uh it is a big big expense item for you. uh they're they're build at those those trips uh seem to be built at six hours a day and uh that uh that tends to add up. So, it's something to you know, it didn't happen didn't happen overnight. It's not going to it's not going to change overnight, but it it's definitely something to pay attention to as we look at the best way to move some of these special groups of kids that require some of this specialized uh transportation. I have a question about that, but I'll save it till the end. Okay. Thank you. Okay. Uh so financial recommendations
138then improve routing including the special ed to make better use of the driver workday. Uh work to transfer some of the contracted transportation to the Berkeley County schools buses to the extent possible. Uh evaluate cost and benefit of of paying the u the varsity travel invoices by check versus PC card. Uh that was one of the things that Varsity said to us. they could bill less if uh if we pay by check minimizing the number of contracts that require an aid. Uh we also heard that uh you know they weren't in some cases they were coninced that the the student needed an aid to have successful transportation, but every time you pay for that aid, you're paying more per per hour. Uh and then just there's mechanics. I didn't realize how much I put that
139in there, but there anyway. So, yeah, we're gonna No, it's it's it it stresses their bandwidth when they're working on a bus and and they have to go jump on jump on a bus to to take students and then come back and it it's a lot. So, I'm I'm glad that you emphasized that. Yeah. And and um they should be very fortunate um to you know, they should feel fortunate at the fleet that they have to to work with. It's good good looking fleet. Um, so the uh so the management of the data, the routing efficiency, again the 71 yellow bus routes that transport students with special needs. It's a it's a bus built to transport 59 and then you put a wheelchair lift on there. Um, and and that needs to be brought into
140the edge database so that all that routing can be can be considered together. Okay. So, Spencer, you wanna you want to pick it up here quick? We didn't even talk about where you were gonna start. Uh, yeah, I can help chime in here as well. Uh, first of all, can people hear me just fine or am I uh my volume too low? Am I speaking too fast? You're good. Okay. Always good to be sure because you never know with some of these uh presentations and the technology for such. Um, and if I want to get on to the next slide, I'll just mention uh I'll ask just for the next slide. So, um, first of all, thanks everybody for, uh, being here tonight and appreciate you guys inviting us back. So, I wish I could
141be there in person, but, uh, believe virtual will just have to suffice for now. Now, Derek has been wonderful in talking about a lot of the different aspects of where routing has been good and where there might be some improvements as well. On top of that, continuing with this uh, routing efficiency discussion, the wrership is an area that we feel that there could be some areas of improvement within Berkeley County. Uh the first thing we looked at was the assigned loads in the edge log data. Now these are what's managed in the routing system by the routers on a daily weekly monthly basis basis. And when we looked at the runs the you know what the buses are doing across the day each individual run and looking at the number of students that are assigned
142to it based on this chart below very few runs were transporting more than 40 students in the data. I mean really the average was 31 students if you're really playing it nicely. Um really that distribution of assigned loads on runs was lower than we would expect there to be uh especially when there's a number of runs that are only transporting you know 10 students 15 students things that are less than 25 students usually raises an eyebrow with us um because these are not van runs that are being operated. These are the yellow bus routes with plenty of capacity on the buses but yet in the assigned load data we just were not seeing as much as we thought. Can uh can we go to the next slide please? Now so the problem comes back as
143we were talking about earlier it's the wrership is not being closely tracked in the data as we would like to see. Now we understand that wrership and keeping students assigned to runs. There has to be policies to keep that student assigned for at least a period of given time. But if that student isn't riding, it has this tendency to distort the accuracy of the data because you're having students ride the bus in the data, but that isn't actually happening on the road. In some of these cases, you know, you have students that might start this year riding the bus, but then stop, you know, for all sorts of reasons. They move, they change programs, maybe their older sibling gets a driver's license, and they start riding with them. These are all valid market outcomes that
144we expect in students. So writership will always start highest in the fall but then it decreases as the year goes on. And if this is not reflected in the data these runs you know become basically artificially inflated on students. They become artificially inflated with runtime and distances and as a result when you need to make changes in the data your routers are less sure about what is actually happening on the road. Uh, and on top of that, when we looked at the headcounts actually at the schools, I mean, we went to 14 different school locations throughout our multiple visits. Some were in the morning, some in the afternoon. It was a mix of, you know, primary, intermediate, middle, high schools. We looked at all sorts of things, different locations. And on the average, I mean,
145only 64% of the wrership numbers were found to be there. I mean 64% of the students that we are supposed to be writing in the data are what we were actually counting. Some schools were higher you know some were in the 70s and 80s% some are down in the 50s and that's not to say that the data is necessarily bad. It's just when wrership changes over time the data does need to have that work to be updated be and especially in a system that's already stressed in terms of the number of drivers it has and the number of routes it's supposed to meet each day. And so when we look at this here, we we kind of start to see all right well wrership isn't really affecting well writership isn't really being recorded. So what
146is the data actually looking like? Now can we go to the next slide please? Um because then we will talk about capacity. So when we looked at capacity we basically looked at the stated limit of what your buses are allowed to carry for high schools for middle schools you know intermediate and primary schools. You know each each bus can carry a different number of students. So what we did is we took those numbers that were provided to us. We applied it to the assigned loads in the data not the wrership what was in the data and we compared that against okay does the bus how many seats are being used on the bus and again it showing how u it shows how ridership and assign loads are not exactly marrying with each other and they're
147not even exactly the sun loads on themselves have questions because there are runs in the data that had over 100% capacity. These were high school runs primarily where students will elect to receive the transportation, but most of the time it's done as just in case we need it. A lot of the students are planning to ride the bus and never do. But these students are still being put on the bus. And as a result, routers know this. They're overloading the runs because they know that only 80% of the high school students are riding it at the beginning of the year. A number that decreases as time goes on. But if it's not updated in the data over time, we get these interesting numbers where, okay, buses are supposedly over 100% capacity, yet we're only hitting
14864% wrership rate. It's this inconsistency in the datas that make it harder for routers to be effective in what they do. It it it doesn't allow them to look at a run and say, "Okay, well, how do I fit three more students on this run that just moved into the district?" Because you don't know how many students are writing. Um, so it's become that's becomes a a real big sticking point through this whole study we did. Um, and if we move on to the next slide, actually, we'll talk about the sample data that we looked at. Uh, so we looked at the Spring Mills area. The reason being is because we had done some on-site observations early in the study. we, you know, looking around the district, looking at the numbers in the data and
149looking at the area that it services, we had a belief that, okay, if we just go a little bit of a step extra in this study, do a little bit of sample optimization in here, you know, rebuild the runs and then put them on bus routes and see what we get, then let's see, okay, is this a system that really needs to be uh reworked because there's no more efficiency to be get or can we get something better? A lot of words I'm throwing at you here, but the whole thing was is that we took a small sample of routes in your data. We reworked them as best as we could and we saw what we got. Now, some of the bus runs we kept as they were because there are parts of your transportation
150that's operating quite effectively. One area that your district is pretty effective at is transfers. Transfer stops, transfer runs, all of that stuff. You have a system where students in many cases are traveling long distances to get to their schools. Some because they're McKenna Vento, some because they're overflow students, but you still have to provide transportation for this and transfer runs. Even though it does increase their ride time for students, it is an effective way to still meet service requirements while still providing good quality transportation. Those runs and routes we preserved in the data while looking at all the other stuff. And if we go to the next slide, we will see some of the results that we had in the data on that first row. The current spring mills complex has 42 routes that we
151identified for use in the study. Now, of course, nothing changed uh in the original data because we're using as a comparison. We did two scenarios here. One of them was the first scenario where we just said we're going to bus students directly to school. And that's because you guys have tons of multi-chool runs, multi-schooling, and all that stuff. I mean, you have students from different schools riding on the same bus all over the district. For many districts, that is an efficient system, but it requires a lot of work. So, one thing we do is, okay, let's just get rid of it. What happens if we directly bus students school? Don't mess with any of those transfers or not transfers, but any of the multi-chooling. Well, we found that three buses, you know, could be cut
152if you were just directly busing students to school, you know, so it makes you head scratch like, okay, is that efficient or not? Are we doing things wrong? That's why we went to the second scenario and we said, okay, this multi-schooling system, we're going to keep it, but we're going to see how we can maybe improve upon it. You know, we want to make sure that we're packing buses as much as we can. We only want to be doing multi-chool runs if it's efficient. That means there was still some direct to school busing, but by allowing some multi-schooling, we were able to take advantage of all the fact that your schools in that Spring complex are close together and that drive time between each of the schools was small enough that multi-chooling was efficient and
153if we really put in a little bit more effort to it, I mean, we were able to take 10 buses off the road. Now, this of course is all math. It's all theoretical, but we still used a software system with tools that are available right now to Berkeley County and its routers and we took the existing stop assignments, existing students, all of that stuff that is currently on the road, but we just reconfigured it. So, while it still has that mathematical thing of it's not on the road yet, it is using the actual stop locations. It's actually computing drive times, ride times, and all that stuff. And it is, you know, putting something that, you know, if a district, you know, had done a project with us, you know, for full optimization, we'd have done
154things where we put those on the road. But here's the thing is districts also do that themselves too with these tools. Um, but it's the whole point of this was twofold. One is to show that there is efficiency that can be improved in your district. And number two is that the tools to do this are within the system already. It just requires time of routers to be able to do that stuff. Um, and if we go on to the next slide, please. Um, that kind of really gets to my what I was saying here too. Sure, maybe 24%'s optimistic, but when we look at the wrership levels, we used the numbers that were in the edgelog system, not what we were counting on buses. And what we were using in the system was much higher
155assigned loads than what's actually on the road right now. So, it's one of those things where we tried to take a more conservative approach to this. We tried, we didn't try to, you know, cut buses left and right. you know, this will work, this may work, but we let the system kind of be more cautious, which is why we usually have to step in to do all this extra work. Um, because that's what the system finds from a technical feasible standpoint. Now, if you put in extra work, who knows what you could get with that, but let's get the point is we need to get past the numbers here. And the point is that there is this percent that can be taken and either taken off the road or put towards something else. And that's
156why you know our recommendation here is that VC you know you guys need to undertake a period of reworking the routes but then again we get to the issues of do we have enough people to do that how much can the routes change and these are discussions that will have to be done later you know uh next slide please um because I could talk about optim rest of the year just a second that that this is u you know I mean first of all what we were looking at is to identify some potential efficiencies that could be could be gained. And that's kind of what Spencer is looking at. And and this is, as he mentioned, the you know, not the ideal time of year to be doing that because you've had all of this
