Board of Education Meeting--November 15, 2021

001you um yes um thank you oh okay right yes okay just everything i think yes reading earlier we heard from the lsic for the hedgesville area we'll continue our meeting starting off with recognitions our first student recognition miss amber bossie council muscleman [Music] student good evening it's with great pleasure that i stand before you tonight to honor a mussman high school senior who has been awarded the title of national merit semifinalist the national merit semifinalist corporation exemplifies the best and brightest seniors in all 50 states current muslim high student charity lundberg is not only the sole student in our county to achieve this she's the only public school student in the eastern panhandle to do so this year national merit semifinalists are named based on their outstanding psat scores during junior year students must score

002in the top percentile nationwide and score equally or higher on the sat to apply as a national merit finalist charity recently submitted her application to move on to finalist status where she could be considered as a recipient of a national merit scholarship this coming spring charity we wish you all the best with this and your future endeavors and i speak for everyone when i say we're proud to call you a berkeley county student and most certainly an appleman please join me in congratulating charity [Applause] congratulations charity that's wonderful great work uh best of luck charity do you have any uh family members with you this evening yes you wanna introduce them to us [Laughter] um well standing up back there is my mom karen and my dad john thank you for coming [Applause] thank you

003our next recognition is the distinguished service award and jan kidwell secretary at martinsburg high school will be recognized by mr trent sherman dr gilpin dr murphy board members it's my pleasure to be here this evening to talk to you about a young lady who does great things at martinsburg high school she is an invaluable asset she is the first person in the building every morning because she's in charge of taking care of our subs and so she has to come in and run rosters she's generally in the building every morning by 6 15 6 30 to get that taken care of because of you know the things we've been facing this year she's a team player she does anything we ask of her and she does it without complaining she knows all aspects of our

004building she exemplifies the saying do you want to talk to the man in charge of the woman that knows everything and she knows she knows just about everything she is an integral part of the day-to-day operations of martinsburg high school she's extremely personable to our students and our staff she's always willing to lend a hand in whatever we're facing she's a die hard bulldog fan except for when she's cheering on the cardinals that her son coaches soccer for she does a great job of forming relationships with our students and our staff and i am privileged every day to work with her and not just call her an employee but a friend and someone who has been a big part of my life and i appreciate everything that she does at martinsburg high school on a

005daily basis it's a joy to come to work with her every day so thank you very much [Music] congratulations jan do you have any family members or co-workers with you well congratulations and thank you again [Applause] our next recognition is the volunteer of the month and miss erica props principal of rosemont elementary will come forward to present that good evening i am so glad to be here this evening to present an award that is long overdue the person receiving this award thinks she is here supporting one of our former teachers hopefully she does not get too upset with me this quote comes to mind when i think about volunteers volunteers do not necessarily have the time they have the heart and that's from elizabeth andrew jennifer burch [Applause] is an amazing parent volunteer who truly

006went above and beyond during her six years with us at rosemont she definitely has the heart for volunteer work we were lucky enough that she and her husband mike have two sets of twins hannah and samantha and emily and catherine i cannot say enough good things about mrs burch and her family they are one of those families that you never want to see leave your school throughout the years mrs burch volunteered in each daughter's classroom in our school library and actively with our pta she served as president of our pta for multiple years mrs burch always kept the students and staff at the forefront of everything she did at rosemont elementary no matter what kind of event we had for students and families or staff members she was always willing to lend a hand and

007most often take the lead mrs birch planned special things for our students we had several pool nights that were a huge success elves kickoff events the santa secret shop and the biggest event of all track or treat in addition to planning special events for our students and their families she also organized treats surprises and meals frequently for our staff all staff members love to get special treats especially chocolate in their mailboxes what a morale booster her acts of kindness truly made our school a brighter place she works so well with other parents and staff members she left a legacy that will long be remembered at rosemont our current pta parents and staff members often speak fondly of mrs burch we certainly miss her at rosemont ovi and south middle school are lucky to have mrs

008burch and her family jen thank you so much for everything you did throughout the years you greatly contributed to our school and community this award is very much deserved just a reminder once a rocket always a rocket wow in the back that you didn't know come on thank you and i see that her husband and her daughters and her mother are in the back they were also a big part of her time with us at rosemont several staff members thank you mrs burch congratulations and thank you so much for all that you do we know how important the volunteers in the schools are thank you 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

009citizens forum to a reasonable level and we do have a number of speakers tonight that have signed up we will limit the uh each speaker to uh two minutes and we will not any derogatory comments directed to employees or staff will not be allowed and again i will remind everyone to be respectful of the speakers and the meeting the citizens forum will start with nathan fultz signed up on zoom our next speaker is karen buck karen buck oh i thought you were waiting for nathan oh i'm sorry okay i'm karen buck again what do you call it when you put demoralizing mass on children and young people you teach kids and young people to hate the color of their skin you allow young people to identify as something they're not you allow female teacher to

010tell students that she is now a he you normalize deviant discussions about sexual orientation disguising it as manners and civility you normalize boys using girls bathrooms you put controversial books about race and sex in the schools parents know that by encouraging outrageous and dystopian behavior the kids won't know what normal is no wonder kids are confused and acting out like today on a bus in jefferson county i don't know if you all heard about that okay it's hard growing up kids need adults to be strong level-headed and consistent now we know that you're taking your marching orders from the teachers unions and the dnc we understand that maybe it's time for this board to grow up and be the adults in the room instead of caving to the latest fad by the teachers unions that

011the teachers unions are fantasizing about you have a great evening katie trenary thanks for letting me speak today my name is katie trinary i'm a berkeley county resident and a homeschool advocate i'm speaking to all the parents who can hear me you are the most qualified teacher for your child our public schools are failing are you fed up yet poet william wallace said the hand that rocks the cradle is the hand that rules the world president reagan acknowledged that freedom is special and rare it's fragile it needs protection while you are free to do so i implore you to take your children out of government schools immediately and file a notice of intent which you can access at chewv.org there are thousands of homeschoolers in this county who can help you you do not need

