Board of Education Meeting - March 21, 2022

001i'm supposed to do okay [Music] um [Music] we'll call this meeting to order like to welcome everyone thank you for joining us a little early this evening we can have mr todd beckwith lead us in the pledge of allegiance of the united states of earth and to the republic for which it stands one nation under god indivisible with liberty and justice [Music] i have a motion to approve the agenda second any discussion all those in favor all right our next item is the work session and first up will be mr jim butts treasurer we'll go over the year-to-date budget projections [Music] since last year so this is how much thank you dr gilfon uh tonight is a work session we're going to talk about not only the current financial position as as to where we

002are today but we're also going to talk about the projected budget uh starting for fiscal year 23. so since this is a work session you have any questions please stop me and we'll address those at the time or we can wait till the end but i'll just go through the slides and give you some brief information of where we are as of this moment so the first slide i want to talk about is our current income and expenses year to date this is through last friday this is a snapshot of what our annual budget is and then what we've spent year to date i just want to point out a couple items uh when the revenue side are property taxes again in the county there's two dates this is the second half of the second

003payment and the second payments are due march 31st obviously some people pay before march one to get the discount so we do expect some of that additional money to come in but we don't know what that is at this point since it is mid-march our other local income we are right on target for what we projected last year our state income we obviously expect it to be in those are state schedules and they're paid on intervals so by june 30 we expect to have all that funding in the one area that does concern us right now at this point is our federal income and the majority of that would be medicaid we have an annual medicaid salt cost settlement so for june 30 and 21 they're still in the process of certifying that and getting

004it paid i'm not sure we'll receive that funding before june 30 or not when the expense side as you all know cost across the general categories has has increased for example we know since july 1 our fuel cost for transportation is up 37 from where it was july 1. going down a little bit where it says capital outlay there's a budget in there for 1.5 that is the purchase of land we have not closed on any land at this time so that money is still available on the debt service right below that we have a principal and interest that be the guaranteed energy savings contract payments that are due in may and then right below that where it says other financing sources are transfers in the budget is 9.2 and we've received 3.8 again a

005majority of that is from the increased coveted funding and we have about 32 million of that covered funding that will carry over to fiscal year 23 so we certainly do not expect to collect all 9.2 million because that grants a grant through september 30 of 24. so i wanted to point out next is our balance sheet and there's only a couple areas here i want to address one is our cash and cash equivalents right now we're at 58 million 245 but again while it sounds like a lot we know we have 60 million left in payroll to pay out we have 4.8 million and sickly bonus to pay out the end of the year and then again as i mentioned we have 1.7 million and the guaranteed energy savings contract needs to pay out so

006clearly you know that cash and cash equivalents we already have most of that year mark for the remainder of this fiscal year i thought it'd be important to talk about federal stimulus money since a large portion came from that this year when you're looking at the board those highlighted in red have either already fully been expended 100 percent or will be by june 30. uh we had a couple additional cover grants that come in since last time we met um particularly the ida special education grant there's two of those we have a homeless grant from mckinney-vento 124 000 and those will carry over in the fiscal year 23 and the very last one the sr-3 american rescue plan 30 about 32 million of that 38 million will carry over to next fiscal year okay yes

007this is the page that i have that you didn't think you had let me do that um when we're eat paying for summer school when summer school starts um in june we that first part of the summer's school money comes out of the current budget correct no last year with our soul solomon this summer opportunity learning all that came out of the federal money and we will continue to spend the federal money until it's gone for summer school and then we'll go back to spending summer school out of the general operating fund yeah but the fund 71 is where the some school money comes out correct and does the fund 71 end on june 30th like fund 11 and everything no it's through september 30 of 2024 because of the federal budget correct okay very

008next slide so when you boil that down where we stand right now our general fund our reserves is 12.2 million if you recall a few months ago the board meeting the board elected to have an additional 500 paid out in the sick leave incentive and that's about 1.5 so that will leave us about 10.7 million in the reserves uh the state minimum they expect is a three percent they recommend three to five percent at three percent that be just around seven million for this district uh and then fund 51 is capital improvements it currently stands at 10.6 million again we have purchased a warehouse july 1 of last year we're renovating that now before we can move into it that's 1.7 million that will come out of that 10.6 and then we have a handful

009of other projects that would typically be paid for out of bond proceeds but given the timing of when we're actually going to be able to run the bond and the required needs that we have now in some of our buildings we felt we needed to take some of the capital improvement funds reserves and earmarket for those now this list is i don't say worst case scenario but everything on this list we don't expect to do right away it's just there in case we need it for example the multiple roof projects that 733 will be spent uh as soon as we get some bids in the hvac projects only about half of that is required that we think what we need to do right away we are aware of some other units on other schools that

010may or may not fail so we want to keep some reserves set behind that then we have some small items in there now if you notice the last item the land for new schools that is a big item and as you know we're trying to identify properties for our 10-year cep plan and that's somewhere between three and five million depending on what projects or what land we find and where um so when you take all that out of the capital improvements fund it's going to leave between one and a half and three and a half million in reserves at the end of this process so that's all i had on the current year where are we staying is there any questions on the current year so moving forward talking about the fiscal year 23 budget

011just to let you know what we've done to this point we've had staffing meetings with all the principals we've met with transportation maintenance child nutrition and we've had multiple senior staff meetings to get to this point to present for you to what's here tonight but let's start with what the budget calendar is obviously the two items in red will be work sessions with the board when april 19th we'll have the statutory meeting that reconvenes to set our levy rates officially on april 25th we expect to come back to this board and again have another budget work session at the end of that session if we have a balanced budget we will not need to bring it back to the board on may 2nd which go ahead and advertise in the paper and then on may

01216th we'll have the public hearing and approve it as a board the school board needs to adopt it and send it to the state department of education before may 30th and that be after we approve it it'd be pending the department of education's approval on our budget so that's what the timeline looks at right now at this point we do not have any state revenue numbers so what we're presenting tonight is projections and requests again with the state aid formula everything revolves around the enrollment as you can see from 21 to 22 we had a 400 student increase however from 22 to 23 we only expect an increase of just over 100 students that large increase from 21 to 22 was for the students that came back that left the school system during the covet

013and have come back so again for fiscal year 23 we expect about 100 students more than what we have today as you know the enrollment drives our staffing levels and these staffing levels are set by the state um so given where we are today uh with our current enrollment we have 1 425 professionals that the state pays for of those 1 4 25 1300 of them have to be professional teachers step five is our student support that's our counselors and nurses they provide 98.6 staff and our service personnel across all categories we have about 866.93 that the state pays for and again we're talking about state aid funded positions obviously we have several positions that aren't funded by the state at all none of the federal programs obviously are funded by the state they're funded

014by federal dollars but we also have many departments in our central office that aren't funded with the state aid formula with the increase of 100 students that would provide in the funding formula in 23 for another seven professional another half student support which is a counselor or nurse and about 4.4 more service persons now so in total it would give us about 12.2 additional staff if we have 100 more students that come into the district while it's going to provide 12.2 more positions that it's paid for as you can see right there the bottom line is what the state aid formula pays for the red line above it is what we actually employ and the difference between those two right now is 128 staff over formula again these are state aid funded positions so i