157attrition and, you know, kids driving to school and all that kind of stuff that happens in the in the springtime. So, so what we were seeing in our observations in the past month, uh, were springtime observations. And so, we, you know, we recognized that. uh but but he went ahead you know full board doing the doing the analysis just to give you an idea of some possible uh you know scenarios that you could look for as you go into the in the future years. Okay Spencer I appreciate that. Uh let's see contracted services. So we did look at you know four groups of data routing data in this in the study. the edgelong data which I've talked at length about here that we did the optimization work in. Uh the yellow bus routes for the
158special needs IEP code students which we've kind of talked about but because they're not in the system we weren't able to do much. Uh and then the last two are the contracted services one for epic and one for ver varsity and we did have some data that we could look at with those guys which did provide some help as well. Um, and as was kind of talked on touched on already by Derek, I mean, this is especially with varsity. I mean, these are valuable partnerships that you guys have and they serve a very critical need. I mean, especially with varsity when it comes to transporting students maybe out of district or maybe having to deal with students, you know, that are dealing with disciplinary issues or whatnot. There's a lot of administrative exceptions that don't
159fit under the umbrella of yellow bus services that are valuable from a contracted standpoint. and those relationships you maintain with Epic and Varsity should continue. Um, but I will say that when it comes to a cost per student, these contracted services are going to be higher than a yellow bus. It's just natural. That's just what you're going to expect when you're transporting a fleet of students with vans instead of yellow buses, you know, when you have a private company versus the giant fleet and, you know, services that a district has. Um, but I will say that it's like the fewer students that you can put under varsity and Epic, you know, the better because those are a cost to the district and you're already using Epic and Varsity to a significant stance, you know, and
160any reduction in either of those, it's not like saying you're just eliminating any relationship or trying to dent it, but it's just a matter of trying to bring some of those students back under your umbrella because once a student is handed off to varsity, you know, for routing, there's not much control over separate from the district side of things. So, you don't know how efficient it is. Um, and just looking at cost per student, yeah, it is it is just simply the highest. So, the less the more more students you can shift off of Varsity and Epic on back onto yellow bus routes, the better you're going to be and the more you're going to be able to use Varsity and Epic to do this the services that you well originally intended them to. So,
161uh, next slide, please. Um, unless Dererick, you have anything to add about contracted services before I move on. Okay. Okay. All right. So this one this one is really uh this one came up frequently through the whole study and I deal with bell times and time a lot with school districts and bell times are a huge subject you know and it is a it might be opening up the can of worms trying to talk about it here but the point I'm going to make here is that your bell times are pretty unbalanced in in the morning you and I'll show you here in a second with the chart. I'm sure some of you already seen it, but in the morning you you're bus drivers. You guys have plenty of time. You have more time than
162you know what to do with. You know, buses are able to make plenty of fine connections. The buses idling at a school are fine from a technical standpoint because they're not, you know, your buses will have way more time to complete their tasks than you really need, which is good. That's what we like. You know, bus drivers shouldn't be have to be stressed to do their jobs at all. However, what works in the AM doesn't work in the PM. And there's, you know, many reasons for this. You know, the difference of school day lengths you have, the dead travel times between multi-chool runs, the idle times that you have. But if we go to the next slide, you'll see the visualization of there's just not enough time in the afternoon. I mean, you have plenty
163of gap time between, you know, the high and middle that first tier of runs in the morning that are the high and middle schools. and that when you follow it up with the primary intermediate on that first tier buses have a huge amount of time between them generally speaking to make those connections but in the afternoon everything just kind of collapses on each other. I mean you have buses and routes that are stacked on top of each other. It's a just a competition for time. Um it's the time of day where your transportation department is the most stressed because there's uh usually not enough drivers. staff are having to go out and drive at least once a week per staff pretty much. Um, just because that afternoon period is difficult. Now, what do we do
164about this? That is the real tough thing. And ideally, what I would like to see you guys do is get any sort of separation between those two tiers in the afternoon. I don't know. I don't care if it's 5 minutes, 10 minutes, or whatever, but any operational breathing space you can give your drivers in that afternoon between that first tier, which services the high and middle, and that second tier, which services the elementary and intermediate schools, like that when you're collapsing that right there, that is making it infinitely harder to, you know, meet service requirements each day. Um, it makes it more difficult for the s for a bus to do the same run in the morning as it is in the afternoon. um which makes it more likely the students going to have to
165change buses and have different drivers. And it's just it's just this lack of time in the afternoon that is it it you guys make it work now, but it's only going to become worse as time goes on because your transportation requirements are not going down. Um they're going up still. You know, you're still going to have to provide transportation for all these students and the demand for these services are increasing. Now whether you just simply move bell times a little bit apart that could work wonders. You know if you could add a little bit more uh instructional time on the primary primary intermediate schools would be even better but that's harder to do. But the point I want to make here is that this right here is creating a huge challenge for any efficiency to
166have. You know you guys could have a great routing staff but if there's not enough time for buses to do what they need to do in the afternoon everyone's going to be in reaction mode. So, and and that's kind of where this all led to me. If I'm going to give kind of an overview feeling of this, I just felt a lot of this is in reaction mode. I mean, your transportation department's already moving mountains to meet service requirements daily. I mean, they've done a lot of work through this the year already to try to make sure you're not having to cancel runs. And I mean, given the limited resources that they've had and the the bell time rules they have to, you know, all this stuff, they I thought they were doing a pretty
167pretty good job all things considered. But that doesn't mean that they're, you know, things can't be better because these guys are always in reaction mode here. You know, they want to improve the bonds. They want to optimize and be better. It's just getting the resources and times to do all that has been difficult because they're always well if they're not trying to make sure the runs are working, they're out driving them, you know. So that's that's kind of my thing right there to try to tie it together. But let's let's move on to the next slide. And I think I could probably help Derek jump back in here a little bit too before I start rambling too much and getting off the subject. You know, I think I think we'll leave this uh leave this
168summary just sit here for a second because it's basically repeating some things that we have uh that we have said. Uh I should have said at the at the very beginning that uh Edelog really appreciates the opportunity to do this study for you. uh the cooperation that we received everywhere uh you know central office communications finance special ed everywhere and then especially at the transportation office uh you know everybody was very receptive and willing to share how things are and what's going on and what concerns they have uh even contractors and so uh we really do appreciate that it made it uh it made the whole thing a lot more doable getting that getting that kind of cooperation. So uh yeah so we can uh we can open for questions comments or questions just I'll
169start with a wait u Dr. intersects are clocks. I know the military we used to zero clocks with Denver and the atomic clock down there. Um and on your phones you I'm sure they're ser are all of our schools in the same exact moment that you you could synchronize your clocks. No. Okay. Well, hang on. Hang on. I don't have the answer to that. And unfortunately, I have two different people in this room saying one two different things. So, you're saying no, you're saying yes. I I don't know the answer to that, but I I'll need to get it. Um I don't know that I have Why do you say no? Because we've had an issue with this for a very, very long time. The clocks are not synchronized because they're I think they operate
170differently. Cuz I I know for one that a school where we're at least 2 minutes late than what the the phone says. Okay. Why do you say yes? Servers on our data center all point back to what he's talking about the atomic clock. Perhaps the systems don't speak back to our servers. I actually program the bells. It's right high school. Oh, okay. And so it's not precise and you have to go in. It's an old system. uh and you have to program it then hit a button and there's about a 60-second countdown and that hooks up. So it was done locally not actually as part of the whole district. So that might be something we'll have to look into. The GPS on each bus is is in sync with the same with the same time
171for what that's working regardless of whether we're on a time or whatever. um um we you know we we can't start and end school until staff gets there. So regardless of you know there so many hours in a day that they're going to work and if the school doesn't open till 7:50 or whatever and the bus can get in the front of the school at 7:45 the bus is going to sit there. So regardless, am I not right, Eric? You're right. Yeah, we we we actually designed the routes to arrive five minutes early. Um so that we can get the buses in there. Yes. And I I say this knowing that somebody's going to come back at this, but the buses really are supposed to move when you got kids moving around, right? and and
172I didn't see a lot of bus moving with with kids around them. I my radar just goes up between the buses anyway. But yeah, that's you know, thanks for clarifying that. I do have a concern uh regarding city travel. Um, was it not my uh maybe I'm misunderstood, but they charge us up to six hours a day and and they could only be calling a student for an hour a day, but we're paying for six. Correct. I would say the hour a day is certainly the exception from what we what we saw of it. I guess I think that's the example she's trying to get. I mean, say three hours a day, but we're paying for six. The invoices that we saw seemed to be six hours. And again, we didn't we didn't dive in
173invoice by invoice, but that's what we saw in this. We have we have to take a deep dive into their what their routing is. Um I mean, I appreciate you, but we need to take a deep dive. Yes. I mean, because they're they're running they're running basically what like epic bands do. They're we're trying to get the best use out of them to do a high school run and an elementary run. you you had a number I don't know if we saw it here. How many routes does Epic or how how many routes does varsity actually have? 50. So 50 routes total. Uh there's 59 in the data that I was provided. Um that's in the full report. So, so 59 routes from Varsity daily daily daily and those 59 routes are obviously on top
174of our 240. Okay. Um but they have that's what that's what our yearly expense is going to is those 59 rounds and they might have one or two kids on. the the data I saw the special ed are the ones that are different that have the one maybe two um just because of behavior of where we're taking them. Um the numbers for McKenna we we were at 180 this year and the overflows ended up being I think 109. So that's where a lot of a lot of the growth with varsity has been through those two. But compared to what they charge us per hour isn't about $89 an hour. Yeah. If you have an a hourly rate goes up 256 hours a day. Now I had a map that I had that I thought was
175in the presentation and and evidently was not. But I mean this was a this is a single student run from varsity uh you know from home to uh Cumberland and it's yeah it's you know an hour and a half one way and then if that driver comes back there's an hour and a half the other way and then if they go back to pick them up and all of a sudden you're over six hours. Well that I understand but I'm talking about your um normal just staying in Berkeley County. Yes. Staying in Berkeley County. You said that was an example was a student that lives in Cumberland. Yes. Lives here and goes to school in Cumberland. And we have Cumberland, Maryland. Yes. Oh, that's one of the placements. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. Okay. Well, we
176have some in Pennsylvania. Yeah. Places like those. I understand. I think what's startling and to their point is that if you're looking at and this is specific to your slide deck of page 22 of 28 um the routing efficiency for consolidating bus routes I mean it's scenario two is just startling um you're going from typical 42 that that's current to 32 and there's a reduction of 23.8% that's that's crazy. Um, but at the same time, I'm just sitting there and and looking at how many buses we have running that are at only 50% capacity or less. Like that is I I'm astonished. I I shouldn't say I'm that surprised, but I'm I'm that surprised. um not having everything in edgul seems to be like a lot of the crooks. It feels like that solves that
177solves multiple areas of of issue and and we've not capitalized on that at all. Is that a correct? Once you Yeah. Once once you get everything in the same database, that will allow you some more flexibility to do some more. Yes, it will help. From what remember now Eric, correct me if I'm wrong. Uh, didn't we try to put special ed in natural before and there's just so many kids that are We did. We did initially with the older software that we had, but now that we have newer software and I've been working with um John Carpet with us. We're trying to identify what we really need is to be able to upload those special ed kids that have transportation on their IE into the Edelong system. Yes. Um it when we went in and