012a college degree to homeschool just proof of high school graduation charlotte mason was an early 20th century expert in education she said knowledge of god is the principal knowledge and the chief end of education the question is not how much does the youth know when he has finished his education but how much does he care you know what else she said parents should trust themselves more are your children able to thrive in their current environment i beseech you to homeschool your children what does it benefit the government to have minors making life-changing decisions when we know that their brains have yet to mature until past the age of 21 i assert that the goal of the government is to dismantle the family and completely enslave society not saying you all believe that i'm just saying

013that's what i believe the government believes for which there is ample evidence sean hannity wrote when a society rejects moral absolutes it has no basis to protect individual rights against the tyranny of the majority because without such standards any action no matter how good or evil and any deprivation of our liberties can be rationalized for freedom to exist there must be basic assumptions about the intrinsic dignity of human beings i avow that our nation our state our county is in dire straits claim and value that which with which god has entrusted you psalm one [Applause] jackie lyles i'm here tonight to discuss something regarding the mass mandate my five-year-old son has not and will not wear a mask to school since we have made that personal choice i've noticed a pattern in the pictures i

014received from his teacher my son is always either cut out his head is down or the or it's the back of his head when confronting the teacher about this her response was i can't you can't you can't what she can't take pictures of him without a mask on therefore you all can not convince me this isn't all for one big show the first day of school we received a class picture only 2 out of 15 kids had their mask on that picture was removed within the hour lucky for me though i got a screenshot the kids never had the mask on properly yet my son tells me his teacher always says to each kid look at me before taking a picture then waits to take a picture of the back of my son's head shame

015on all of you for putting teachers in a position to exclude kids who physically cannot wear a mask all because each and every one of you have the love of money i know you all know and we all know this is all about the money proverbs 28 25 the greedy stir up conflict but those who trust in the lord will prosper you all are greedy and in due time god will prosper over the school system madeline heartlove we're first time speakers ever so bear with us okay so i'm gonna ask her a few questions because she's a little nervous to to speak madeline why don't you like wearing the math to school because they're um because they're uncomfortable i cannot breathe i cannot understand the teachers and i'm getting behind in class because i cannot

016understand my teachers and it's just uncomfortable and it's hard to make friends how has wearing a mask affected your social life in school um i'm not allowed to make friends really because i'm only allowed to talk to the people that are in my class because um they don't get in trouble because we're only allowed to say hi in their name if not we'll get in trouble because we're not allowed to talk to anybody else in other classes do you have friends in school only two why because i'm not allowed to really talk to anybody does that make you sad yeah it does make me sad because i before like all this coveted stuff happened i had a lot of friends and i used to be like open and i'd talk to anybody but i haven't

017been talking to people because i'm not able to do you wish that they would take the masks away in school yes i would really like for you guys to take the masks away because it helped me a lot in school and understand my teachers and helped me a lot what did you say about your your classroom and your lunch your lunch so in class when we're saying like two blocks away how far away right here okay um we have to wear a mask but then at lunch we have to say like right like right here and not wearing masks eating turning around and talking to people how does that make any sense it does she doesn't understand that um so these these people in front of you they're the ones who want you to wear

018the mask every day do you want to say anything to them don't turn off that michael my daughter please [Applause] jennifer i'm not the best speaker i'm not very book smart i'm not one to find facts like all my friends here are but i do have common sense i'm trying to see if you guys have any um why do my kids go to school eight hours a day wearing a mask but as soon as we leave we go get ice cream we go to parks we go bowling we go to the movies we go to festivals we go to target we go to walmart we go out to eat you know they can do everything under the sun outside of school but then they they have to wear them in school it makes no sense

019i just don't understand it we are wearing they're wearing a mask in a state where there is no mask mandate in an effect anywhere except for schools i'll tell you why because all of my kids have monies placed on their backs they're all worth money to you that's all that they are my daughter is struggling to make friends she can't talk to any kids she can barely hear her teachers talk she's she's not learning my son who has adhd cerebral palsy a speech delay and a learning disability he's behind he's struggling he can't even see the teachers like mouths to help pronounce his words you know it's sad you all are setting him up to fail you should be ashamed of yourselves there is no mandate anywhere so why are they in our schools let

020these kids be normal let them breathe let them make friends let them learn properly put them back in the school where they used to love to be let them be happy let their beautiful smiles shine if you don't you are pathetic and wrong and you should absolutely be ashamed of yourselves [Applause] jermaine schwartz i forgot my paper so i'm going to attempt to read it off my phone good evening my name is jermaine and i have two kids in the berkeley county schools i have a few things i want to cover um first masks don't work show me a peer-reviewed paper peer-reviewed not just this is what we believe fouchy believes but something scientific that shows us they work there is none we've looked and we've showed you in the red folders we gave to

021you guys months ago that there are many things that are harming our kids with the masks they're getting rashes on their faces they're breaking out they can't breathe they did the co2 test for you here the oxygen output is horrible when you're wearing a mask the carbon monoxide they're breathing in is horrible for them these things are hurting our kids they're not helping them your health lady that when you guys did your emergency meeting she argued that it's for the safety and health of our kids this is not for the safety and health of our kids they are as you heard not doing well and they keep saying it's to keep the kids in the schools my kid has been sick more this year because of the masks both of my kids just got diagnosed

022with strep strep is a bacterial infection guess what those masks are doing they're breathing in bacteria every day and that's what those are doing they are not helping our children and then lockers why can they not use their lockers i weighed my kids bag before i came to this today 22.4 pounds she's carrying around every day because you won't let them use their lockers they can touch the tables at lunch they can touch the doors to go in and out of the bathroom whatever why can't they use their lockers it's hurting their backs ron hurst good evening members of the board superintendent i'm back again and at the last meeting i just want to remind everybody i uh explain the logic of masks i believe they're pointless for school children uh for a couple reasons

023children are the lowest risk demographic for catching and spreading coronavirus touching one's face is normal human behavior especially if you're wearing something on your face it's just it's normal and in fact when you're wearing something on your face you want to touch it more often families and children deserve the right to choose whether or not these kids wear the masks choice is a word that's coupled with another famous word that americans love freedom and i believe that freedom coupled with education is the right way to go but you sprinkle in some mandates from those who claim to be doing it for our good that's not freedom you're robbing us of our freedom to choose i believe we deserve the right to choose who are the children putting at risk not themselves very much statistically no