015just wanted to point that out that we're still over formula even with growth and enrollment sorry when we're talking about the wants of the state within the formula and then what we're paying um that's coming out of the excess living money that is correct everything that's outside the state aid formula is either paid with local funds either a p-card rebate program interest from banks miscellaneous income and our excess levy and regular value the 15 that we get to keep [Music] jim what's the breakdown of professional versus service over formula off the top of my head i believe it's 38 or 34 of the i think it's around 34 or 128 that are over formula the rest are a service person however formula and most counties in the state are over 40 as we recall that

016from our legislative session i think there's 47 or so counties that are over formula when it comes to service personnel and again we've continually asked the legislature to fix that that ratio in addition to what is here i think it's mindful to let you know there's 87 positions currently being paid out of the federal coveted funding that at some point when we get to you know march of 24 we'll have to address those their staff so the good news for us is the assessed values came in the first part of march the county is required to give us to those numbers by march 3rd and as you can see we've had another large increase in assessed values across the county this year it's over 7.1 billion in assessed values in our county so what does

017that mean for us so the current uh levy revenue it also went up and we'll go over these numbers later but again 85 of that offsets the state aid formula in step nine so whatever increase we have in this category uh we the school board only gets to keep 15 of that and that's projected to be 34 million dollars for 2023. now we're going to the excess labview the same category there but again as you heard me say in prior sessions we get to keep 100 of the excess levy revenue it's all stays within the county and that is projected to be 40.1 million for fiscal year 23. what was that number again 40.1 million so how does that break down we talked a little bit about it so the regular levy revenue increase over

018fiscal year 22 to 23 is almost 3 million dollars but again the state aid step 9 offsets 85 of that which means we'll keep about 450 000 of that money for for local uh local unrestricted funding the excess levy like i said it's gonna be 40.1 million that's a 3.5 million increase over last year uh it's not impacted by a state aid formula we keep 100 of that as you guys know there's we still expect to interest rates to climb which means our interest rate that we earn will decline so we expect less revenue and interest income again we had talked before the increased enrollment in fiscal year 23 went up 408 students however and 23 women expected to go up a hundred so what that means says it's 1.5 million less in revenue and

01923 than in 21 for the increased student enrollment i thought excuse me i thought when the fed raises the interest rates um those with money in the bank get more money do they not yeah we're we're not our interest rate is so we actually make more money in our p-card rebate program than we do having money in the bank right now we earn about 1.91 percent when we spend and i'd have to look at the number but it's it's very very small it's less than one percent yeah i know our interest revenue had been down in the past i was just wondering with with the inflation factors and and the fed trying to put a right on that people's money in the bank would be making more interest right but our district when we run

020our bond we're not just we're gonna have to pay a higher interest rate to borrow that money okay um so we have two we have put both sides of it that's going to impact us but again you know as we get down the bond road and that's not for this meeting uh every session that the feds increase that rate we're gonna be able to borrow our last um we we know and again i mentioned earlier we don't have the numbers from the state aid yet from the department of education but we know they did pass the five percent increase in the pay tables so because of that increase we will get some additional state aid funding uh the professionals increased 2 240 dollars per 200-day employment contract the service side increased 1 220 for 200-day

021employment contract and as you recall from the couple slides ago they do not pay for anybody outside or over the formula so for us we estimate that cost one hour budget to be 750 000 that we'll have to make up out of our general fund so again from all the staffing meetings we had both with the principals and the senior leadership and requests throughout the organization this is currently the request that we have again initially we had well over 10 million dollars in requests what we're showing you tonight is what we have whittled down and prioritized to this point again not knowing what our state aid revenue will be this is this is basically our starting point again this is a work session so the professionals we're looking at at about 16 new positions and

022on the server side about 15 and a half positions and i'm not going to read them to you can see them there but the estimated cost is one point almost 1.5 million dollars for those of 31 positions other areas that we discussed and again we had well over 10 million in requests but we tried to break it down here some of these are related to code changes at the state level i either cook three positions as a new position created by the state that we'll have to to absorb um you can read everything else there but we also included the summer holiday pay i know that was an interest to some of you up up on the stage um we have a special election for a bond that we're probably going to run in the

023spring yet to be determined we also know that our big categories is our fuel or diesel fuel our utilities and our food costs we project that based upon what we're spending now to be about 1.5 million dollars more in fiscal year 23 than what they are right now we have some recruitment and retention programs that total about 375 000 and then you know dr murphy's mentioned before that he would like to do a 1 salary increase and that's 2 million so when you look up all the items up there it totals 4.4 million so when you take the state pay raise at the 5 percent when you look at the 750 000 that's not covered in that in that by the state aid you take the 1.5 million from the previous slide of service and

024professional staff of 31.5 positions you take this slide of 4.4 million that's 6.7 million when you look at that when you look at the revenue from our excess loving of reverend and the regular levy that was about 4 million so there's about 2.7 million out of this list that we need to weed down at some point but again it's a little premature at this point because we don't know what the state revenue numbers will be but i can assure you it won't be 2.7 more to cover what these requests are i know that's somewhat quick but i think it highlights all the areas that we've addressed again i think we were very thorough as a senior leadership team and meeting with staff and whittling down the list obviously we'd like to do more if we

025had more funding but the fact is we are limited to our funding so this is what we're starting with as part of the budget process for fiscal year 23. any questions gm1 question please the slide you had on assessed property evaluations i don't know if they can't give you the information but i'm curious is that more uh increased evaluations on existing properties or is it more reflect new properties new homes new townhouses i would have to go back and look um todd i'm not really sure off top of my head i know all categories increase i can't tell you which one's increased the most but we will look at that when we do the statutory meeting later but i don't have the assessed values from prior i know in total the assessed values are up

026i think it was six or seven hundred million over the prior year it's probably a combination it is but i think they break it down between new construction and and the old but i i don't have that number off the top of my head we had talked i was looking at one of the special ed categories which i was con looking at and we had we had the highest number in the state i don't want to autism autism and we had the highest number of cases which which i don't want to portray as being a bad thing because back in the 70s and 80s when they stopped institutionalizing children and brought them back in the community i felt that was a far more humane process but but in the in discussing what it cost us

027versus what the state reimbursed us and it came out of the excess levy i wouldn't assume and that would be in personnel have you ever looked at items that like that that we're funding out of the excess levy and people don't realize um the money is just not a we have commitments that the state's not reimbursing us i think there this state was giving us a little over a million something and it's costing us six or seven million so so the state gives us four thousand fiscal year 22 they give us four thousand eight hundred and forty one dollars and forty one cents per student i don't recall the exact number off top of my head but we do a maintenance of effort calculation every year for special ed and it's around 11 12 000

028per student some of that money is is from from the federal programs the ida program but it does not near cover the budget i think we're around off top of my head 45 million in expenses for special ed the ida program is probably just under 5 million and we get some other small grants throughout the year um high cost high acuity grants but again it's nowhere near covers the the 45 million so a good portion of that comes from our excess levy and in the past we've always been trying to get locality pay out of the state legislature but i've i've thought maybe we should get the look at our excess levy things that are being funded and see if we should be trying to challenge the underfunding that it costs us versus what the