178looked at it, it identified those students. However, we were missing half of them. Um so whatever whatever end that is or beginning, we have to get the data in there correctly. Um so that we just can pick it up and send it to Angel. Well, because we've got those kids crisscrossing all over each other when they could Well, I will say that part of part of that has part of that part of that crisscrosses because we've been doing hubs and next year we we have taken strategic plans to to move away from some of the hubs because what we find is that there are so many students from a district from a zone school that we could actually have their own program at that school. And so um for example uh Inwood is a prime
179example. The students at Inwood were being were going somewhere else but they actually have enough to justify a classroom at that site. And so that helps with the routing of those kids moving around also. So so that's a that's a big piece of it. And I think that Miss Powers, you're spot on. And I think that that's where the crux of the presentation uh conclusion summary was was that there are cost savings to be had, but it's most likely going to be through us taking a look at the routing and the number of routes that we have because as you as you pointed out on that spring mills scenario, if we were able to reduce the number of routes at Spring Mills by 10, just as an example, yeah, if we were able to replicate
180that at all four high all four high school feeder patterns, that's 40 40 runs. That's that that would allow us that's varsity well or close to it. But it would allow us the the bandwidth to be able to pick up some of these other student runs that we need so that we could do what their their their suggestion is is that allow varsity to be the um the field trips and the the uh the outlier type type activities. So So I have a question. So what what is the time difference between the various schools that are in the spring complex in terms of their starting and end times? High school um spring we we have it staggered um spring middle school 710 spring high school 720 um and then you have varying from primary to
181PTOIC they're 8:15 to 820. Yeah. And the reason I asked that is because the thought was to have multi school busing. Well, be able to bus high school middle in the various grades and how then okay you kids get off kids sit here for another 35 minutes. We should we should when we say multi-chool busing we're talking about basically what you're currently doing now. Okay. Putting putting uh elementary and intermediate on the same bus at the same time. And then all those buses go to go to school A and then after they unload then they go to school B. And then the same thing with uh with high school and middle school. I think one of the things that was and you know with with me it's it's all about transportation and everything else takes
182a backseat. I realize I have that bias and it's not fair. But one of the things that that really got to me was is uh you know somebody was telling me that there's at least one school that can't have a full staff staff meeting after school, right? Because they're on that second tier and somebody has to look after the kids coming into the buses and and they're just not able to free up all staff at the same at the same time. And you know, as much as I like for it to be all about transportation, that's kind of the tail wagging the dog. Well, that's kind of what I am. One of the things I've written down here, you know, it's a lot of it staff related and and one thing I want to I
183don't I don't want to keep down pushing our transportation down the department because they do a heck of a job. Uh and it's a difficult job. Do we need to make changes? Yeah. And I think we're all willing to work to make those changes so things can work better. So um so on on the line of changes, one of my questions is you mentioned staffing. Well, this is maybe for Mr. Saxs and maybe Dr. Skoolie. Have we looked into are we going to be hiring new routers? Well, I so I think that that's one of the the the big aha that we have is that when we look at districts of comparable size of of comparable routes um that we were we were not utilizing the staff that we had I think in the in
184the most efficient way because we only had one route well I know said one and a half routers but we really had one person dedicated to routing and I think that what we need to do is work with Mr. Kecker and uh Dr. schoolie to um and and I think even maybe maybe edgelog you know from from a consulting standpoint as to how how many routers is it going to take for us to build capacity because my other concern is is that that one router um which has has been put on transfer you know we need to make sure that we don't have just one person doing routing because if something happens to that person all of the knowhow sort of goes with it and so or if they're down sick or or you or
185something like that. So I think that we need to build um u the word I'm looking for is capacity. What is it? Capacity. We need to build capacity, but we need to also build redundancy. So we need some redundancies in place so that when when someone is out that someone else can just pick up and and take it. And so um I think that we may actually need more than two individuals doing routing to be honest with you. And so I think we need to take a look at how can we how can we do that because we if you look at the examples um of in the appendix I think it's appendix A um you know they've done a great job of providing some scenarios of how other districts have staffed their their transportation
186departments you know and so as you look at our department um how can we how can we learn from others um to offer that efficiency um so that we're getting all of the right people in the right place at the right time to be able to deliver our students from home to school back. So, we have we have we had discussions about the current router that we have or are we allowed to even say that? No. Well, what I would say is that we know that we're going to have to be able to based upon these recommendations that was presented to the board this evening. We're going to have to go back and figure out how do we need to make sure that we're staffed appropriately. And I would imagine that that's going to be
187involve creating positions that meet the needs that individuals that perhaps were on transfer can apply for. Yeah, because I had that conversation with him, Mr. You. You have another question there. No, no, no. I think my other questions got answered. Okay. Well, I know that you were talking about having special ed meetings staffed with um or Zoom with somebody from transportation. My my question is we have how many varsity special ed individuals? I heard the individual trips, right? 50 50 trips. the actual special ed bands there was about 24. Okay. But we but I I I kind I was just trying to read between the lines. It looks like we could have some students as you were saying earlier on the yellow buses rather than on the contracted buses. and and the IEP process. Uh
188I mean I understand if the child is on is in a wheelchair they need special transportation but I'm just wondering are we overidentifying transportation needs and special and I think that's a fair question. I'm not in a position to to answer that question, but that's the kind of questions that this this um you know interdep departmental task force or whatever you know whatever it would be called would be would be looking at that. And I'm and and I'll just say, you know, just when I'm being really cynical and I'm not really I'm not certainly talking about Berkeley County, but just things I've seen in in North Carolina that there won't be anybody in the room from transportation. And the easiest thing for the folks on that IP committee to do was see, well, let's just
189put them on a cab, you know, and then transportation paying for it out of their out of their budget without anybody asking the appropriate questions. Do we have a bus? Can they ride a bus? Can they ride a regular bus? Does there have to be a load bus? I'm surprised actually that there isn't a representative quite honestly, you know, not when there when there's conversations there when there's a known anticipation of someone, you know, needing to ride a bus. I'm I'm actually surprised that there isn't um some level of transportation. Well, what I think occurs is if I'm not if I'm maybe speaking out of turn is that during the IEP process and then afterwards then they contact Eric and say this child's going to need to ride. We we would love to be a
190part of that conversation. Have to realize there's over 600. Exactly. plan. How do we do that with staff? But that's but that's where where I think the identification is pre-con conversations that take place prior to is trying to figure out if that's even a possibility or needed. But then to that same end, I know Dr. Sax and I are familiar with, you know, something recently that that transpired um with with uh his oh yes, his his child did not necessarily need special transportation and but was deemed as needed special transportation. Um and so that was one of those conversations that needed to take place. Well, there could be um there there are several scenarios that that we're going to have to take a look at. One of the scenarios and we try to keep track
191of this but I tell you what the co really messed us up. Um you have you have situations sometimes when like from either second to third grade or third grade to fourth grade there will be transportation on their IP just because they didn't provide a service at that school. Well then it doesn't get taken off in the next year. So you have you s you have some of that where it just goes flows over. So, but the short answer is I I do think that I I know that we we probably have had an over identification at the prek level. Um, and perhaps at in that scenario that that Mr. Keyer was just mentioning and that's actually something that Mr. Dilly has been looking into with his staff and making sure that as we think
192about um how we move forward, it is going to have to be collaboratively between special ed, McKenna Vento, uh which is another department and transportation because I think that the just as we have identified that there might be some that have fallen I would say that have stayed on transportation because they had services at one point and don't necessarily need it now. The same things occurred with McKenna Vento as well. And I think that we need to we need to clean that up. Um that's one of the things that I think we have we've identified over the last several months is is that this is part of the the challenge um and the efficiency problems that we have. So um you know I think moving forward though I I do I really do want to
193come back to Mr. Wright because I think he has a very important point and that is how are we going to make sure this is staffed appropriately. I mean it's so important. Yeah. I also think that as we identify again the positions that we need um I would like to be able to um with the board's blessing is to continue to work with Edgelog um I know that part of their bid was to be able to actually provide if you help me what it was called but it's the the routing guidance so the or the um well routing efficiency or whatever it was is that you could actually work with our staff to help update routes right with the simulator and so on and so forth which I think that will be job embedded professional
194development quite frankly for the people that we have at the district at the district office. So I would like to continue to partner with Edelog in order to help address some of these these challenges. Um we're vested now. We'd love to do that. Sorry. Well, one thing that concerns me though is that we have a couple individuals that are on transfer that July June 30th they'll be maybe finished there and maybe we need if that's if they're part of the dialogue. Um well, oh absolutely. I I will be quite transparent. I don't think that part of our solution is to bring back assistant directors. I think we need to look at very specialized positions around routing and um and perhaps even have some potential leadership ability with routing. Um and so we need to take
195a look at that. But I do think there's going to be an opportunity for those individuals to potentially bid on positions and for us to be able to get those positions identified and posted very timely because there's a lot of work to do between now and August 18th. It feels more equal to a coordinator's Well, we don't know that because No, no, I know. I'm saying it it doesn't feel Assistant Director. That's not Yeah. So, we just need to be able to We need to flesh that out. Absolutely. You know what I mean? I'm not listening to you because I was thinking thinking to in my head I I was just making a statement. I apologize if if if that was rude that I wasn't listening. Please repeat. Can Mr. Murphy Yes. But first one
196observation from your chart size comparison of the school districts can county has 4,000 more students geographically is much larger than Berkeley County with lots of mountains hills and yet they only have 155 routes compared to our 240 million. And uh I was just wondering have you all been doing some advising to for them? We have not, but I would not be surprised to find out that they have in some places have three tiers of bell times. I have worked a little bit with Canow in the past and run some of their data work as well. I mean, Canow is similar to Berkeley County in many ways. That way, you haven't done much work. Yeah. Well, you know, I have many I have many friends in many places, but I will say with Canawa, they are
197um yeah, they are a larger district, but most of their population is centered around that strip along was it the Alhigh River, I believe. Um the population is way more concentrated with with Canava versus Berkeley where it's much more spread out even though your district is smaller. So, buses will be filling up a lot more quickly in that district. Um, and they still kind of structure a two-tier in a lot of the district. They have tried to put three tiers in areas, but from what I understand, I mean, they just they spend a lot of time just fine-tuning the routes. The people that work there, they they they're very compartmentalized. So, people have their own routes, their own geographical area of the district they work on. Um, and that's that's what they concern themselves with.