024they might be putting their parents grandparents at risk maybe that's why maybe that's the excuse for the mandates but these are parents and grandparents i'm i'm fine with my kid going mathless i believe my kid deserves a right to choose i believe everybody else kids deserve the right to choose thank you for your time marshall wilson dr gilpin dr murphy members of the board good evening thank you for this opportunity to speak with you my friends here have come with a great deal of hope and a great deal of passion they're not practice speakers like some of us are i come to you tonight with no hope no passion you've convinced me you're not gonna change your minds you're not gonna listen i'm not angry there's no passion within me at all concerning any of

025you i'm simply here to inform you that as our employees we are preparing to remove you from office we have found people who are ready who are willing who are qualified to replace you and we're going to put them in your places thank you for your time palmer you know i believe ronald reagan said it best if we forget that we are one nation under god we're going to be a nation gone under and right now i think that we uh the people have spoken and we have said what we had to say as far as letting you know that we are not going to sit here and allow this to continue okay we're not going to let our freedom be just destroyed by people who just don't care we've given you every bit of

026evidence that we could and you still chose to remain silent my daughter's been sick this year more times than i care to count she also has small airway disease did you all not take that into account either did you all not take into account that uh when people have asthma and those things with those masks on did you not take that into account that that's doing them more harm than good thought so so [Music] i'm not here to ask you to change your minds because obviously we know that's not going to work so we're going to do the constitutional thing and we're going to let you know that we're not going to put up with the tyranny that's sitting behind that desk any longer thank you all have a good night cathy joe boggs lord

027thank you for letting me speak i come here with one authority and one authority only i come by the authority of god the father in the name of jesus christ and the power of the holy ghost and i stand before you in that our founding fathers said i do decree the whole world that we believe the scripture contains declaration of mind and will of god being by the holy ghost because of these freedoms and the declaration of god the government is the source and the power of the source is also over the schools god is the source god is the government john 19 11 says you will have no power over me if it were not given to you from above therefore the one who handed me over to you is guilty of a greater

028sin the spirit of the lord says i prophesied to you in jesus name euro leaders of the boe get yourself in check because on this day i god of abraham isaac and jacob is dealing with your heart from this day forth i god deal with you constantly be it that you are uncomfortable and know that is because the fire of the holy ghost of the one and only true god is being relentless after each of you guys let his children go let my children go let my children grow is what god says your tyrannical mandate is an offering to baal it is a after sacrifice to a lying god these children are my children thus says god stop this immediately because the manipulation of the spirit of jezebel has no power over god says the

029lord open your eyes and look and open your ears and listen says the lord stop offering the children psalm 74 23 says do not ignore this the clamor of your adversities and the upper of the enemy is rising continually oh people oh people you oh people sitting at that desk listen to the whisper of god in your ear because it's the holy spirit repent turn away from this argument and do the right thing thus goes the revelation of god not catholic beer i have a couple different things to talk to you about tonight why do you guys act like you care about us because you don't you know how there's a bus driver shortage and stash orders what's gotten so bad that my bus driver was sick and i had to take a time had

030to take time off which caused us to have a substitute bus driver which meant this poor guy had to run three laps all in one time which meant that our bus was so full that we had three kids to a c people were standing up and sitting on the floor and then we had kids sitting on a complete strander's lap i'm 45 minutes delayed to school every day and i'm an hour and 15 minutes late getting home every day it's getting old now i know you guys can't help it but you guys could at least split the kids up instead of making this poor guy running three routes all at one time i doubt us to have he was called he was mad he was mad and everything else and then you guys won't listen

031to our parents they know what our bodies need not you guys but last time i checked you guys weren't doctors you were teachers and board members we have given you facts studies etc on this vaccine to prove to you guys that us kids don't need this stuff in our bodies you have heard the story about the lady son who went completely nonverbal after getting the shot also last last meeting we told you guys that you needed to get down on your hands and knees and start praying there was one guy mr murphy out of all six of you guys that prayed with us you all walked out walked out looked at us like we were crazy and drove off you were you heard madison's story that's sad you see this little girl she's gonna grow

032up thinking that you guys own her and thinking that you guys don't luckily she has an amazing parents who stand up for her melissa power two weeks ago i asked the board to issue a statement in response to the nsba's classification of people like myself and those behind me as domestic terrorists have you issued a statement i have not seen one additionally i have not seen or heard anyone threaten or intimidate you in fact we've stood before you asked questions and have been in some cases rudely ignored some of you listen and i thank you for that but you only give us two minutes and you have the pleasure of muting our mics while i might speak strongly i hope that you understand the passion that i come with at each of these meetings centered

033around the children in our community receiving a healthy and sound education i believe that we have provided insurmountable evidence there's that word again insurmountable insurmountable and evidence to show that there are policies and procedures that have been put into place that do not provide a healthy or sound educational environment to the current student population in the county i think that we can all agree that we would like our children to succeed correct even respond to that gotcha i stand to i stand for school choice i believe that many of you who sit on the board do not school choice promotes diversity equity and inclusion in our society and in our community to be against it would be to say that the public school is the only way any child should receive any education and that

034no one else should be able to provide it this itself means that the public school system would become a monopoly and monopolies concern itself more with money than it does with the service or the product its offers or sells when did viewing our children as commodities instead of unique individuals begin when did every child have to have to be exactly the same in thought action and appearance when did we stop celebrating the differences when did the love of money begin to erode the decisions that this board makes and the ethics that it tries to hide behind one of you commented that it was nothing to do with the level of money to you i asked that proof needs to be provided in addition the board has intentionally been biased to one side as a parent

035taxpayer and formal worker in your school system i am absolutely telling you that one of the foremost things that isn't working is that this board lacks the relationships it and the parents the community and potentially the staff within the berkeley county schools one way to get back is to communicate as such i again class those statements be issued from this court on where it stands with the opinion of the nsba and the classification of parents as domestic terrorists thank you your your time is do not want up have any question on where we as parents and citizens stand with the very employees we employ after all you have been elected into the leadership by we the people we are this is supposed to be an additional problem as the parent community see your education as