029state's giving us and uh if you recall uh mr murphy and prior legislative meetings we've had with our board in this legislation we've asked for them to fix the special ed formula and staffing we've asked them to fix the 84 supplement i mean we we have asked for the legislature to act and have not at this point uh provided relief in those two areas okay is that it any other questions i just for conversation okay yeah i'll wait is this part of the program over because i have something i wanted to pass down uh for the budget the work session it will be yeah and then we'll move on okay i'd like to well i'd like to pass something out here i mean this is a wrench in the works here but in the budget

030yeah this is the this for the proposed project i'd like to pass this out i'd rather not vote on this now because i don't think this is you know this is a budget but i i'd like to talk about it i may have mr president um is that all right i don't know i guess it's just a matter of discussions we're just in a work session yeah yeah it's just discussion without going into a lot of detail last fall between the months of october and december miss long and i visited their schools the principals we did not have any direction or mandate from anyone but um it should give it to dr school if you would mr martin sir for the record thank you we visited with the 32 principals plus a few extra people

031in the county and uh their concerns out of the 32 we had 31 31 schools where we discussed things and the first item was at that time was the substitute shortage and the second item that principals expressed a concern about was student behavior problems the third was that october felt like march as far as the staff was concerned burnout was a big concern and the fourth the the second and the fourth item uh was a need for an alternative school and then as we were going around talking to the principals we found out that before uh our present superintendent came on board and before mr hatfield was here there had been a a committee that had been visiting other counties in their system with alternative schools more than once and this came up more than

032once principals told us that their time was a major part of their time was consumed by just a handful of students just a handful and uh um and and the impact of this was that the uh principals were not able to go around and be more involved with their school they were tied to the office with these few students so so the process of being an instructional leader was being undermined the idea of trying to have a thorough and efficient education with your principal was having his time diverted to the to a few students and if we are our primary focus is upon instructional leadership and raising the academic standards of our schools then this is a major impediment to that goal this problem existed before the pandemic and they were doing this they're exploring

033it the alternative school that's now directed by mr marquette should continue i don't want to impose or interfere with that process with a focus upon high school students although he said he took uh he has kids as young as in in the fourth grade i believe he said very few very very few i mean and and you have also have to make sure that you're aware that mr marquette's program has increased the graduation rate success in berkeley county but i i would like for us as we're thinking about this and i saw some positions in the budget that uh dr schooly and and mr dilly and mr butts for pointing out i would like to see us focus upon an alternative school i'm concerned that you want to make sure you have a yardstick that's

034measured that measures for these students you don't want somebody at one school trying to throw anybody that blinks at you into the school you want you want to have a consistent referral process and that was pointed out in the uh in the discussion with the people you should have a site that has intensive review of these students you just don't want to park them and say you've been misbehaving you go sit there and count the bricks on the wall or something i'll admit i had some kids count bricks on the wall over the years but you want to make this an experience where you're doing an examination of this child using existing forces people checking for things like vision hearing as well as emotional [Music] evaluation of reference and learning disabilities you want to you

035want to when you have these students there you want to try to find out why are they there not because of their behavior there are other factors which contribute to this behavior and have a focus there in this area you want to see if there's some sort of trauma laden environment that they're originating like i said you want to see if they have dyslexia or some other problems where their frustrations and learning and conforming in the program are not being identified but i want to advocate for our principles to try to get them back out of their offices towards instruction and away from just trying to handle a handful of students whose behavior is so disruptive we try to have summer programs and i i still don't believe that a 36-week school year can be

036replaced by a six-week remediation program in the summer we have to focus on those 36 weeks and i'm i'm hoping that we will walk away looking at this and see if we can bring a site central alternative school into this into the system and this is what surprised me i was thinking of third fourth or fifth but as we talked to the principals they said they're coming in with problems as young as pre-kindergarten kindergarten kids so i'm advocating that we we start working on this i have i've put down it's a daytime alternative school it's we would start out with a goal of 75 students uh i've suggested that we use co not money from this current budget year but next year and that's why i was asking these questions about the federal calendar versus

037state using cobit money on the front end in the 2223 budget taking money from the summer program and trying to because i know we funded in the summer time and i was thinking let's try to capture next year's instructional year by starting this program out in the fall planning for it now and over the summer and having it funded in part out of coveted money the first year and finally i don't want to be picking and choosing but next january as you see there in the paper identify seven professional positions to carry this program on either through attrition or reduction in force bring it back to the board in january of next of 23 so that the board doesn't agree with the recommendations personnel is handled by the superintendent individual people but the board votes

038it up or down so we're not with our back against the wall and i learned something else about the timeline for that but i think we should start talking about if we have to reduce any positions we start in january whoever's on the board in january 23 but i believe from talking to our principals that there's a need for an alternative school and i think we're farming our instructional program by not uh instituting it here in the future i apologize for catching off you off guard i did put it in for the request but this is a sizeable issue but i think that we could find a way to do this and improve instruction at the school level in the classroom and also help children who are having a problem getting with the program trying

039to see why they're having a problem but [Music] issues have con have consequences there's one principle to us so i don't want to vote on this now but i would like to uh put it out there and uh let's let's see if we can work it yeah i would like to add a comment here and i don't want to speak for pupil services or special ed and i'm not sure of the timing when you spoke to those administrative leaders but traditionally transition school is for students who have an expellable offense and i'm not sure how many pre-k through seventh grade kids we have that have expellable offenses i think what you're talking about is behavior issues and we've hired social workers through the community and schools program we've added social workers through the covet funding

040and this budget that we discussed earlier has nine positions related to behavior one a bcba and nine are bts so we we're looking at nine staff dedicated to social emotional behavior issues with our students well i i agree we're getting the personnel i'm just saying that the method of addressing the disruptive individuals in the school is falling in the principal's office and his time or her time excuse me we have more ladies here doing this their time is consumed for a handful of students at the expense of doing the instructional leadership their role as a principal should be being addressed and i i believe after talking to the principals and their inner schools off the record but i am i believe that they brought up a genuine concern that we should we should be through

041the budget process be trying to help them as well as the other students in the school that are having their instruction interrupted wow and what we heard we heard that from everyone except for one school that didn't meet with us and it wasn't necessarily to call it an alternative school it was a location to as pat said to help these kids and see what they actually need even if they need to be staffed into special ed but they need to come out of the regular classroom setting because they're disrupting um the teacher and and what we also heard was that um before kova that uh group went to morgantown and um i think it was a seeds program and and it was it was very well run there and it made they made great leaps

042and that's what i think that we're trying to say we're not trying to say to call in an alternative school it could have some other kind of name but it's definitely um these kids were having issues because maybe they're having difficulty learning but we we definitely need that because we heard that from everyone and not just principals it was it's a hefty problem dr murphy yes uh thank you dr gilbert and uh mr murphy thank you so much for the proposal uh that you've worked on here uh perhaps i've been negligent in sharing some of the things that we have been doing and some of the backgrounds so while you were out talking with principals we actually went to morgantown two years ago and we have been meeting on a regular basis um with principals

043uh a small principal group specifically about this so what i'd like to do mr butts if you wouldn't mind or or tech folks could you go back to slide number 17 and let me elaborate a little bit more here on what we've got and yes i have heard the um the request or the consideration for some of the ideas that you are vetting this evening um but over the course of the conversations that we've been having with our special education our teaching and learning department with our principals as part of this committee we are looking at um sort of a progressive plan where we build in this direction so on this staffing sheet you have here the nine positions that have been identified um as a recommendation to take that first step this next year