198You know, there's collaboration amongst them, but each one is allowed to basically tinker and fine-tune their routes because that is their area. that is what they focus on. Um and you know five supervisors that's about you know less than 50 it's like what 25 routes a person. Um so it's effective for them. They they work in silos. Yeah. They have four or five hubs. Five. Well plus um when I'm thinking of this but well but I'm sorry I apologize but they're siloed but the difference is is that those each of those silos is handling everything. They're handling gen ed special ed field trips. Not bad. We It's It's four or five buses. Yeah. I'm sorry. Go ahead. Uh what I was what you were probably getting at, we have 4,000 special needs students and I
199can guarantee you they don't have that many which um really um the demographics are are hard to are hard to compare because you you you guys have had such an influx of you know special need and all that. They do very little uh they do very little contracting. Now I think Eric told me they do a lot of inl of payments to parents to to parents uh but not so much to you know to outside contractors. Well that's that's question we're missing out because the state reimbures yellow buses money but on contracted buses we're not getting that money back. Correct. Well, so actually the issue is is that there is a there is a cap on the reimbursement and we're like the only school district in the state that meets that cap, but we exceed
200that cap by about $5.5 million. Okay. So that is the problem. That's the problem. We need to be able to find a way to live within the cap, which is that was that was the uh 1% the the housing allowance money right there. That's right. Now, if you want to take on the state, I realize we're broadcasting here. But um but one of the things that that we did I don't know it's probably been 10 years ago now in North Carolina is as much as you know we're not crazy about transporting kids in vans compared to school buses from a safety perspective we did allow districts to start operating their own minivans for a lot of Mckin Vento transportation right that's not allowed here in West Virginia um but Um, I would, you know, I
201would be asking the question, uh, anyway, because it would certainly be a lot, it would be a lot more economical for you to operate your own minivans with your own staff than a contract for for somebody to do that. But you can't just decide to do that tonight because it's all out. But in in the in the really thick part of your report, Dr. California, you you would talk about a student being transported to 90 miles from here daily, right? Some days and that's a driver and a neighbor, one person, I think it is. And you say some days they don't even go to school, their child. Yeah, but I think that you're exactly right. But we didn't see anything where you're getting charged for that. if they don't is if the child doesn't make
202the doesn't make the trip. That was what what what we call replacement. That was the one place him. Yeah. But that's a long that's a long ride for anybody in any kind of view. Well, I think um we could discuss this all night. So maybe we need to have a cut off point and then come back at it sometime or allow you and the staff, Dr. instructions and staff to um to make some changes and work together and then maybe report back to us. I think our next step is is that we'll work with Mr. Keecer uh and even edilog to to develop what we think would be an appropriate system of of support staffing. I guess the question is is do you want us to go ahead and move forward what we think will
203be the the right thing and post those jobs and then bring it to you for your own decision or do you all as a board want to look at the the structure before we go and do you want your the blessing on it? I would I would personally I would like to at least be aware of the structure. Um um the next board meeting is June exactly June 2nd. Um, so what we could do is I could be prepared to present to you all the staffing structure that we're looking at for the transportation complex. Yeah. Um, for your for your review just just to have some kind of knowledge of what Yeah. the changes that you're thinking. Yep. And that we get some feedback and I think that would be a good idea. I don't
204know how everybody else feels. Yeah. I'm just I'm just concerned. I have questions about the code because our code is so you have to make changes by April 1st, May 1 and all these other changes and these routes look like proprietary and um well we're not going to be able to make those I know I know but I I'm just sitting there you're kind of locked in. you are you don't have the flexibility to respond to where the kids are like we don't but what we do have so what I would prefer to focus on this year after we look at the the at the um transportation complex staffing um is when we have openings on routes in certain areas after we've done our there may be some things that we can do small modifications
205too that will alleviate you if we can listen if we could over between now and August if we find a way to alleviate three, four, maybe five or six routes that makes a big difference. And so I think that working as well with what we can with the plan that come next year we may have to do some bigger things. The other thing is if there's mutual agreements between staff those that's another solution. So we could talk with them and say, "Hey, would you be willing to make this change?" And if if they are, great. If not, that's okay. But there will come a time when we have to make those staffing changes based upon the routes um in order to be as efficient as possible. But that's probably the big and large part of
206those changes is going to have to be next personnel season. And I think I'm hearing from you in to summarize it is we're not going to do every single thing that they're recommending to us, but we are going to be gradually looking at every single one to implement those changes over a course of time. And that could be a year, two years, three years because as we're doing all this, we're also building schools. That's right. And there will be some redistricting that would need to occur potentially which will help us alleviate some of those problems. Absolutely. is changing. Absolutely. Y absolutely. I mean, those overflows are a huge problem. Yeah. I I I think you're spot on, Mrs. Powers. And I think the other thing that's important to point out here is that, and you
207pointed it out, not everything in the recommendations are we going to be able to implement. Yeah. Um it's just it it's either feasibility or code or or or you know what, it's just it's just too much change too quick. But what can we do that will help us with efficiency? help us make sure that we are treating our bus drivers and our mechanics the right way and not overloading them and making sure that we're we're dependable for our families to get them uh to school on. So, and I just say I want to thank Mr. Keyer because as the executive director in this position, you know, coming me coming to him say, "Hey, I want to I want to go in. I want to dig into your your program and figure out where we can
208you know he has been um all on he has been very he's been a team player and I really appreciate that. I I want to say all on board because but I don't know that's fair to say because you you have had concerns you've expressed them to me. Um you've we've al we've already you know sort of upset the apple cart there a little bit because it it's an anxious time for staff but you have handled it very well. You've been very open to it and I absolutely appreciate that. So, thank you for your leadership in that regard and I know that Justin and I'm sorry, Dr. Skoolie and I look forward to working with you and your team to find the appropriate staff structure so we can move together move forward together. Great. Thank
209you. Well, um, one final thing I do want to say is that as we make move forward and try to make changes on runs that we involve drivers as positively as much as possible. Yes. that when we're going to change those runs. Let's get those drivers in and work. They know those runs better than anybody. So that's my the other thing your last page in your the large full report that appendix that we provided that actually came from general counsel a lot of the wording there on the legal updates and the agreement decision. So she did provide that to us. So they're providing that to you as well. So that's the basically that very last page. So kudos to to you guys for recognizing drivers here at the end of the year like you did
210at the beginning of the year. I'll look forward to that 6:30 p.m. group shot on your web page or will put any words out there. We're excited. Thank you all. Thank you. Thank you. Okay. Now Mr. Kowski and his team wait patiently patiently for you. Okay, stop. Yeah, I have a couple members of our team here, Debbie Walker and Amanda Stickles are here. So, I I provided you all a couple handouts. Um a one pager that just kind of highlights uh some of the changes. Um, and then Brian, if you can pull up the PowerPoint. I have a couple pagers. Yeah, I provided there's one that says PI changes plan year 2026. Yeah, you'll have that. You don't have that? Oh, yeah. You actually make that. We have your slide. We're going to call this
211good. Okay, go ahead to the next slide. So, uh we'll talk about some things that maybe haven't changed. Uh we just finished up open enrollment last week. Um Debbie did a great job with open enrollment. Um you know people were able to come in. We did also our benefits fair in that time. Um we had around 70 people come in for the benefits fair this year. So open enrollment just finished up. Um Express Scripts remain the prescription uh drug uh benefit manager. Um will continue to process medical claims and provide the customer service. Um there was uh as part of this year's uh legislative session, there was an amendment um made when they were talking about PEIA, there was something on the table for them to collapse the tiers from 10 to 5. Um that
212amendment um was removed. Um which is actually a good thing. uh had they put that amendment in um a lot of people at the lower end of the pay scale would have been really hurt by that um because part of that collapsing of those um tiers would have bunched those groups together. So they would have seen probably even more of an increase in what they ended up seeing uh in ter terms of of premiums. So um that was a positive step. Um you know I know I think the general perception is maybe you know some things that that have happened or maybe not happened weren't so positive but that was one good thing that that came out of this. Uh and then you all are still going to fund um you know as part of