036tiffany wallach and reconciliation in all reality i didn't write a thing down today because i came to talk to you guys because before covid i realized something this isn't coveted related before kovid you guys didn't speak either except for mr murphy every once in a while him and michelle barnes russell would communicate with parents because i felt that they both actually cared even if it was just a question about what we were saying even if it was just to clarify what we had asked so mr martin mr beckwith mr gilpin miss long and mr murphy have all of you forgotten that you were elected by the people the only reason i say this is because you make us feel like you think you're higher than us and that you care nothing about what we are

037standing here doing do you realize that every single person that shows up to every single one of these board meetings shows up because they care they show up because they care about their children the ones you don't see here are the ones that either don't understand what's going on or they don't have time or very few don't care can you at least ask shake your head even if you don't say anything i know mr gilpin says that you guys aren't supposed to take anything into account but when i say do you care about the children of berkeley county can you not shake your head yes or no because that makes us feel like we already know your answer so i'm gonna ask you do you truly care about the students of berkeley county do you

038care i don't care if you say a word shake your head do you care because there are so many parents out here that care about our kids way more than you guys do diana wall evening couple weeks ago i shared with you all about my son this is very personal because we lived it we saw it the vaccine injury i am going to ask and actually beg and plead that you all do not allow these vaccines to come into our schools not to be administered to the kids through the schools i know that the hwo has put out to where if if a child is in the school when the vaccines are being given that's considered informed consent sadly i don't know how this works if the board has to make that decision and it

039is put in the handbooks or sent out if it's sneakily put in there i know that some states the parents have found this and they were clueless that this was a possibility so i'm asking if it is in there to please take it out when i got home from the last board meeting my 14 year old asked mom how did it go to be real honest i couldn't tell you what i said i prayed before i came down and i said holy spirit just take over so we sat down and we watched it together and my daughter started crying i didn't know wyatt first so finally i asked her said honey what's the matter and she said mom one of my friends their parents forced him to get it and we were just on our

040youth chat and he's very sick he's had a reaction and it reminds me of my brother please don't do this to our children jenny mahosky i'd say we're growing [Music] i'm gonna tell another story um i feel it makes us more relatable and a little personable kind of like diane's story in 1987 in germany my sister at the age of eight had a stroke the night before in the morning of her stroke my mom gave her some children's cold medicine not until year 2000 did we realize that that medicine was removed from the shelves because it caused strokes in children so that was uh you know 13 years later we found this out the doctor at the time said there's no way that that would have caused a stroke in her thank god she was

041fine she is perfectly healthy today and still bears the scar on the back of her skull where they had to open her up unfortunately on saturday i attended a celebration of life service for my sister's good friend's mother she was fine she had a booster shot from the vaccine mandate of course she's not mandated to take it it was her choice a week later she died i don't think that these mandates are a good idea for our children if there is anything you can do to stop the mandate from happening for these kids i would do it let the parents decide to do it if that's what they want to do but i don't think this vaccine is good i don't think it's good for grown-ups and i don't think it's good for children and

042there are a lot of us here that homeschool our children and we are here fighting for other people's children not our own because we're having they are at home with us we're trying to do the best thing for them and we know that public school isn't right unfortunately i have an education degree and i don't want to be a part of the public school system unfortunately it's become too bureaucratic thanks for your time [Applause] valerie ledford good evening it's been a while since i've stood in front of you as you all are aware i am a huge advocate for children's mental health i am also a supporter of parents having a voice i have attended board meetings on and off since 2017 and typically watched by zoom now when i first spoke in 2017 i

043wasn't welcomed now i watch as a lot of the disrespect comes from the other side every other week i watch adults fight for what they believe in something that i wholeheartedly believed to be good but it turns into personal attacks on character and the messages are lost in hate and anger many of these messages i believe to be coming from a good place i truly hope that we are all worried about children's mental health i am worried about children's mental health and i know there are board members that have those same worries we are in crisis whether we are ready to acknowledge it or not and public schools have changed forever covid did that there is no going back to normal we are in a mental health crisis that has exploded as a board staff

044parents and community members we must learn to work together without the anger without being dismissive because our children are paying the price all of them yours mine everyone's if we truly want to make a difference in children's lives then we must be respectful to each other the kids are watching and they are learning and it's not okay damon wright uh good evening i wasn't even sure i was going to speak this evening but i decided to speak anyway um but sort of want to talk about what uh valerie just spoke about as well which is the need for civility and the need to listen uh the board has certain rules wearing masks um sticking to the two minute time limit but coming to these meetings and even listening online we can't seem to get adults

045to listen but then we want our children to listen to us as adults those two things don't work um we talk about the bible we're training up a child in the way they should go when they grow they won't depart from it what we're doing is we're training up children to be disrespectful to not listen to leadership to not listen to adults to not have constructive criticism or to come to people in the correct fashion yelling to people calling people names that doesn't work if you collaborate come together sit down and have a meeting those things can happen i've spoken to many of you on various occasions i've sat down with the superintendent before i've sat down with city leaders before because i don't there's no point in me yelling at them if i can

046sit down and have a conversation that's the way to do it i believe in parents choice i believe in parents advocating for their children but one thing is clear we can't parents can't have the total control you know why because if parents had total control my parents would never have integrated school my parents were the first ones to integrate berkeley county schools by going to north middle school if they had if it was parent's choice that wouldn't have happened the teachers that were at rainbow school were not were not put in schools where they were predominantly white students they were put in communities of color why because other parents did not want those teachers that had years of experience teaching their students that is what happens it can go so far the other way where

047parents have a choice and it destroys other people's lives so i i i'm just like with valerie i love the passion that i'm seeing from our parents i hope that they even after the mask or whatever happens that they will continue to come to these meetings and advocate for all leanne taylor bear with me i am not a public speaker since becoming a parent 25 years ago i have lived in four states and have had experience with four other school districts i bring this up to solidify the magnitude of my next statement i am here because i am not only perplexed dissatisfied and have become nauseated by berkeley county schools as a whole since i have become a resident of not only berkeley county but west virginia five years ago it does not matter what