044is the bc uh ba position uh which is a behavioral intervention position and then the um eight rbts and we think that we can address these things um either at the school or um somewhat of a centralized location but do it in a progressive manner but also begin to address it and i think that's one of the things that you are speaking about on this evening uh with some of these other positions i just feel the need to point them out the two spanish teachers the four cte uh teachers uh those are really addressing the increases that we're seeing at the high school level specifically with the block scheduling and also to encourage students to take more rigorous courses whether that be dual enrollment foreign language cte or advanced placement and based on where we

045are right now with the course registrations uh that seems to be um the the particular instructional needs that we have the physical education teacher and the general education teacher and the four special education teachers that's a result of our recent staffing meetings um and those are relatively slight increases but the fact of the matter was that's just simply um through what growth we're experiencing it at those uh particular levels um so i'll kind of stop there that's that's more from the teaching and learning perspective and how all those things relate we didn't elaborate on that and so i just wanted to take a moment tonight to kind of say to you this is the step we're taking in that direction obviously we're talking this evening if you know there's a sense that we need to

046take a larger step or this step is the first step on that journey then we can you know we can have a conversation about that as we move forward what is rbt it's a registered behavioral technician the the uh the concern i mean i appreciate this but i see a limited number of schools that would benefit from these increased steps where if you had a centralized place alternative site the school principal is presently handling these problems in his office and i think that the alternative site would alleviate that loss of energy and and focus that he's putting towards those limited number of students and could be putting it towards the uh the goal of being out in a school working amongst the students or her students excuse me principles but working with the the instructional

047program and whether we have one in eight people here we we still need to look at those children in a more focused way to see is there a reason for this behavior is there a frustration that we need to identify but but get them out of the school and then as one principal uh told us you you have a staff member who brings them back to the school it's not a year-long nerve two or three years it's it's short bursts of focus energy on this child's behavior and then a staff member from that school comes back with the child and tries to work them back into the school so there's this communication between the school and the alternative site and i just i just think that we need to get a program one the principal's

048office is not working it's not working because the principal has got to focus on that child and and and then he is not out there in the school doing the instructional leadership that he or she needs to do and i i think we need a sight separate place focus on these children and just make sure we're not putting mischievous little children into a program that's designed for people who have major problems mr murphy i think you limit yourself when you're talking 79 kids that's about two and a half kids per school and if you pull them out and put them in another school and you have other issues with other kids in the school you have no help there i do believe the nine staff we identified will be able to work with the kids

049as needed in the school in a day-to-day you don't have the same issues with the same kid every day necessarily but again i'm going to speak for a special way i uh i have defended you many a day and i have disagreed with you on many of another and that's just fine and that's and that's i like that relationship we have but i think that that your viewpoint in the board office and and looking at the numbers here and everything and i'm not going to fall back into mold trap here sure but good but i i do think the principal's concerns need to override what you just said and get get us addressing these children's problems and get those principles out of the office where they're spending all their time with these handful of kids

050out into the schools where they're checking on the academic programs of our county and i you know me i'll go down with custer and everybody else fighting for what i believe here but i do think the principles and miss long has tested i think you'll find when you try to staff a school for 80 kids through grade k through seven you'll have difficulty uh covering all the subject matters for all the age groups with seven staff well they're doing it uh i mean morgantown's doing that other other locations are doing it so it must work well it's a it's a fair proposal and something for us to continue to die we have another work session april 25th that we can delve into it more thank you any other questions thank you mr butts [Music] we

051prepared to go straight into the student recognitions i don't see let's give them maybe five five minutes maybe just a five minute recess so we'll come back uh at 6 55 let's say take a little bit of a break here [Music] we'll go ahead and resume our meeting and mrs elaine bobo will come forward to begin our student recognitions [Music] thank you for more than 30 years march has been officially designated by the national association for music education as music in our schools month time of year when music education becomes the focus of schools across the nation the purpose of music in our schools month is to raise awareness of the importance of music education for all children and to remind our community that schools the school is where the children should have access to

052music music in our schools month is an opportunity for music teachers to bring their music programs to the attention of the school and to the community and to display the benefits that school music brings to students of all ages the impact of music education is evident in how its social emotional benefits have empowered students and brought joy into their communities every day in classrooms across our district music educators dedicate themselves to reaching all students with life-changing musical experiences what parents caregivers administrators and our wider community have not always had the opportunity to observe however is the months of practice and rehearsals and the process of learning that takes place in the music classroom whether it be virtual distanced or in person tonight we have several very dedicated and proud music educators who want to share

053with you some of the recent accomplishments of their students these students and families who have joined us tonight represent thousands of students across our district who engage in and work every day to perfect their musical talents dr murphy dr gilpin board of education and honored guests i invite our music educators to come to the podium and introduce their students and their guests this evening we're going to start with james miller from musselman all right good evening um i'm going to be i'm here on behalf not just for choir but i'm also here for mr nepper for band and so i'm going to start with the band students the allstate band and the first one we have and unfortunately they weren't able to be here tonight so the first one we have is emma price and

054not only did she make the west virginia all-state band uh in 2020 2021 and 2022 but this year she was um first chair in the 2022 nafta national honor concert band so not just west virginia but in the whole country so um that's a quite an accomplishment for emma price and then we also have kevin hughes um he was uh he's a jazz band guitarist in the in the band um and he was um first chair cellist in the 2022 west virginia all-state orchestra and last we have michael lowe um and he uh made the for the first time he made the allstate orchestra and the f horn on the french horn sorry so um those are the allstate band kids and so if you are choir kids um can they they're welcome to come

055up right they all stay quiet yes absolutely come on up i'll stay choir kids i only have i only have about two of them here today but but it's okay [Applause] and so we had multiple we had multiple all-state choirs the first uh the first one we had was um we have sarah bartley she was um for the ninth grade um there's a there's a junior high choir and she was able to go for the junior high choir so there was sarah bartley and then um the two that were not here um they were the first uh women in the uh musclemen high school to ever qualify for the west virginia acda honors choir and that is emiliano jenkins who's not here and katie davis and then [Applause] and then we had eight uh eight

056members qualify for the west virginia uh wv mea all-state choir which is the first time in a long time that musclemen has had eight um unfortunately of those eight one of them is here tonight and that's elijah feaster and then elijah feaster um there was also malachi johnson um there was tyler mason a fiorella allercon then we also have katie davis gwen wilson emiliana jenkins and michelle alercon so that's all the wonderful things that happened at musselman for the allstate band inquirer thank you hello my name is katie schramm and i'm the choir director and fine arts department chair at martinsburg high school and it is my pleasure to introduce to you uh some of my students who were selected for the west virginia all-state choir um first i'd just like to add on to

057what everything james had said uh just to say the difficulty of the audition for west virginia all-state choir is to me one of the most difficult auditions of pretty much any um all-state but it was it was harder than my college audition to music school they have to prepare all of the music that they will perform at the concert and then they sing all of that music in front of judges and the teachers we stand in front of them and conduct them and they also have to pass a school-wide audition to be selected to audition for their voice part and they audition as a whole ensemble which means they have to rehearse together prior to their audition so it really is quite an accomplishment and in the end the thing that's beautiful about the process