213uh PI PEIA you guys contributes the board contributes $22 um to to everybody's plan. So um that's going to continue for another year. So Brian, can you go ahead? Um so the big changes are there's going to be a 14% increase um across the board for state employee sets for all teachers and service personnel um on premiums. So, you know, a lot of PIA is based on what you make, which makes it kind of a unique system. Um, so the the average increase on premiums is going to be somewhere around $31.50 a month. Um, I do have a handout that's going to break out break down for you um exactly what that will look like um for people that are single and then also people that have a family plan. Um, and I think what
214you'll see is that that 3150 won't apply to everybody. Uh there are some people that will be less than that and some people that will be more but again that's because PEIA is based on on what you make. Um non-Medicare retirees receive a 12% increase. You know I know the retirees have been a big point of contention in the legislature also um with the teacher unions because they're going to want to try to take care of them as well. Um the biggest change and and what most people when they're going to feel it in their pocketbook thank you um is the spousal search charge. the the search charge is something that has come about recently. PEIA for years did not charge um the the members for spouses being on um their insurance plan, which again
215was a little bit different than you know what your what your average employer's insurance would look like. Um the spousal search charge is going to increase to over $350 a month, which is um about $153 increase from what it was. um last year. So for those people that that have their spouses on, you know, on their insurance, that's that's where they're really going to see um a major increase. And then deductibles and out of pocket maximums are going to increase by 40%. Um if you go to the next slide, you'll see that pretty much across the board there is going to be an increase on co-pays as well. So inatient services will be a $250 co-ay. Um, and I and I put on the sheets that used to be $100. Um, outpatient surgery, $250 cur
216co-ay, that was also $100. Uh, prescription medication, um, now $20, $50, that's going to be 10 and 25. Um, massage therapy is a $30 co-pay. Um, once you have 20 visits, that goes up to um, a $35 co-pay. And then any emergency room treatment is a $200 co-pay. Um if you're actually admitted, they do wave that, but that used to be $100. So, as you can see across the board, um you know, everything um in the way of of insurance is going up next year. the sheets I just uh that that Amanda just gave you that have the charts on them. Um what I did was I broke down just based on employee only and then um family plans without the spousal search charge just so you could get a per dollar amount of what
217would people would be looking at monthly in the way of an increase. Um the most popular plan in Berkeley County is the PEIA PBB plan A premium which I highlighted in yellow. Um it's the fourth column over um the row the first row highlighted in green is what your you know average service and personnel salary is. So those are the people in the service side that are going to you know be affected the most. And then from the professional side, um the average teacher salary is highlighted in blue, which is the um fourth row down. So that's, you know, where you're going to see the majority of the people hit are going to be if you do, you know, kind of a an axis sort of thing. Um you you can kind of see what
218those increases are going to be. Now, again, this does not include anything in the way of a spousal search charge. That's that's really where where things are going to get tough for employees is is with that, you know, $350 a month. Mhm. Um which you know $153. I'm sorry. Yeah. $200. Yeah. Yeah. So, you know, you can see I mean that's going to that's going to hit people really hard. You seeing any resations yet from Mr. I I I don't I mean nobody has nobody has referenced a lot of times in their resignation emails or letters they they don't necessarily reference specifically PBIA. We've had a few people on exit interviews, you know, mention this. Um, you know, I I think I'd be lying if I said it's probably not going to be a factor
219for people. Um, you know, if people are looking at it that that probably potentially could be a factor for people to resign. Yeah. I know that there's some people that were at the PEIA meetings the finance board had at Martinsburg in the fall that have resigned. I recognize their names for being at that meeting which I think you were at as well. Um so from that fall meeting till now I know there's some saying name on that resation. We did send out um little notes anybody that had a search charge so they couldn't come back and say we didn't know about it. you know, it's all out there. But so then we've had probably about hundred at least 100 people come in and drop their spouse. Really? Yeah. That's been the biggest thing is myself
220as one. Yeah. I've had my husband on my PEIA insurance since I've had PEIA insurance and this year I had to drop them. So it was a it was a common theme among all the employees who came in to make EIA changes. The most popular one this year was taking their spouse on I don't like to sing about individuals but I will um when we were negotiating our superintendent's contract as a board we insisted that there be pain from the very top to bottom. he has to complain that we uh I I know you remember that conversation because normally uh in the superintendent's contract the board cover anything that the superintendent u received and we just said we want you as a leader be there on the front line complaining just like everyone else and
221because he makes a few dollars more than everyone he gets stuck. So I I just want to point that out and our superintendent is also experiencing this discomfort. Yeah. Yeah. And discomfort is probably the best word for it. But you know, Amanda and Debbie do a great job of getting that information out to people, which I do think helps. You know, I think people have kind of been able to brace for that a little bit with the communication that they've had, which does help. You know, unfortunately, we may potentially see people leave um over insurance, but the reality is a lot of places this is this is happening. Um my insurance went up 16%. Just just just And yeah, it's just not worth Virginia. No, it's not. Yeah, it's happening a lot of places. Yeah,
222I I mean, I worked in Frederick County, Virginia. This was 15 years ago, and we had the same thing happen down there 15 years ago. I mean, family plans went from being a couple hundred bucks a month to $1,200 a month. Yeah. Um, so that you know this is unfortunately it's just kind of all hitting us right now um with everything else that's hitting us. So we're hopeful for maybe a special session when they address some of these things and get a solution for it. But we'll just keep plugging away and try to make people aware. I think one thing that PIA doesn't offer that maybe shouldn't I how that would be considered but I just mentioned it to Debbie is a lot of times like um the insurance will have an employee and then
223an employee plus one but to have your spouse on your insurance here you're immediately a family and you're immediately paying the same rate as as you know probably four times what you would pay as a family that has children of any yeah of any you can have 10 children and you're paying probably at least 75% less than somebody that just has a spouse on their insurance. That's so interesting that there's that differentiation. That doesn't make sense. Yeah, it really is something unless it's because they want to make sure children are I don't think children would cost more and less. I'm wondering I'm wondering to that point if the reason is is because it applies to employees whose spouses are eligible for employer sponsored coverage. So, you know, if they have a company that doesn't offer
224the insurance because they're too small or they're they're whatever, it's not that charge isn't there. Correct. Very interesting. Yeah. So, that's something I've recently, you know, should maybe explain, you know, why that isn't. And then employee plus one dependent or employee plus spouse. There's employee plus children, employee only, and then family. You can have as many children as you want. Absolutely. Yes. Other questions for Mr. Kenoski and his group or ladies. I'm sorry. Yeah. Sorry that you all had to wait so long. I will say thank you for giving this to us because I think this this helps us as a board understand especially when many of us have not necessarily experienced PEIA. Um it gives us a little bit more of awareness um from you know from the perspective that you guys have as
225to what you're seeing but also what the the staff is experiencing. So I thank you for putting all this together and I do appreciate it. Yeah. I have a quick question. George Sure. Do you know the percentage of staff that have the tobaccof free discount right this year have tobaccof free discount 75% whether they are or not I'll tell you when it first started we had employees that came in that had cigarettes Okay. Thank you. Thank you. Thanks. Okay. Consideration of board retreat establishing a unified leadership vision and leadership. Dr. S. Thank you, Madam President. Board members, um I come to you this evening to ask for your consideration um and collaboration uh regarding um I think the the future and the direction of our planning um uh of uh high quality instruction in our
226schools in the year ahead. Uh and when I say year I I say the year ahead, but really it's it's for years ahead. Um and you know the the good thing is is that Dr. Woods. He's been getting his feet wet and he and his team have already uh begun laying the foundation for next year. And this work includes planning um uh al which is aligned to the findings of our most recent instruction review which was provided by the children's literacy initiative which Dr. Green and her team presented to this board and they they actually uh talked about the big rocks that our district needs to really tackle um in order to improve literacy um and I would say literacy and accountability in our uh for our students learning. Um and so I think that
227you know from the very beginning what I've talked about with this board is is you know the goal is to uh be the boardroom to the classroom. uh our focus should always be on student learning and I don't know that we can accomplish that truly when as a as a division of instruction leadership the superintendent's vision unless we actually involve our stakeholders but more specifically we involve the board in that process and so what I am asking is for the opportunity for um Dr. Green and CLI to be able to facilitate a uh workshop or a a board retreat with this board to be able to establish um several strategic objectives of of this retreat. That is to establish a shared literacy vision that unifies our leadership and reflects district priorities and our community needs.