048topic we talk about tonight it all circles back to trust at first i thought at first i thought it was just a cultural shock new to the area but as time gone has gone on the amount of bullying lying that just i and my daughter have experienced alone is appalling and let's not forget the cover-ups but i digress i can only imagine what others have been through you are losing the trust of the people and this was long before all of your mandates were brought on this was long before you had staffs staff in multiple schools having to take leaves because of mandate reporting mandated reporting it was before you have teachers teaching material that they are not qualified to teach i give you an example regardless of what you call it what regardless was

049never met for grade or high school level it was developed for the collegiate atmosphere the legal part of the collegiate that was here it was meant for the purpose of seeing different walls through the lens of race from an ethical standpoint berkeley county schools does not have the qualified teachers to teach the material i say this because almost every law school requires at least a minimum of a jd and at least three years of experience is our next item is the consent agenda and in that is contained the minutes of the regular meeting held on november 1st we have four chaperone requests 25 curricular and extracurricular trip requests one uses no use of school property we have the budget supplements and transfers we have the payment of the bills and approval of invoices we have

050the financial report treasurer's report and the berkeley county council pilot agreement can i have a motion to accept the consent agenda second second any discussion yes could we have a summary of the pilot agreement i mean i'm aware of what it does but i think okay but there you go may we have just a summary of the pilot agreement that the county commission or county council has asked us to it was included in today's packet well i know but i mean i just i think for the public we should should mention what its purpose is that at a previous meeting or uh i don't think it's been in a previous meeting now i don't know if mister i saw mr butts and mr spanogle here would they feel comfortable in providing a summary of that

051item okay let me see if i can uh provide a brief summary in regards to um it's really related to economic development the county does a variety of um uh you know attracting businesses here to the community and as part of this pilot agreement uh with the particular business that um is now here in berkeley county they have set aside um i believe it's uh two um installments of 350 000 and that's for improvement of lifestyle here in the county upgrading parks health safety etc uh and so the county came to us to let us know uh this activity was going on they did vote on it as a council and they like they wanted us to be in support and knowledge of what was happening uh again uh that information resides on their website

052as well as ours i've given just an overview or a summary kind of of what the statement and the action you're taking this evening that's right i just i just felt that it should be shared with the public um that this is the county commission working with macy's i believe in this situation yes yes sir and to make make some purchases of investments which would be owned by the development authority but thus making those investments tax-free but macy's would make contributions to the county of berkeley county which uh as you said quality of life which would be offsetting the tax reduction that the county commission could then invest it into such issues as uh parks and rec's culture historical assets and other things and i just for transparency i wanted the public to be aware

053of it no criticism independent mr supertank any other discussion all those in favor of the consent agenda opposed motion carries unanimously our next item are the monitoring items and mrs robin lopez will come forward to present the first quarter benchmark assessment good evening president gilbin board members dr murphy and administrative staff this evening our agenda will be to review the fall 2021 initial initial baseline data report the formative assessment dashboard and next steps everything we do is taken back to the district strategic plan tonight we will address goal 1 which is academic excellence and the focus is on student performance next slide thank you formative assessments are intentional and allow the teacher to engage with the students to determine where they are in their learning where they are going and how to get there formative

054assessments can encourage student ownership of learning through goal setting assess teachers with providing specific and assist teachers with providing specific feedback to students formative assessments are not final tests to determine what students know they are not summoned to the nature they allow the teachers to use the data to drive instructional changes next slide please there are several strategies to use formative assessments for learning the one that i'm going to point out on this graphic is format is feedback feedback actually allows us to move the learning forward it is the key to formative assessment feedback starts with an informative assessment the teacher diagnoses the learning and provides feedback to the students which in turn they use and make changes to their assignments these changes influence learning outcomes next slide please the data we're going to look

055at tonight comes from various data sources all of these sources were determined by a committee last spring with teachers and administrators at k5 for math we are looking at the adaptive diagnostic assessment of mathematics which we refer to as let's go learn we have six schools at the k5 level piloting let's go learn math and the additional 15 schools are doing star math which has been a consistent benchmark assessment for us for the past 10 years at 6 through 12 we are doing i excel for english language arts and literacy at k5 we are using the assessments that come with our newly adopted text scholastic reading measures and the next steps guided reading assessment also referred to as the nsgra at 6 through 12 we are using ixl these assessments will provide insight into students

056baseline performance in math and english language arts and literacy and this first benchmark data was collected during the fall assessment window which took place from august 23rd to september 30th next slide please what you're looking at is the fall 2021 baseline data results for math k5 the bar graph the stacked comparison data on the top is reflective of the let's go learn math data if you look at the let's go learn math data it is diagnostic in nature it tells us where the student learning is breaking down for each student based on the data it creates assessments for each student based on the skills they are lacking and these assessments and interventions will allow teachers to work towards closing the gap in student learning so when you're looking at the let's go learn data keep

057in mind as i said it's very diagnostic it's very prescriptive and it gets drills down to very skill specific data that the teachers can use in the classroom to drive their instruction for students to close the learning gap the bottom graph represents the star math this is a consistent assessment benchmark assessment that we have been taken for taking for seven years it's more of a screener or a benchmark that we give three times a year next slide please this is our first picture of our ixl data for grades 6 through 12. this is our math data the orange line represents the overall average for our math and you can see that we have strengths some strengths in algebra and algebraic thinking and numbers in operation next slide please this is our baseline for english language

058arts literacy for k5 this is our assessment that is the next steps guided reading assessment this is an informal reading inventory it determines the instructional reading level and it targets instructional next steps when we think about the instructional reading level in terms of how we used it in the classroom the text that a student is reading at their instructional reading level is slightly more challenging than at their independent level they are typically provided instruction in small group and the teacher is there to provide some scaffolding and support third grade is showing the strongest performance followed by fourth grade based on this assessment next slide please the second data source that we have for p5 or actually first through fifth grade is the scholastic reading measures we are looking at the lexile benchmark in terms of