058is they only really audition against themselves and their own musicianship and preparedness but it is such a commitment on the front end to be able to reach those goals so um the students that i'm recognizing tonight is um ellie davis is an alto one in this year's all-state choir she also was in uh allstate choir last year as well so this is her second year uh and then we have ayanna westbrook who is uh soprano two ava di pasquale who's soprano one keegan livingston who is ten or two and uh elaine butcher who is our tenor one and we had another student xerxes yancy who is base one he just couldn't join us this evening um we also have uh ava di pascuale was selected this year as the second student ever from berkeley county

059schools to be selected to the southern division of acda regional advanced treble honor choir and so that was a really large honor that she received in the fall and she was just in january was attended their uh southern division conference to perform with that ensemble so that was um another great accomplishment so i'd love for us to apply for these students great job i also just wanted to acknowledge our triumph officers as well i probably should have thought to bring them this evening too for the service that they did at our state music conference this year um students uh kendall holden izzy banks matty fishel and grace martin are officers of the triad music honor society chapter at martinsburg high school and they did what's called hosting of the state conference where they basically ran

060recruitment booths for any fme national uh for triumph in the exhibits area they ushered all of the honor concerts and assisted the executive board and so just as part of music in our schools month and um the countless hours of service that those students did to state music i just want to acknowledge them as well so thank you very much thank you very much before i begin i would like to present the board with this concert program i've gone ahead and highlighted all the students that have made the allstate ensemble so so thank you students parents educators and distinguished members of the board my name is nathan rein and i teach strings in orchestra grades three through 12 in berklee county berkeley county strings program began in 1996 with an awarded grant of 7 500

061initial enrollment in the two starter schools were low but today there are more than 600 students involved with a presence in every intermediate middle in high school throughout the years since its inception the berkeley county orchestra program boasts two all-county ensembles one at the middle and one at the high school level we are proud of our many students who have earned west virginia all-state positions and all national positions several of those students have gone on to music and music education majors at the next level this evening i'd like to introduce members of our west virginia all-state orchestra levels some of whom have earned top chairs in the ensemble many of those are here today when i call your name please come forward to be recognized from hedgesville high school receiving first chair honors on the

062base was chase cook from spring mills high school on first violin is shira sanchez from spring mills high school on violin 2 is macy montanez on viola from spring mills high school is gabriel green from musselman high school alexander pirello on base receiving first chair honors on cello from musselman is kevin hughes ancelo as well for musclemen is abigail ald on viola from musclemen is jillian eicher on violin 2 from musselman high school is julia hall and on violin 2 from mussman high school is lillian davis additionally we have one representative that made our west virginia all-state middle school ensemble she could not be here this evening miss sophie carpenter from mountain ridge middle and she made it on first violin so i'd like for everybody to acknowledge their accomplishments since it is music in

063our schools month i would like to leave you with this ask a former student about the subject that best taught them stick tuitiveness the value of hard work and the importance of self-discipline for those lucky enough to have taken part the answer will be music in no other discipline our boundaries and languages minimized cultures are shared appreciated and loved with music you can connect the world instantly with a singular language i challenge everyone in this room and those watching at home to do more to students join your school's music program try something new and exciting it may prove to be an extremely rewarding to parents expose your children to the arts instill an appreciation and encourage them to take part to principals go to every arts performance as if it were a home football game

064and honor these young musicians accomplishments as if they just won the state tournament because they did to board members and hire administrators continue to educate yourself on the value of music in our schools horace mann the founder of american school system believed music is essential to the education of the young for the development of aesthetic appreciation citizenship and thinking there is no greater investment one can make than that of music education thank you um good evening dr murphy and board members my name is jessica rukis and i am the choir director at spring mills middle school i'm going to be presenting to you two different all-state groups that are represented by spring mills middle school the first is the west virginia all-state children's choir our school was unfortunately the only one in berkeley county to

065participate this year but hopefully we'll have more in the future the west virginia allstate children's choir has approximately 155 members this year it's comprised of fourth fifth and sixth grade students from across the state of west virginia our students did not have an audition process but these folks volunteered and after they volunteered we spent about an hour and or an hour and a half each week practicing amongst ourselves and the rest of the time was independent study through schoology and practice tracks on their own uh these individuals learned and memorized nine different songs for their performance including songs in hebrew swahili and german as well as english once they learned their songs we went to charleston and they spent nearly 12 hours in rehearsal with a guest conductor getting them ready to perform on the

066stage this year's participants from spring mills middle school for the west virginia allstate children's choir we're 6th graders rob green peyton henry and alyssa robinson the other group that was represented by spring mills middle school this year was the west virginia all-state choral director's junior high and middle school honor choir you heard mr miller speak about this group earlier this group was open to seventh eighth and ninth graders from across the state of west virginia we had approximately 140 total in the choir this year uh likewise there was no audition process for the junior high organization but they again at our school spent about an hour and or an hour and a half together and then work independently the rest of the time this group learned five songs including one that was in spanish when

067they went to charleston they spent approximately 15 hours in rehearsal with the guest conductor again getting them ready to perform this year's participants include 7th grader sydney falcon and our other two allstate members could not make it this evening uh those were emma nala and madeline smith and i also have programs for you if you all would like to look at them so good evening my name is laura shanahan and i'm the choir director at mountain ridge middle i'm here to recognize cheyenne grove marissa casto and adrian floyd for their participation in the west virginia acda honor choir where they performed independently prepared repertoire with other top singers from over 30 middle schools from across our state i selected these students out of my 140 student program to represent mountain ridge at the capitol i'm

068not only here to honor their beautiful voices and musical skill but also their contribution to my program our school and our society through their work ethic positive attitudes and constant acts of kindness among their peers i'm honored to have these ladies in my class and now in my heart congratulations to you girls [Music] i would like to ask all of the students that were honored this evening if you would stand again now because i know you a lot of you came early and your parents and other caregivers came with you i'm going to ask them to stand and let's give them a round of applause also [Applause] i think it's safe to say that music in our schools month was well represented and well celebrated across the district so thank you all to our performers

069our music teachers our parents our coaches and everyone who encourages music in our school so thank you very much congratulations again and thank you so much for joining us tonight this uh these presentations have really become one of our favorites at our board meetings it's been a nice nice addition to get to recognize our great students thank you she said you were going to introduce me oh okay i'm sorry mr ron stevens good evening everyone dr gilpin board members dr murphy uh this past saturday wrapped up our winter athletic season in west virginia and it's my pleasure this evening to report that berkeley county experienced a rather successful winter season our spring mills girls and musclemen boys recently represented berkeley county in the basketball state tournament our swim and wrestling teams competed at the state

070level for both individual and uh team awards many of our athletes um as you as you know takes a lot of dedication to participate and by the way congratulations to all the vocalists and the musicians that are here i do know some of the parents that are sitting in the crowd and um you know i know that your your chest is huge right now and i believe that there are many restaurants that are going to be filled tonight with celebration from this crowd so congratulations to them many athletes are multi-sport athletes and we would like to recognize some of the best here this evening some of them are not going to be able to join us they're in as far away places as arizona tonight i heard a report uh competing and uh and practicing