228Align instructional priorities that will guide our decision-m, our budget planning, as well as our professional learning in the year ahead. clarify the roles and the responsibilities of what this board will do, uh what the executive team will do and how how we will lead, how our principles will implement and how we will all work in concert in order to achieve this um this uh path. I think to build strength and trust across leadership levels from the boardroom again to the classroom creating creating unified messaging and shared accountability and to solidify a roadmap for next year and beyond. Um defining what we're going to measure, what we will do, what we will support, and what we will monitor to drive continuous improvement in literacy outcomes. So, I am really excited about this opportunity and and I
229hope hope that this is something that you'd like to be a part of. Again, I think that utilizing the the instructional review that we've been provided and again, those big rocks of what they identified were some areas of growth to be able to help facilitate that with this board. I think could be very very powerful. Um, and Dr. Woods and I I think we would like to be able to perhaps look at inviting some stakeholders to the meeting to that to that planning with us. So that it's not just not just us, but we're involving others in that process is going to be very important. But I'd like for your blessing. And if and if you all agree, I'd like to be able to maybe think about a date and a time that we could
230start working around to get something like that planned if possible. Oh, were you thinking about having it here? Yes, I was thinking about just having we could have it hosted, you know, right here in this room actually for that matter. Um for streaming purposes, I'll probably And for streaming, yes, because it will need to be streamed. Yes. Um it'll be a publicly noticed time. Yes, the board needs to come up with some dates and I'm presenting to Dr. S. Are these um a series of days a Yeah. So I think the plan is is that we're going to do one day with the board and then after that one day then when we set the vision and the and this the scope then we're going to dig deeper and so then we're going to be
231able to say now we have these responsibilities of this is then you know what our our um how our executive team is going to lead and so what professional development do we need how do we want to structure it so then the work begins and we would we would like to be able to partner with CLI through that process you know at least through the summer to be able to get a good road map established and get it rolled out for our schools. So, um I would say one day with the board and then we'll probably have a two-day planning session with the executive team after thinking. I think I'll be honest with you, I think we have a sense of urgency. Um I I I would say it would be nice to be able
232to get something done in June if possible. Um I think it could be, you know, if it could be early to mid June, I think that would be ideal. Is this a weekday, a weekend? Well, maybe that's the question is would you Is there a certain day of the week that you prefer? We could do a Saturday. We could do a weekday. Um that that does not matter. Um and um we we'll try to make it work. Not Wednesdays. Not Wednesdays. That makes sense. I was just going to say I have work meetings every Wednesday. That's right. Well, you you two work. So you three work. Excuse your right. Are let me ask you are Fridays better for the working folk? I I it's fine for me the sixth I'm not I would not be
233able to do I could do the 13th 13th works. Did you bring your calendar miss? I bought my phone but then I have stuff on calendar too. I think it's the Saturday. I can't do it. The 14th. The 14th. Okay. Friday the 13th. I just saw that virtual be. What about the 12th? I can do the 12th. Still still wor. Okay. Graduation. Okay. Okay. Well, we don't have graduation. Oh, would a se would Saturday the 7th work? We could also I'm I'm just throwing out dates at this point just Well, okay. Okay. We could also look at We could also look at the 16th, which is a regular board meeting date also. Okay. Okay. I did that. We did that long, you and I, not long ago. I could party all day and all night.
234We could also look at like um we could also look at like the Monday the 9th or um can't do that. I think your best that might be that last week. There's not a ton going on that I can think of last week of June. It's getting late. It's getting late. Yeah. Um, did you say the 16th? [Music] I wouldn't even be virtual like for any of that. I wouldn't even be virtual. I'm I'm my my son's deploying on the third. So, I'm out the second, the third, and the sixth because the sixth is my husband's chemo, right? Follow-ups with his oncologist. Um the the fifth does the fifth work uh not for us unfortunately of June June. Oh what about the 10th of June? So Tuesday I can make the that that is another
235that is skills you but we can make that work for sure. What is it? I think the 10th and the 13th are best. 10th and 13th. What time would we finish or the 12th? Um, I would I would I would say that it would probably be by 3:00. Okay. Huh? 10th. On the 10th. The 10th. When to win? It'd be like I'm going to say 9 to 9 to 3 on a Saturday. No, it's a Tuesday. Tuesday 10th. Tuesday. Okay. You said the 10th or the 13th? The 10th and the 13th. The 10th or the 13th. And we can see Oh, you can't do the 13th. Okay. Who said that? Dr. Dr. Woods can't do the 13th. for the tent. We will we will shoot for the tent. Okay. All right. I'll put in for
236you papers for us. I if there short answer is yes. Yes. We'll make sure you have something. You mean the information that is going to be provided at the central office? I I hope by that time we want to include school leadership that we get some information buy in or some feedback from them before Well, they're they're going to I think we'll have like a couple we'll have some representatives. Okay. Yeah, we'll have some representatives so they work through the process with us. All righty. Now, thank you. Uh consent agenda. Can I have a motion to approve the consent agenda? Second. All in favor? I motion carries. Um, Miss Bass, you've been waiting patiently. Discussion of possible action on schoolology. Schools. Sorry. Sometimes that's what happens at 9:00. That's okay. Yeah. Past 9:00. I'm done.
237All right. Good evening, Dr. Saxs, President Long, and members of the Berkeley County Board of Education. Thank you for having me. I have the next three agenda items for your consideration. The first is item 9.1, the Schooly learning management solution renewal. Um, you may remember that last year is the first year I brought Schooly before you because it increased to over $100,000 a year. And this year it has increased yet again. Um, it is $111,450120. um this will come out as 7 ft. I did reach out to our powers school representative and ask because we have several powers school platforms why the price increase and they told me that it was the annual uplift. I don't I'm uplifting. So I'm scheduling a meeting with them because I think we have several power school platforms and
238they honor really give us a discount in my opinion. Um, however, I'm bringing this for consideration today at what there our price that it is going to be for next year of $111,451220. I like your proactiveness of getting something scheduled conversation. Can you explain to everyone what this does and what the staff use it for and what students use it for and what parents use it for? Yep. So, it is a grade book, but it's not just a grade book. Teachers can have interactive quizzes. Um, it does talk back to our student information system, Weedis. Um, so it adds and drops students nightly on a nightly sync. If students move between schools or, you know, they go to a different school district, they disappear from our system. Um, it stores content that teachers can share
239with one another. Um, the instructional technology team uses it often to have um courses that they build out for teachers to use for PD. So, it it's it's more than just a a grade book. Yeah. It's actually we call it a learning management system because every student has their course in in it from grades was it three 3 through 12 3 through 12 to grades 3 through 12. So if I'm a middle school student I have six periods a day. I'm going to have my math class in there with my teacher and all the students that are assigned to that class. So they can have online discussion board posts. It it is literally the all the class material is there. the lesson plans, the um uh if if there's a a virtual day for whatever
240reason because of weather, then they can post their instructions to students on Schooly. So, this is really it's it's an online learning management system for students and parents have the ability to go into this as well and have communications with the teacher is my understanding as well. Correct. Yeah. And how how much were we paying for this year? Um this year uh you're make me subtract something at night 104 right around I would like to know why they're well they said enhancements but I would like to see what what are we enhancing at that price point this year the year what are we getting for our enhancements yeah what are we getting for our enhancements and I mean I might not be able to do anything about the price this year But if we can
241say you know we're using applicant tracking we're using their PD platform um we have many other platforms I can't think of anymore but solution okay so our substitute management system like we're investing a lot in power so it appos motion carries Okay. Okay. Next. Um, Crowd Strike contract removal. Crowd Strike. Um, so Crowd Strike, as you recall, was recommended by Bram, our insurance company, after our alleged cyber incident. Um, we like the software. It works in conjunction with Microsoft Defender. Um, it is more like special ops. It looks kind of for data anomalies. For example, if all of your or documents suddenly turn from CX to something else, it they will immediately pick up on that and make a phone call. Um, on average, we get between 15 and 20 remediations where their team remotely
242goes into a computer and deletes whatever it is the end user has installed. Um, additionally, something that I like that it does is it will block outdated peripherals. So, we had an incident where we had um some printers stop working in our county and it was because those printers were capable of basically attacking us. Um so, they they're proactive when it comes to outdated technology. Um and they're definitely they have a great team of people and know it comes with a decent price tag. Um, we did last year, you may remember, move from LNG Security, the reseller, to CDWG, which was around $20,000 less than we had paid for the previous year. Um, they we were attempting to sign a three-year contract with them for $44,000 less a year discount, but CDWG and Crowd Strike
243will not sign the West Virginia 96 for. So, talk to Mr. Buds. I know I made the same. Um, so for this year it is $257,000. Um, it is financed through step 70 as well. What was it last year? Think $267,000. I did have a question uh not necessarily related to crowd strike but does your department or does county send out I guess test to staff or um a controversial topic we have talked about um there are a lot of companies that do that does your company do that not mine a previous company did a previous company did right we do not do that um we have the ability to do that. The Department of Ed would have to work with us on that. Um I don't know if I want the repercussions from that,
244but I I don't I don't know. The way ours works is they'll send you like a fake spam email, right? Click on it says you have failed this test basically and then it basically sends a report to management saying, "Yeah, they messed up. They almost uh caused an incident." Yeah, that um we did um I don't know if I want to go through that. This is a little bit off topic. We did have a cyber security presenter come in and talk to our principles because that stuff that you don't think about and I can be anybody I want to be online. I can be either real damaggmail.com or you know give me all of your passwords and and people fall for it and that opened a lot of eyes. Um I did tell Dr. Saxs
245afterwards sitting in the back of Muscleman High I noticed people closing their devices and actually paying attention. the guy was very entertaining. Um, so I think that was a good message for our principles to take back to their staff. We've also worked through um our staff employee account passwords. We've been doing this probably every four or five months to say, "Okay, Pat Murphy, your password is I got I did too. Did you get I got remember I I Oh no, I guess I told Ryan I got to get my advice. Yeah, Dr. Michael and our team has worked with um the state and a product called core view that they have to identify those passwords because you know like you guys heard me say before HR used to keep their documents in a closet and
246it was guarded by a feisty secretary out there and now it all of our records are online so we're protecting a huge amount of data. Um can I have a motion to so move second? Second. All in favor? I opposed. Um, we're approving that we approve the crowd strike for 267,400. Next, uh, is the No, 9.3. One more. 9.3. So, the next Oh, the rate. Yes. Yes. um our county portion of -ate. Um I'm not sure if you've heard me talk about how works, but we have a five-year funding window that the Federal Communications Commission offers us. We're in year five of that window next year. Um based on C numbers, they offer us a pot of money and it's use or lose money. At this point, we are proposing that we upgrade equipment in
247Hedgesville High, Spring High, um add equipment in Hedgesville Early Learning Academy, Muscleman Middle, South Middle, and North Middle Schools. Um it is our category 2 switching, which is switching um in access points. There's one wasn't point at it. Um this these access point the switches that we have now are reaching end of life which means that they are no longer going to accept firmware updates valid security patches that they need to have on them. Um there w the access points will be Wi-Fi 7 capable. So it should an improved connectivity that we have in rooms you know right now we have 30 plus devices per room in every room. Um let's see we also one of our goals is to move over to the extreme cloud for our management and the new access points will
248are capable of that cloud ready management system. Um so basically what we are asking is that the - matches 80% of our 20%. So the projects that we have slated for this year total uh a little over $1.2 million. Um our county portion of that would be $257,95. The remaining1,31,620 would be covered through rate. Um, so again, we're in year five, so it is use or lose money. Um, also in because I'm on a theme of saving money here, um, we did reach out with to our egate consultants to ask about selling backold equipment. I think there probably is a little bit of street value there. So I would like to make sure that we legally can recoup a little bit of that money back. So the district portion is $257,95. Yes. That's great. Well,
249compare it to the overall. Right. Overall, right. Yeah. Tech equipment doesn't seem to go down in brace. No, sure does. No, but I like the fact that we're going to be able it's if that the cloud is the capability of the cloud is there. So, that part's good. Questions for Leah? I have a motion to approve. Second. How many second? All in favor? Opposed? Motion carries. Thank you. Thank you. We pull that Melissa Holland. Pull that. That's right. I apologize. No, we didn't pull that. No, no, no. I I I apologize. I didn't strike through that. Did they give you a presentation? No. Wait. Yes. Well, there's a video we're gonna share. Oh, you did. Okay. Good evening, President Long, Dr. Saxs, members of our board. Um over the past couple years, the people services