059proficiency levels when we're looking at the scholastic reading measures it is a computer adaptive assessment where it produces a lexile measure for teachers to use to match students to the right text for independent reading this assessment is very crucial for us in terms of then using it with the implementation of the classroom libraries to be able to max match students to the appropriate text for their independent reading next slide please this is the ixl data for grades 6 through 12. once again the orange line reflects the overall ela picture for grades 6 through 12 and we are showing some strengths in terms of vocabulary as we move forward we are working in collaboration with hanover to create a ongoing interactive data dashboard this evening is just the very first baseline it is not interactive we

060only have one data point for all of these assessments as we move forward and once we complete the second benchmark the data dashboard will become more interactive and you will be able to see the growth that the students are making in in terms of their progress in english language arts and mathematics it will also evolve and we will add additional data as we move forward in terms of our psat data that was not available when this was compiled so that we will have full transparency in terms of performance and how our students are doing as we move forward next slide please um i'll go back i'm sorry thanks also when we look at the data in terms of the three key things we assess we analyze that data and then we use that analysis to

061then make instructional changes for our students so it's constantly driving our instruction in the classroom and we're being very intentional and purposeful in what we're doing next slide as we move forward in working with our administrators and our teachers we are going to work on that data-driven instruction piece and there is what they are referring to as the erase framework which it sort of stands for you know it talks about uh examining the data where we analyze the data then we question the data and based on the questions that we have about the data we sort of arrive at solutions and then from those solutions we create action plans to make that the data actionable to make the changes in the classroom to then uh determine our our outcomes and our progress um where do

062we go next um our next uh step is to collect to work collectively from the district level with the administrators the teachers and the coaches and the interventionists to provide support and learning for our students and uh our next benchmark window is january 4th through february 11th so we will have that window where we will collect the data for our second benchmark and then we will provide a second monitoring report for you all and at that time the picture for the dashboard will be more interactive because we will have two data points and we will really be able to have some comparison data for you all to look at in terms of progress and growth for our students any questions yes thank you first we just had the lsic process earlier and some of the

063schools shared different assessments um with us i i would like to see as one of the board members and i know the lsic although we don't have any schools that are on with whatever the law was changed we as a board are supposed to focus on those schools but we also i think as a board member must also focus on all of our schools and see this data not as a cumulative matter for the county as as i was reading your grants but school bus school and that would help us to look at such related factors as mobility rate permanent subs versus regularly certified people experience level at the school level and and to see where our high points and low points are and also the question you know why is this school performing and

064what can these other schools do to model after them so i would appreciate you don't have to do it publicly just provide me with the school by school results that that the accumulative reason impact was to generate these grants thank you you're welcome isn't that information available on the state website zoom it is that in terms of the um the summative assessment and and that is public uh a public forum if you go to zoom wv um you can see the date of by school yes in terms of the summative assessment that's a good point although i i will admit i am a dinosaur with the state website and i would still like to see the information but information like the ixl would not be available at the state website correct that is correct these

065are formative in nature right or or scholastic uh uh model or the uh the s mr murphy these are all formative in nature so instead of going through them the name by name you are correct because they are formative in nature they would not be on zoom wv but in terms of the data that i think was presented by um the lsic i think that they did use the summative assessment many of them use the summative assessment from last spring so i think that that that data is bicycle on zoom wv and the data that you collected here at the beginning of the school is not available there correct so i would appreciate having all the data that went together to put this together broken down on a school bus school basis okay and um

066are we also breaking out on on this data it's if a student moves in halfway you know through the year and they go to another school on our state uh board assessment those students are peeled off from the uh if they don't meet what they're 135 not in regards to the data that's in front of you this evening because this is the form of data but in what you're referring to in terms of the summative assessment it is they have to have 135 non-consecutive days to be counted as in terms of a full academic year so this the data that this is based upon will give us a better idea of the student body there during that week that you gave the scholastic test to the students will reflect yes this is going to reflect

067all students versus the summative assessment will only reflect the full academic year students well i appreciate that data i don't know if any other board members want it but i had a question all right let's have a question the let's go oh sorry let's go um learn on the k5 through matt k5 math portion um the fourth and fifth grade um do you see the trend in the graph that um yes with proficient wise do you have a do you have a any idea why i'll be training that way i i i do not necessarily you know i do feel like all of the assessment data is reflective of pandemic learning so i do feel that that that is is part of what we are looking at um the one thing that i can tell

068you in terms of the let's go learn our first grade students performed well and even though it is kind of comparing apples to oranges from the star data to the lexisgo learn because they serve two different purposes one being very diagnostic and the other being more benchmark um the one commonality that they had between the two and even though it's not broken down that way in terms of the star data by by grade um i think 70 of the first graders um were at or above benchmark onstar and 70 percent were um for less to learn i might have that reversed it might be the 72 percent for let's go learn in first grade and 70 for um star so there there was that commonality in terms of performance but with first grade um but

069then at you know the other possibility is that the complexity of the work and the application of what's expected of the work is also um it could possibly be part of the the issue there gotcha i don't know if you talked in teachers or any uh um principles about her of those of the schools that are doing that i don't know if you talk to them about it or not uh well i can tell you that you know i i did have a conversation um with steve dillinger who is at the k2 level and he uh he has spoken very positively about the results that he's getting from um let's go learn not necessarily the performance today this was just the first assessment the first a data point but in terms of the the the

070information that they're getting it's it's being it's allowing them to really drill down to why the students are performing the way they're performing and then being very prescriptive and diagnostic in terms of creating a plan for these students to uh to close their performance gap awesome thank you i'm excited to see the data points on the next comparison the the the next the next uh monitoring report will will be much more detailed and it will give us that comparison so we can see our student growth thank you robin yesterday or mrs lopez that's okay uh the call on the uh chart um the slide excuse me that um indicated they had the column emergent everybody else might know what that mean what does that mean what does that refer to emergent yeah emergent is when

071you're just beginning a skill or an accident skill and the toughest in their testing yes and the results yes okay um with our shortage of substitutes and and i'm seeing intervention and urgent intervention and and the government has given the federal government has given a huge amount of money for us to hire people to do this are these people being used in those jobs or are they being used as substitutes and i'm just wondering um you know are because of the substance shortage are we going to are these people who are going to be helping children one-on-one or a small group activities are they being pulled away from that intervention and doing or you may not even be aware it may be in another department i should have asked the principals earlier and i forgot