071their craft and trying to get better but with us this evening are some of our stellar athletes and their outstanding coaches uh who will be happy uh to provide introductions and accomplishments for the individuals and the teams i would like to start with musselman high school has has uh some adult representation here this evening um i'm going to ask that alicia rigelman and coach ryan barker from the swim team come down i'm going to give you a little bit of an overview as to what took place this year good evening dr murphy and board members i'm here on behalf of the muslim and high school girls wrestling team uh unfortunately they are involved in other sports at this time our girls brought home the three-time state title this year many of you might not know

072but ladies wrestling in the state of west virginia is fairly new to our state many of our girls had never wrestled before and to bring home three years in a row the state title is is a pretty big deal and we're really proud of them mr dennis burlingame is our head coach they competed against east hardy high school and all of them had to show up and they had to perform at their very best in order to receive enough points to bring home that title so we want to recognize jillian timberlake she play placed second gwen cackley placed second cecilia collins placed third candle shepherd placed fourth gwen wilson placed fourth savannah sellers placed fourth lydia estrada placed six and carrington bennett placed seventh so we had eight of our wrestlers that made allstate we

073did celebrate them a couple weeks ago and all their accomplishments they are trailblazers and we want to continue watching this program grow throughout our state and our school we also had one of our our male wrestlers parker bentley he placed sixth in the state competition due to injury he didn't make it to the championship but we are still proud of him and his season and all of his accomplishments so at this time i'm going to introduce mr ryan barker our head swim coach good evening everyone uh i'm brian barker from muslim high school um i get the privilege of coaching some really great swimmers and student athletes at mussman high school and i get to introduce one that has uh competed for four years with us um she made it to states and um she

074finished at her best uh her senior year she placed sixth place in the 50 freestyle and the 50 100 freestyle estates meddling in both events and set a school record in the 50 freestyle at the state meet so i'd like to introduce sadie wright thank you congratulations sadie we might need to work with some of our other participants this evening on how to pose for the picture that was awesome uh by the way um does anybody know who who else in the state of west virginia has won the uh girls wrestling championship in the state of west virginia anybody no one there's only been one champion three years in a row it has been muscled in high school so i just want to bring it home to berkeley county at this time i would like

075to recognize the the swim team from spring mills high school and i would like for coach daniel mcintosh if he would bring the representatives that are here tonight down and give us a little overview and i know that um you know i mentioned before that our athletes you know much like all the students that are here tonight you know they excel because they challenge themselves um but i know even in the group that that are here tonight they have rushed here from other uh other sporting events practices uh just to be here for us tonight i spoke to one specifically before we got started tonight and she said she hasn't been home her day started here in this building at 7 00 am so just want to let you know the dedication that it takes

076to be an athlete and then to be recognized as well so coach hello i'm daniel mcintosh the head swim coach here at spring mills high school i am a product of the berkeley county school system um i spent every year of school in this county and i've watched it grow to what it's become today i am proudly celebrating my fourth season as a swim coach for this county and i thank you for giving me the opportunity for allowing me to live out the dream of being a coach and the simple fact that i know my swimmers put everything into the season with the time that we were given in 2019 i had the vision to get all four high schools together to create the first berkeley county championship for swim last year we weren't able

077to do it because of circumstances and we finally got it together they did not uh they did not disappoint spring mills ended up winning both boys and girls swim meets for the first annual berkeley county championship swim and uh hopefully this is something that can continue for decades to where they can look back and know that they were the first team to do it all of our swimmers in the county have an average around three hours in the pool together as a team we brought 14 spring mills high school swimmers to states with seven boys and seven girls we competed in 13 out of 22 events all of these the most since the school's inception in total spring mills brought back seven total medals this year from five different athletes five out of six swimmers

078in the county that meddled at states came from spring mills high school noah segrist placed fifth in the 200 individual medley and 100 fly in third place cassidy driver was sixth place in the 200 individual medley and abby bass sarah raider who's not here chelsea mcintosh and cassidy driver placed fifth in a 200 yard freestyle relay these are your swimmers from spring rolls high school coach if if i'm not mistaken didn't we talk earlier didn't you say that sarah was also you know she is competing elsewhere that's why she couldn't be here tonight she's also the first female athlete in at least in berkeley county that scored a point in football is that correct she was the kicker on the football team as well so this auditorium is filled with some definite definite achievers tonight

079coach anthony rigobuto from the spring mills wrestling team is here tonight he's brought some of his uh stellar wrestlers with him like for him to come up and give us an overview the wrestling team did outstanding this year and i will leave it up to you coach uh good evening i'm anthony vargo budo head wrestling coach spring mills this past season has been a great season uh we were able to accomplish tournament wins never been done in the history of eastern panhandle the elite opener first time uh now not the leader musclemen duels first time ever an eastern panel team won the duels we wanted this year uh the winners choice in fairmont it's been going on for probably 50 years no eastern panhandle team has ever won it we were able to win that

080tournament this year as well um regionals we won the regional championship we had the 14 weight classes we had 10 in the finals eight champions um and then going to the state tournament at the 14 weight classes we had seven place top six in the state we had four in the finals and um the guys that placed benny donovan took sixth uh paige for our girls she took third this year she was state champion last year took third this year uh jacob perry lost in the state finals was a regional champ um landon hoffman regional champ took third state tournament patrick jackson regional champ state champ and then matthew dolan regional champ and now two-time state champ finished the year undefeated it was a special year um i've been with these kids since they were

081six seven years old they train year-round non-stop uh they're getting ready to go to the national championship this weekend so um they're all cutting weight getting ready to go and uh just an honor to coach these kids and be a part of a program like this and the records that they're breaking you know things that have never been done in the history of the eastern panhandle and it's it's because of these guys and their work ethic and and i'm really thankful to be there coach thank you uh so with that i would like to uh close uh by saying that i uh greatly appreciate the student athlete um and all of those that participate in extracurricular activities it is uh unbelievable um and i agree i believe that we need to focus on getting out

082to support those that are giving to us and these young people are giving to us so thank you very much for the time tonight do you have any questions for me just have them stand up so we can stand up here and all of the athletes that were just recognized please stand up thank you how about the parents and guardians and family and friends that came with you tonight anyone else well thank you so much for coming we really appreciate it and thank you mr stevens our next item is the distinguished service award and principal ty tyson of tomahawk intermediate school will come forward to present that good evening i'm ty tyson principal at tomahawk intermediate school and i have with me tonight uh darling mcguire dolly is our cafeteria manager at tomahawk and uh

083she just does a fantastic job and certainly is deserving to be recognized tonight uh she is just a pleasure to work with she loves to laugh and have a good time and so do i and so we get along just great and the one of the uh my favorite parts about dolly is she is just very uh solution minded i guess you would say last year for example uh whenever the students were you know they couldn't come to the cafeteria to eat lunch right so we had to organize a revolving warehouse within the cafeteria and deliver the meals and dolly was obviously very instrumental in making that happen and making it happen very efficiently and then the kids went on virtual and so then we had to organize well dolly had to organize how we're