250department has been uh researching emergency uh response and um management plans. Um we started uh with with the company at the beginning of last school year. We've we've gone through uh several just comparing cost abilities of these different uh emergency management systems. And um we have finally come to a recommendation for this. Uh we're looking for a um a system that will allow staff members at every school to be able to um notify administration of an emergency in their classrooms or on school property. And in the case of a lockdown situation, um, that would also notify members of the central office and our 911 call center. So, everyone is immediately aware of an emergency on a school campus. So, several members of our pupil services department have been involved um throughout the last couple years
251researching this. We've had discussions with law enforcement, Homeland Security, 911, and Melissa Holland has been our contact with uh the company Raptor that we would like to present to you this evening. So, I've asked her to um join me here this evening and and present to you what this all entailed. Good evening. You guys have some stamina. Let me tell you. So, I'm gonna just couple things to accompany the packet that you received earlier. You're welcome. Thank you. As Dr. branch. My name is Melissa Holland. I'm a coordinator in the Department of People Services and uh President Long, Superintendent Saxs, board members, the Department of People Services would once again like to extend our gratitude to you for taking some time to talk about student safety. Um our topic for this evening is the safety
252alert system. And as you're probably aware, nationally, especially over the past five years, school districts across the nation have really pushed for uh student safety in terms of alert systems. So, there's been a national move move to adopt a alert system for two primary reasons. The first is to empower staff members to notify authority uh and first responders immediately when there's danger in their area. How how do we do that? How do we lessen the response time? The second is to inform law enforcement and first responders where to respond as quickly as possible. Um, long before I got here, people services was working on this project. They were vetting different companies. When Dr. Saxs arrived at the helm, he uh reinstilled that process. encouraged us to start looking for alert systems and also to tie
253it into current legislative action because we certainly see a trend uh with school safety and even our state legislation. So during this legislative season, there was Alyssa's law which was presented and while it did not pass in West Virginia, it's active in nine states and it uh is legislation that was presented to have a wearable panic button in school districts. While it didn't pass this time, we certainly have a feeling that it may pass in the future, and if not, it's still incredibly important. The second piece of legislation we wanted to point out from this legislative season was um our excuse me, House Bill 3166, which called for standardized safety mapping across all schools. This is a little different than architectural mapping like we have now. It uh looks at 3D mapping across our buildings
254in a way that communicates automatically with law enforcement officers. Now, I want to be clear that this isn't a requirement of the safety alert system. Right now, this House bill and the reason you got that corrected sheet is because it doesn't have to be implemented until 2026. The original implementation date was 2025, but it was written into law to be implemented in 2026. So, we have some time with that. Um also you can go ahead. We worked with several departments. We worked with inter internal departments, technology, maintenance, feeding planning, uh purchasing through this process. We worked with all of those departments. We had everybody at the table for almost all of those meetings. We started with 10 vendors and we took the the slides out that have the comparability of the products just for safety
255reasons for live streaming. uh but we started with 10 vendors and then we reduced that number to six and then finally to two and the three most important things for us as a department and as a team when we worked together and it wasn't just Berkeley County schools folks that we brought together though many other people on our committees and on our meetings were were our our colleagues in Berkeley County schools we also brought together law enforcement weed it through our safety subcommittee meeting that meets monthly um and we worked with Jen Swisser who's the director ctor of 911 and also Randy Lily, the director of homeland security. Um, so those two folks were very important when we got down to the two just to see what worked with 911. But there were three areas
256that were were super important to us. The redundancy of communication. So the product that we're presenting to you tonight has redundancy. It means it's available via Wii on an app, but they also have something which is called a Laura network. So we've worked with Leah on this as well. She was present in some of our meetings. A Laura network is a local network within the school. This company would bring in kind of like if you've ever heard of a mesh network where you've had something in your home that complements your existing Wi-Fi. So if Wi-Fi goes down, it still works. Um which here in Berkeley County when we're talking about Wi-Fi and we're talking about any operability of devices over Wi-Fi and things like that, you always want to have a redundancy system in place.
257So this company does have that. Um, and then another issue that we were looking at that was important and critical to us in our decision- making was an open AI integration, which is something that our 911 call centers do. And this and their competitor both worked with our 911 call center. So, we feel pretty confident that we have found the right alert system for our students in Merley County Schools. This video can show you just a little bit more of the product Raptor and what we're asking you to consider too. Yeah. Yeah. It's still early. [Music] Used by more K12 schools in the US than any other panic alert solution, Raptor introduces another layer of emergency alerting with Raptor badge alert. Engineered as an all-in-one alerting solution, the Raptor system harmonizes wearable technology performance and
258coordination. By simply pressing a button, staff can send preconfigured alerts securely over a long range. Dedicated gateways provide reliable connectivity throughout the campus. Strategically placed beacons triangulate the badges location, providing floor level accuracy displayed on interactive campus maps. This immediate situational awareness empowers responders to coordinate efforts efficiently. When an alert is initiated, the system activates synchronized campuswide notifications which can include strobe lights, sirens, digital signage, PA messages, and more. This enables staff and responders to take swift action and communicate effectively across the school in harmony with raptor emergency management. Staff can access secure inapp communication account for students, staff and visitors safely reunified. 12 licensed by the I love you guys foundation featuring books standard responsibility raptor badge alert because protecting every child every school every day is our only mission. So, one thing that
259they didn't specifically talk about is that the notification process occurs through a specific number of uh touches to the badge or squeezes of the badge and then that runs through that Laura network and Wi-Fi. Could also be used on a cell phone simultaneously. So, a lot of notifications could go to one place at one time, but because they work through this mapping system, they pinpoint the area of danger. Um, and again, working with law enforcement, 911, and our homeland security friends, we've determined that our standard response protocol that they talked about with I love you guys, that's how our emergency protocols work now. So, if we were to call a lockdown in a school, we would immediately dispatch law enforcement, fire, and and EM EMS, which was not always the case in Berkeley County. So,
260that's a big celebration, I think. Um, but the annual cost is $180,000. The initial setup fees are $300,000 and then break down this data. So, as you're considering this, we're happy to answer any questions or address any concerns that you might have. Um, is there any way that you have just I I had one question. Go ahead. Um it says that it does not include beacons in the um the cost comparisons. Um but in the video it clearly states that beacons would would be there to help triangulate where the where the uh emergency slash danger is. So I guess the question would be what do we have to do as far as putting beacons because I'm not seeing it on the project cost. That was a great great question. So, and it was a verbiage
261thing there where the verbiage in that slide didn't match the verbiage from the video. The beacons that pick up the signals from the badges or from or from the phones are are completely free. They come with this cost and so the installation comes with the cost. There are additional um devices that are just like strobe lights um and it does not include the strobe lights. Okay. And so what we kind of thought about that is that it to begin with we have this interoperability with other screens like television screens that we post up, computer screens, it comes it can be pushed out to all devices, student device screens, all of those work and so purchasing the the strobe light piece was a minimal cost and something that we could build in over time. Okay. Yeah,
262it's a good question. It was that was the verbiage. Yeah, I was I I I know I had reached out to Dr. Saxs about, you know, a question about the beacon piece, but um that really helps. Some of the companies referred to the strobe lights as beacons. So, yeah, the visitor management is also part of this purchase. Is that correct? Yeah, Raptor has an entire umbrella system. Visitor management is a piece of that. So if if I came to any one of your schools as a school principal and I was a sex offender or I had a criminal background um sometimes that that is very difficult to track, right? Um also if there were custody issues or legal issues that that should prohibit me from picking up a child. Visitor management system manages that kind
263of entry and availability of students to adults in the school. So that comes with with that program as well which is very nice. They also mentioned reunification. Um as a department we've worked really really hard to have a rope reunification piece. So if there was an emergency let's say even you know a fire near a building and move them to another safe location. We have a paper pencil process for reunifying families with their children. this would be um a more up-to-date system because it doesn't just rely on Wi-Fi. We appreciate that. Um and we would be able to reunify electronically which might be nice. The visitor management piece of Raptor they are including for free throughout the the entirety of our initial con contract. Um after that there would be an additional cost So each
264great question. Um, can you accidentally set this off? That is a great question. Um, and that was one of the first question many of us asked because there are certain districts across the nation that have a certain number of clicks mean one thing, a certain number of clicks mean other things. The operability of this is set up by the district. So we would bring in a team of stakeholders and I would imagine a teacher and an administrator and certainly our leadership would be in on that and say here's what this means. We personally have talked about starting simple uh where the large number of clicks to that to that badge just cause lockdown. You know let's kind of start with that because that's the most important thing that we're worried about to do it by
265accident that many times. Um, they have no record of that in all the districts that they're that they're at. Well, I could see sticking this in my purse and got FaceTime all them all the time from my purse. She doesn't. Then we might hold your badge for you. Well, but I can see it is not somebody sticking that in a purse or something like that. If you feel the button, it's you got to really you got to really press it. And if you have your badge over top of it, that flat piece, it's not going to be like, you know, if you had to press it's not going to press it, right? You know, three times, you know, it's three solid times. So that's Yeah, it would be it would be hard. Um, now if
266it happened, um, we would certainly provide support to that individual, but and there would be so much training up front under this. That's that's a big part of this. And understanding that it is to be worn around your neck. Um, and when it's not being worn around your neck, you place it in this other location. I think they're tracking that. Gotcha. So typically school system that have it set up for um various purposes it's three presses um in a row for like a medical emergency or you know if there's a discipline emergency in a classroom um that would be three and then um seven or more presses would be would trigger the lockdown. So for them to do that more than seven times by accident, like Melissa said, they haven't had any recollection of that
267in any of their districts. But we we did ask the very same question. This is HB 3166, the mapping. There was no funding piece for that. The mapping there is mapping. There is. Mhm. Yeah. I think it's around $4,500, but we still have not heard from the Department of Education um how that funding is going to be given to us yet. Um but there's very specific requirements as to what the mapping has to include in order to qualify and unfortunately what Raptor provides does not meet that qualification. So that's the company themselves. Right. So there's other companies that do that. we will have to look at. But and I think we've already gotten some quotes, I believe. But um I've been actually actually had several calls with the Department of Education in conversation with state
268superintendent as to what u how that funding is going to work. Is it going to be reimbursement? Is it you apply for a grant? Um and they they they said that they should have something to us in the next two weeks. And that's $4,500 total per school. Per school. It's like 140,000. That's not too bad. Working on building at night themselves. They have this for they have they're incapacitated. They're not if they can't three or seven. No, but this will help. This will help them. This will also there's something that they do called geo fencing um which is taking those those beacons by name and putting them around the school perimeter. So if you're on a football field um with kids late at night if you're at practice as a coach you still have that
269operability on those fields. Um while it doesn't and you may have recalled reading through this why it doesn't have the operability with the badge necessarily on a school bus. you still have the app on the school bus if you have kids on a field trip from your school and some some things we can do there. Um, in regards to the layers though of this program, Raptor could produce a a map for us that doesn't meet all the state legislative requirements at this time, but it'll still work to interface with 911 and then we can add those other pieces with and time the years the year-long requirement for the legislation and actually represent do that for us though, right? They do that for free for us. Yes, the initial mapping they've included agreed to include for
270free, which was a negotiated piece. So, we were really excited about that. Um, and then we have since the three vendors that we've been looking at for mapping and discussing this with because we knew how important it would be for that integration piece, um, they've agreed to work with any of the three. So, this is coming out of the general fund. Yes, ma'am. It's seven. This is part of 70. Other questions? I heard two numbers, 180 and 300. 300 the initial year and 180 after that. Yeah, we were hoping for 180 from the getgo, but it does cost some money to get the installers here to put up the weekends and to set up the the Laura network systems in each of our buildings and to geo fence all of our fields and our schools.