072to do that the the principals would be the ones to be able to answer that question um but i can tell you that the buildings that i have been out in i have seen the interventionists working in their role and i have seen the academic coaches that have been hired actually working in their world to support uh our teaching and learning so i can't speak for everyone but i can connect speak to the buildings where i've been in recently and and it seems that that they are being protected to be able to provide those services yeah but i i know the principles are in a dilemma because and i know the board office i know yes mr burkhart has sent out the new berkeley heights i think they sent 13 people from the central office

073over to fill in one day because it was just up against the wall even your job that you're supposed to be doing is being interrupted by helping out with substituting and and and yes we have um pretty much all of the department of teaching learning and federal programs have been going out and filling in and providing substitute support when needed uh the one thing that mrs burkhart has miss burkhart has allowed is that uh to also if possible to to assist to where we split it to where we're out half a day so that we don't get behind in our current roles but if it's necessary for us to be in those positions all day to to support our schools and to provide a service and to help with this shortage we are there it

074would be interesting to ask your principals i don't i don't want to create a lot of paperwork but how much did they have to use these code funded positions to spill in for sub to substitute and how often is it happening because we should watch that and if we're not getting the results we don't want to blame it on the people simply because they were pulled out of their job at of interventions and coaching and the other positions that we've uh employed i do feel that we we make a very concerted effort to protect our our title one teachers our interventionists and our coaches because they they are the key to help closing that gap for our students knew all hands on deck that is correct that's right okay thank you any other questions about

075the benchmark assessment thank you the next item are the action items and the first is amending the rfp bid nursing services selection this is elise gregory good evening president gilpin board members dr murphy and senior staff it was recommended and approved that contract nurse services be awarded to the stepping stones group back on october the 5th today we are asking uh that and recommending that if any of those positions uh we had requested one rn and four our uh for lpns if they are not filled by the stepping stones group we are requesting that we uh that you approve the amn allied services the opportunity to provide those contracted nurse services for any of the unfilled positions at this point we have one position that the first winning bid has filled and the other are

076still vacant thank you can i have a motion to accept amending the nursing services bid as described all right mrs gregory have a motion in a second any discussion um just for clarification when people read this they see the hour hourly rate i also have trouble saying aluminum but anyway people have to understand that these people are not receiving this hourly rate the contracted service is doing it in those hourly rate bids they have to pay all the fixed charges social security the employer parts as well as whatever they're making in profit as a corporation but these people we hire are not coming in here making this on an hourly basis for themselves we're paying for it but they're not receiving it yes sir that is correct and and it's because we are unable to

077fill those positions and again with the added uh coveted pandemic and the additional uh services that our nurses are trying to provide that's why we made the original request and and we have a deep appreciation for the existing workforce that's providing the services where we do have the coverage yes sir thank you we do any other discussion all those in favor opposed motion carries unanimously thank you thank you our next item is the bid for snow removal mr burton good evening dr gilpin dr murphy members of the board i have a couple items for your approval tonight first one is approval of the bid for snow removal services this was posted publicly on our website and we had two contractors bid on snow removal services we would like to award the bid to cnd property

078management who we are using now for some mowing services they are going to cover nine of our sites and the hourly rate was listed in the information that i provided to you it's 43 dollars per hour for the plow trucks and they've also listed some heavy equipment to be used as needed in heavy snows 70 dollars an hour for a backhoe and 35 an hour for a tractor uh i included the other bid just for your information you can see that this hourly rate was less than half the price of the other bid the other contractor has since decided not to offer services to us due to some additional services they wanted to charge us for that we typically do in-house the remaining schools would be handled by our maintenance department so this would be

079the only contractor we're requesting to use this season can i have a motion to accept the snow removal bid as described by mr burton second any discussion oh mr burton how many uh maintenance gentlemen do we now have that plow that are able to plow uh i believe this morning as i reviewed it we have 13 people that are the other plow or use salt trucks okay any other discussion all those in favor of the snow removal bid opposed motion carries unanimously the next item is the rfp bid selection for maintenance trucks mr burton this year we have a request to purchase three additional trucks for our maintenance department to replace vehicles that have over 100 000 miles and some years on them uh this bit has actually been posted twice this is our second

080go-round the first the first time it was posted we didn't have anyone respond due to as i'm sure you're aware there's just a nationwide shortage of vehicles right now since then we posted we tried again and hagerstown ford was able to offer us three vehicles and the price is included in the information you received it's forty two thousand five hundred and four dollars per truck these are three identical uh brand new f-350s they're automatic transmission wheel drive regular cab and comes with a snow plow package so we're requesting to purchase these three trucks that will be dispersed into our fleet in the maintenance department and just for your information they all will be upfitted with plows and will figure into that 13 number of operators can i have a motion to accept the bid for

081the three maintenance trucks totaling 455 dollars as described by mr burton a second any other discussion all those in favor opposed motion carries unanimously thank you thank you our next item is the proposed housing allowance increase thank you dr gilpin and the board as your treasurer and conservative by nature i do not recommend that we make mid-year changes of of this scope without planning through the budget process but with that being said i've been asked to speak upon the motion that ms long made at the last meeting i just want to remind the board also that in may this board approved an increase in the housing allowance by making the service personnel amount the same as the professional personnel amount that increase increased the service scale by two hundred dollars the total of that budget

082line item during the process was 225 thousand dollars with ms long's motion at the last board meeting to talk about the housing allowance i i just took the liberty upon myself to come up with some amounts to use as a basis of which to discuss i estimated an increase in the housing loans at two different amounts to give the board a point of reference the first amount at three hundred dollars would have a financial impact of approximately nine hundred seventy two thousand dollars just to make the math simple i rounded to 3 000 employees 300 dollars is 900 000 and then once the we pay the employer benefits on that around 8 is 972 000 and the second scenario obviously uh if you estimated six hundred dollars per person the housing lounge would be obviously