084going to get the meals to the buses for the buses to deliver the to the kids and she just she never missed a beat she may have been stressed on the inside but it surely didn't show she kept on coming to work with a smile on her face and just having a good time doing it and most recently um we had a one of our cooks you know couldn't make it to work for a while due to uh unforeseen circumstances so uh usually we have five cooks right and uh so most of the first semester we operated with four cooks but again you wouldn't have known it uh bali even allowed me to help slide the trays occasionally and just to make sure things were running smoothly a couple weeks ago we had a power

085outage and it was probably about 10 45 when this power outage happened at tomahawk and so the first place i went was the cafeteria because i'm like oh man i don't it was about five minutes before the power it still hadn't come back on right and so i get down to the cafeteria and there's dolly solution minded remember she was like mr tyson i'm telling you what you better get these kids down here right now because the meals are still hot we can get them through and so sure enough uh within about less than an hour approximately 500 kids came through and got their meals and they were able to eat their lunch while it was still hot like i said bali mcguire does with a smile on her face solution-minded she's going to get

086it done and make it happen and we're just so so happy to have her she actually has worked in berkeley county for 21 years 20 of those years at tomahawk and i think she wants to go for another 20 more she told me so congratulations to dolly that's a good feeling [Applause] let me do it if you didn't have the people that faction there's tracy ty and um miss ponton and then my cooks my cooks never miss we we don't miss we come to school no matter what daddy gets early [Applause] i didn't drink because i didn't want to go to meat opposite child nutrition god or something just real quick it says in dolly we trust thank you [Applause] dolly thank you thank you so much for all that you've done for the these

08721 years in berkeley county schools and we're happy to be able to honor you this evening as our march 2022 distinguished service award winner thank you again our next item is the volunteer of the month and the mountain ridge intermediate principal miss autumn fry will come forward to present that good evening dr gilpin members of the board dr murphy and senior staff volunteering means to freely give your time for community service mr babbitt has been a familiar face at mountain ridge intermediate for many years he has served berkeley county students as a substitute teacher and a read-aloud volunteer while at mri he has spent hours many hours in the classrooms bringing books to life most of the time he has done this face to face however last year with our unfortunate situation mr babbitt made

088it work online with teams every week over the past five years mr babbitt has devoted almost 100 hours reading to our students think about that 100 hours 6 000 minutes 360 000 seconds of reading to our children most children are read at home they're read to at home but all of our children experience this with mr babbitt thank you for allowing us to celebrate with mr robbie babbitt he makes a difference our school and our students have been blessed by his time and for sharing his love of books at this time i believe we have a video um we have some students that have shared something and then two of the teachers that he has been able to read in their class [Music] i met mr babbitt last year when he was our virtual reader

089he then continued as our in-person leader the year 2021 every week he is punctual and he brings classics as well as kids favorites to life by reading with his enthusiasm you can tell he enjoys reading himself and encourages the students to continue reading as well [Music] i really like mr [Music] he's really nice and i like the books he reads mr babbitt is a wonderful man he is very giving of his time he was my reader for a number of years and whenever he came into my classroom the children lit up they were always engaged and he meant so much to us that he essentially became a part of the classroom um i would go as far as to say family um and not my final year teaching but the year before when we were

090making our auction project we actually um made a project for mr babbitt and gifted it to him because he meant so much to us that we knew that he'd always be in our hearts and we hope that we live on indians um so mr babbitt thank you for all that you do you are truly an inspiration to myself as well as the children here that you've interacted with and we can't thank a better person to represent our school and who deserves this award [Music] this one thank you very much ladies and gentlemen mr babbitt thank you so much it's obvious from those pictures how much the kids appreciate the kids and and faculty there and all that you do thank you so much for giving of your time we appreciate it and thank you for

091being here tonight do you have family or friends with you this evening or [Music] you have to stand up [Applause] we appreciate it thank you so much that concludes our recognitions for this evening i think most of have cleared out but if anyone would are welcome to stay but if you want to take this opportunity to exit our next item is citizens forum citizens forum is a time for the public desiring to address the board on any topic at a regular meeting to keep the time for citizens forum to a reasonable amount we will allow two minutes for each speaker any derogatory comments profanity inappropriate comments and or referencing an employee or student by name will result in a muted microphone [Music] that's our first speaker is rebecca dunmeyer as we could hear this evening

092berkeley county does have great kids great teachers and some awesome uh programs and service personnel which i really do appreciate that but there is an undercurrent of critical race theory as part of the new world order has been infused into every part of our lives our government and our schools the bush administration perpetuated this with common core if crt is not in berkeley county schools why is there an equity and inclusion policy that sets requirements for schools and personnel and a diversity council that augments crt the halls through this school show that it is here biden wants kindergarten to start at age three when kids believe whatever they're told governor desantis had to ban sex ed in k-3 where transgender and gay marriage began to be taught biden just pledged 2.6 million for global gender

093equity our children are being being indoctrinated from every angle and age mass six feet transgender gay marriage sex with same sex 1619 project bio weapon disguised as vaccines riots burning cities with no consequences torn down statues changing history censoring traditional values fear from manufactured climate change teachers and students are careful not to offend anyone and of course the big gun comes out the racist i asked the board this question have any of these help to prepare children for a happy successful life in romans 1 18 to paul describes 2022's downward spine spiral into sex with god's response to let people choose and degrade themselves i um that that it doesn't go any further than that and uh the remedy solution is john 3 16 we're going to love the world's only begotten son that whoever

094believes our next item is the consent agenda contained in the consent agenda are the minutes of the regular meeting held on march 7th we have 19 schools with chaperone requests we have 36 curricular and extracurricular trip requests we have no past volunteers we have no student transfer requests we have 12 use of school property requests we have the budget supplements and transfers we have payment of the bills and approval of invoices we have the financial reports and the treasurer's report can i have a motion to accept the consent agenda i have a motion in a second any discussion all those in favor opposed motion carries unanimously our next item are the action items and the first is the purple star support and dr murphy and elaine bovo executive director of communication will come forward to

095present that program good evening the purple star award is a designation assigned to schools which display a special commitment to supporting military children and their families applications are made to the west virginia department of education and reviewed with common ground partners to issue the designation to schools meeting the award criteria schools receiving the award are will receive an official certificate and additional electronic materials which may be used to pridefully display their status as a military friendly school throughout their school building this designation works to build strong bonds between schools military service members and community organizations which meet the specialized needs of our children and enhance the success of our students so those your action this evening is really just a formality um it is just one of the pieces that are needed so that each

096of our schools can apply to become a purple star school they um would have to complete two activities and document them those activities could look something like hosting an event that invites veterans and members of the community into the school they can host a military appreciation night at a sporting event they could host a junior rotc program which all of our high schools do and these are just a few samples of the things that they could do in the schools as well as add resources to their school website that would support our military families currently we have 105 students who identify as military connected in nine of our schools and those schools are eagles spring mill's primary tomahawk mill creek intermediate tuscarora opequen elementary musselman high school burke street and south middle school and at

097this time we have probably about eight schools um starting in this process so with your approval this evening we'll be able to help them get across the finish line to becoming a purple star school and it would be the goal of the district to become a purple star district once all of our 32 school sites have completed the purple star designation so there the window to complete this is will expire at the end of april but it will open again in september so if our schools cannot complete it they can still get into the program next year as well do you have any questions can i have a motion to accept the purple star support uh enhanced support in berkeley county schools for military families a second second any discussion all those in favor opposed