271If every employee were that's correct. Now I should say within that's another thing that before we implement our implementation team um you know would have to determine the lanyards are included up to h however many that that we want. We have not had a firm discussion about substitutes versus perm substitutes versus you know haven't had those those types of discussions yet. It's not it's not charged per unit. It's just per school. Correct. Yeah. Yeah. Which was a little different than some of the other companies. Yeah. And we explained that we have some very small schools and some extremely large schools. Uh and they said it all washes out. So Well, that's good. I I I like the idea of, you know, between like a five and $6,000 thinking about it from that perspective per school
272of increase safety, increase path for our for our staff and our students to have with that safety piece. I I mean, thinking about it from that perspective, that's that's huge per year. Like, that's that's a no-brainer. It's a norainer. It really is. And when you add the wonderful things that we've been able to do with your help, uh we currently have an RFP out and biders looking at security foam for our ground level windows and our doors. And we have 11 schools that have been fully out outfitted with our locking device. Nice and five more in process tonight. They're working on them tonight, you know, and tomorrow in the next couple weeks. Um that's pretty good. We're making progress. And the board approved the budget this evening, which also includes three additional safety officers for
273next year. And um we know that there's a couple in the hopper. So that's a that's another good thing of preparing for next year. So exciting. Can I have a motion? If there's no question. [Music] All in favor? I motion carries. Yes. I love this. Next on the agenda field trip announcements. Sorry. I have to find Jason's like I'm not been sitting back here by [Laughter] help us to see all right I saw that meeting up on a few minutes you ready? Yes. Uh good evening members of the board and superintendent Sax. The personnel actions dated for Monday May 19th 2025 are as follows. Uh we have one coaching resignation this evening and we have one additional healthcare appointment. Uh beginning on line four, we have three unpaid leave of absences for your consideration. For
274professional personnel, we have 14 professional appointments. Um we have one change of assignment for next school year. Uh we have one policy 5,000 hire for the 2526 school year. We have 18 professional resignations and four retirements. Uh we have two transfers for the 2526 school year. Uh beginning on line 47, we have six professional staff who have been removed from the transfer list and assigned the position for the 2526 school year. For service actions, we have three new service personnel appointments for midday runs. We have two mutual agreements of service personnel for the 2526 school year. Uh on line 58, we have the ratification of an unpaid suspension. That employee is Rebecca Smith. We have eight service resignations and one resignation from a midday run. We have one transfer of a service personnel employee. We
275have three upgrades of service personnel assignments. Uh we have five new appointments of substitute service personnel. If you look on line 76, that should read 530 2025, not 530 2029. We're not going into the quantity problem. Um and we have two resignations of substitute service personnel. Uh for professional substitute teachers, we have seven appointments of professional day-to-day substitutes and five resignations of substitutes. Uh tonight, we are also issuing one service probationary contract for the 2526 school year and 11 renewals of substitute nurse contracts. We are also issuing 243 substitute service probationary contracts for the 2526 school year. And for professional substitute teachers, we have 275 renewals of long-term substitute teacher contracts and 143 renewals of certified substitute teacher contracts. Um, we also have seven renewals of shortterm substitute teacher contact contracts and 12 renewals of
276restricted short-term substitute teacher contracts for a total of 783 professional service and substitute personnel actions. For tonight, your consideration was superintendent Sax's recommendation. Did you um mention who line 58 was? Yes, ma'am. That is Rebecca Smith. Did you do that? I was m sorry. It's actually my fault. I was in your ear. So, I can only do one thing at a one time. Questions for two small questions. How are we doing with math teachers at Still working on it? Um I didn't see any. There were several. We did make an offer to one from I believe he's from Kenya which he accepted. I've just got to draw the paperwork up and get him on the next board actions. We're going to do an even swap. Um we've got one of our teachers is leaving us
277that was a J1 teacher. Um she's going to a warmer climate and so um we're going to bring him in to teach math. And one of on line 59 it said the person is a resignation but that same employee is listed as an upgrade on line 71. That's thought that was strange. Resignation effected June 30th but the upgrade was effective February 26th. She have to be paid from then until Yeah. So yes, the upgrade is so she'll be paid from then until her resignation date. I just want to make sure I still Thank you. So we lo somebody in the tech department. Yes. And we are also losing the principal of Martinsburg High. Pardon me. Valley principal and V principal retired. Principal Marksburg James. Oh, okay. What will be the process there? Well, actually um
278the well, so what will happen is the interview committees for those positions and will uh meet and discuss uh the criteria they're looking for in the applicants. Um and then those will be posted. I believe those will be posted. Is it tomorrow? Uh maybe maybe Wednesday. Other there are some there's a big posting going up tomorrow though, right? There's a quite a few postings. We have um a lot of service personnel. I think Karen said 120 service personnel positions. So, we'll be moving probably a lot of people off transfer and then uh I think it's 62 professional um positions are going up. So, there'll be uh hopefully the next couple uh board actions, we'll have quite a few people coming off a transfer and going into into these positions. How many how many service personnel
279do we have on um transfer? Aaron told me now this was just aids I think it was nine. Yeah, it was was it 94? It was 94. Okay. Um and we do we're going to be able to replace all of them. That's funding I would say. But special ed. Yeah. But to answer your question, so once so once those uh committees have met, they've established their criteria um for the um uh qual most qualified candidates uh for these positions. Um then the the job posting will go up. uh once it comes down um we'll be providing executive summaries to uh those positions. They'll be reviewed and then they'll select who they would be looking for sort of a round two which is a face toface interview uh prior to bringing it to the board for
280recommendation. We're going to try to get I think if we can get the quicker we get a post we will try to get that to you as quick as we can. We know that's a big addition additional I know the comm I was I know the committee met today on Martinsburg. So well we just had a high number of resignations today and are you getting feedback? How's the new survey when were people leaving? So I submitted it to Dr. sex to make sure he got um finalized on it. Um we'll have Dr. Skoolie send that out to you either tomorrow or Wednesday. There's a few tweaks that I need to make. Um it is live but we haven't sent it out to anybody yet. I wanted Dr. Saxs to see it before we send it
281out. So he gave me some recommendations for changes. Dr. Skoolie gave me a few as well. We'll make those changes. We'll make sure you all see it before we actually send it out. But it is for all intents and purposes ready to go. Um we still get the paper exit surveys back. Um you know a lot of times it they're giving us, you know, information based on finances. Um, is part of what it's coming down to. And actually, I want to say Mr. Kimowski's had this survey ready for probably three or four days, maybe longer. I apologize. He's been waiting on me and I gave him that blessing today to send it back so that Dr. Schooly can send it to you all. So, I have actually been hold up on that one. Full matter
282of disclosure there. So, other questions for Mr. Thank you. You're welcome. Thank you. Board announcements. Do we need We need so move. Second power. Mr. Dorphy. All in favor? I motion carries. I'm trying to do the board announcements. Any any of the board announcements? I just want to um personally thank the staff at uh North Middle School both teach teacher service personnel and APS and especially Mr. Pit for all the hard work they've done to get North to where we are and to be released from their contract with so that was just a blessing and I thank them immensely. legal update, Dr. S. Oh, go into executive session. Yeah, I was um I do think that we could go into executive session um if the if it's the board if it's the board's pleasure um
283for both um pending litigation and because there's not going to be any decisions made uh for pending litigation and for the uh superintendent's annual evaluation. Um I do not there there should not be any business for the board to consider at the conclusion of those. So we will adjourn at the end and can I have a motion to go to executive session number West Virginia code 6-9A-4B to discuss the superintendent evaluation and second [Music]