098motion carries unanimously thank you our next item are the personnel actions dr schooley assistant superintendent of human resources will come forward to present that good evening president gilpin members of the board the personnel actions that are dated for monday march the 21st 2020 are as follows we have five new coaching appointments two are paid three are unpaid we have one coaching resignation we have two extra duty assignment resignations we have seven new health care appointments and for new leave of absence that are unpaid we have one person rescinding their request for an educational leave of absence we have one new one seventh uh line 23 we have the interim appointment of the principal of spring mills middle school with lidora wakura unfortunately we did lose an employee last month that's listed there we have one

099mutual agreement and change of uh days to service we have two resignations of professional personnel uh line 28 we have one transfer for next school year uh with jason kamloski from principal springmas high school to director of professional personnel on the service side we have eleven new service appointments we have one change of assignment for service personnel three resignations three retirements of service personnel we have one revised retirement with an earlier date three new service transfers one correction of a title which allowed for a movement of the service personnel one person rescinding their transfer that they accepted for next year they've chosen not to take that job one upgrade of a service personnel and aid classification two new substitute school nurses seven new service personnel substitutes one resignation from the substitute service list 12 new

100substitute teachers and one removal from the substitute teacher list for a total of 75 personnel actions dated monday march to 21st with the superintendent's recommendation can i have a motion to accept the professional service coaching and substitute personnel actions dated march 21st so moved have a second second any discussion all those in favor opposed motion carries unanimously board announcements just an inquiry um there's supposed to be a job study uh it was initiated quite a while ago i thought we were going to get it in february and i just just wanted to know an update on that the intent was to uh have that material for the board here as we move into the budget that has been delayed and we're actually meeting about that next week so we'll bring you a little bit of

101an update as far as where we are with the classification and compensation study any other board announcements superintendent announcements dr murphy all right thank you uh let me start out by first thanking uh elaine bobo dan comer and ron stevens for organizing this evening our celebration of our students and our coaches and our athletes i also want to let you know that at the next board meeting on april the 4th we're going to be recognizing some of our recent academic fair competitions and individuals that is still playing itself out we just hosted the regional social studies um but we're going to bring those students in and we want to try and have a balance between our student athletes and our academic uh those in the academic arena that are also achieving so um on the

102next slide though as a result of the the state science fair there are several individuals that are actually going to be moving on to the international science fair and i'd like to enter uh introduce those folks starting on the the left sydney bostick who is a freshman here at spring mills high school uh audrey mclaughlin who's a sophomore at hedgesville and then abigail snyder who was also a freshman at hedgesville so we've got strong representation at the lower grades moving forward those students will be traveling to atlanta during the first part of may may 7th through the 13th and they'll be competing in that international science fair and we wish them well and wish them the best last week i had an opportunity to attend our family engagement for our title 1 schools hosted by

103uh the federal programs betty ann powell penny cave danielle scott we're at this event it was comprised of parents of staff members you can see pat patton there who is also speaking to the group and what the team was pulled together to do was to really look and update our district's uh title one um parent engagement policy so that is been put in motion and we just want to thank all those that turned out uh and shared some good thinking with the group online registration is started and that's opened today for our pre-k programs and that's open for four-year-olds four years of age students on before june 30 of 2022 we also are going to be starting kindergarten enrollment and that's going to begin on the 4th and extend through the 8th and you can

104do that at your local school between 8 30 a.m and 2 30 p.m and you can also visit our website for a lot of that information i want to thank ron stevens and again elaine bobo and dan comer we've got uh practice coming up here tomorrow for statewide emergencies uh most specifically the tornado drill uh while we're not having mandatory exercises we are encouraging schools to engage in these drills either at this time or at some point during the week just to be prepared uh and part of this is being prepared know where safe spaces are in the event of a tornado and as we've seen sometimes we have uh you know very dramatic weather that comes out of nowhere so we want to be prepared in the event that that should happen we are

105also going to be um having on the 13th of april our school s.a.t school day for all students in the 11th grade and then the west virginia general summative assessment will extend for grades three through eight during the testing window of may 2nd through the 28th i know the weather's getting nice and uh folks are excited about that but we've still got the last grading period of the school year to finish up and this information was actually brought to our attention by mr hal van meter and the indication is while we're really stressing the importance of attendance and our attendance folks are working on that during uh the last three months we've seen some really great numbers coming in specifically for our middle and high schools and they are actually lowering the chronic absence rate

106so i just wanted to do a shout out about that keep doing whatever you're doing it's we're headed in the right direction and i just wanted to underline with the nice weather and people getting outside that we just finish up strong here toward the end of the school year we've got two early release dates coming up here on wednesday march the 23rd and then a second on wednesday april the 6th and then our next board meeting is slated for monday april the 4th and it'll be here starting at 7 p.m uh in the auditorium so we look forward to seeing all of you then thank you so we will adjourn our regular board meeting can i have a motion to adjourn [Music] a second second all those in favor and then a call to order

107the statutory meeting can i have a motion to approve the agenda for the statutory meeting any discussion all those in favor posed our next item is the schedule of proposed levy rates thank you dr gilbert uh carried over from the meeting earlier today during the work session the question was how much of the 7.1 billion was from new property that's 266 million of the 7.1 assessed values are from new property in the county with that each march we have to have a meeting and establish the proposed schedule of levy rates uh this meeting will then stand adjourned until the third tuesday of which time will come back and approve the levy rates so based upon those assessments of 7.1 uh billion dollars in the county our current our current levy expense projected for fiscal year

10823 after an allowance for uncollectibles and discounts and bad debts it's 33 million 843 698 again we the county keep 15 of that amount the other 85 is part of the step step nine of the ten step formula by the state aid the next categories are excess levy and again based upon the seven point one billion in assessed values the projected net taxes to be collected would be forty million one hundred seventy two thousand three forty 348 and of course we have a bond the bond expires in 2025 so to make the payments for the principal and interest in fiscal year 23 we need to collect 4 million 131 800 so that's an effective class 2 rate of 4.46 and a class 3 and 4 rate of 8.92 for the bond that is the total

109of what we're asking the proposed levy to support and again this meeting would stand adjourned until the third tuesday in april bond experience 2024 2020 may of 2025 will make the last payment on this bond so we will recess this meeting to reconvene on tuesday april 19th 2022 at 7 30 a.m to here and consider any objections to the proposed levy rates prior to approval of the fy23 levy rates date again april 19th at 7 30 a.m office the board office it will get a zoom meeting we will do a zoom meeting for that as it's relatively a short meeting thank you mr butts thank you dr gilman do we have to approve the proposed levy rates or is it just information i think it's just standing we put in the uh journal as a

110class two okay okay and we'll come back on the 19th and actually approve the library rates okay quick question jim is the uh allowance for uncollectibles has that moved up a little bit it has a few years ago we weren't we weren't collecting what was being put in the budget so we're leaving ourselves a little bit short uh i've got it now i think we're 98 90 99 of what's uh proposed here's what we actually collect and again we rely on the tax assessor and the sheriff's office to make those collections is that a number we set according to history or is that a number where it's number we've said according to history that's it [Music]