083double that at one point nine four four as dr murphy had mentioned before you know we do have options and choices and one choice would be for this board to consider miss long's motion and increasingly hounds allowance we have other needs in the district another choice could possibly be to take whatever amount and put into our current pay tables we struggle as a county to compete with local businesses we know our pay tables are need improved so with that we do have other options some things to consider when talking about the housing allowance it is considered a supplemental check so according to irish regulation publication 15 it would be taxed at a flat amount at 22 percent uh the west virginia tax will be estimated at six percent for the employee and fighting social security

084is about 7.65 so when you add all those up just over a third of their bonus check would be withheld for taxes additionally the housing allowance is paid once a year whereas in the pay tables the employees would see an increase throughout the year which would spread the tax burden for the employee from one check to 24 in a normal year it would help with our hr when recruiting as the first thing many new potential employees look at is how much do we pay and how much they will make and of course they're looking at other entities within the county for options and lastly it would impact more employees as their extra duty pay overtime pay rates would be based on new pay tables it would also if you added it to the paid tables

085would also help with the substitute cost that we have as well because we have difficulty finding substitutes and the pay tables would uh improve their pay scale as well pull it down a little bit let's repeat those numbers so 300 000 i'm sorry 300 uh the estimate estimate should be 972 thousand and of course at 600 be twice that would be 1 million 944 000 again these are unbudgeted unfunded at this time if we were to continue with the motion we would pay for it this current year out of our reserves and then it'd be on the onus of the senior staff and this board to make changes to next year's budget to balance the budget based upon this permanent increase okay and i was having trouble hearing you while you were speaking okay that

086i mean that's that's why i was saying i couldn't hear you very well um how much would you be paying in taxes the bonus would be about 33 correct about a third would come out for taxes okay if you and if you broke it down into the salary schedule what percentage would it be taxed it depends on the individual employee at what their current tax rate is okay well let's talk about our lower end employees because the 33 percent would hit all of our employees with the bonus approach right correct correct okay but if it were in a salary schedule approach and it was for our first year first through five year teachers say or where our service employees if the the tax rate would be lower than the 33 percent correct yes much lower

087do you have any idea what it would be honestly i have not looked at the pay tables from the irs but i know it's lower than the 22 flat tax but of the two options over time at the end of the fiscal year they would have more money in their pocket because of the lower tax rate if they had a pay if they had it in the salary schedule correct but when you file your annual tax return it'd be reconciled with the with the government with the irs at that time and we're talking about six hundred dollars for every employee yeah i am okay we're talking about you know the the custody and the the principal all would get six hundred dollars um across the board it would just be a lump sum amount broken

088down into their paychecks under this scenario yes so the tax rate for the housing allowance you said is about 30 percent it's 22 flat for the federal about six percent for the state and another 7.65 percent for fican social security and i'm all for the 600 since that's an option what concerns me the most i understand um from january to junior this year we're going to take 600 and and if i'm understanding right about the 24 checks that aren't 24 anymore there are 17 checks or 13 based on what page choice she took that'll be divided up um versus those checks but then the next year it'll be over 24 checks or 20 checks and and my fears employees are going to come back and say well i didn't see a oh i saw about

08915 without every pay so i understand where you're coming from because it's as broad as it is long but i'm just want people to understand that when they look at their check year after next it might not be what it is this from january to june that would be that would be a correct statement but again this is all hypothetical yes because again the motion was for the housing clowns right i was just explaining it another option all right hey uh i want to wait i was hoping todd would get in here because he's always the numbers man i'm just listening okay um yeah that this miss long brings up a good point we're trying we're discussing the possibility of getting money into our people's pockets in january a lump sum amount that'll be divided

090by a fewer number of checks but when next year comes around that same 600 dollars that we have to start it's a reoccurring expense it would be divided by 20 or 24 checks depending on how the employee has their paychecks deducted so there will be a smaller amount larger number of paychecks going into the same dollar amount and there will be some confusion there but we have to we we're somewhat as we're trying to get money into their pockets now um the other thing that this if we went to the across the pavery uh pro 600 infusion into the salary schedule that would impact the retirement check of those people who are at the end of the retirement uh whereas if you did the housing allowance that would not be calculated in the retirement that

091is correct our housing announced the sick leave bonus are excluded from the retirement calculations right are there any other pros and cons bonus versus housing allowance versus injecting money into their salary schedules but if you're asking my opinion i think the pay table is the the best way to do it it gets the organization more competitive when you look at the pay tables and it is something the employees will get forever in every paycheck that's ongoing whereas the housing announces once a year one-time check so if the housing allowance uh stays the same that check will come out this week or next week what i can't remember correct if this board does not make any changes to our current housing allowance plan which again included the two hundred dollars for the service personnel from the

092budget process uh we could process that check this week um if we make changes to the paid table for the housing allowance uh we would need some time to process it which would have to be in between two normal pays so the earliest week of pay would be a december third or december 17th i'd like to add even though it hasn't been stated i would like to add even though it hasn't been stated this evening that if any change is made either to the housing allowance or to the paid tables you are making a commitment to that moving forward and i think that's sort of been alluded to but i want it to be kind of very clear that whatever the increase is 300 600 that moves into the future so as jim said um

093if we were not to realize any new funds we would have to make adjustments within the existing budget the [Music] the other piece is i know i shared with the board my interest with this year's or next year's budget that i would like to be recommending a either one or two percent salary increase proposal um so in light of whatever action takes place we would have to take that into consideration of moving forward so to some extent it might be making this adjustment now as opposed to making it later if the board were to take action on that yes well i appreciate what ms long has initiate initiated here one other factor that i'm concerned about one we have to lobby our legislature that the state gives a pay raise for our employees um i

094know that they i think they had a billion dollars in the rainy day fund and uh for a reserve but we want to preserve our workforce here in berkeley county i think this action whether it be the the housing allowance or what i support a salary schedule injection we have to do it before they go home this summer and we have to retain our employees attract substitutes long term um get every penny we get into their pockets people people sit there and and they look at the size of this budget and they think why can't i have more well it's tough to find awareness our superintendent just explained last year we gave a 500 bonus that bonuses were one year only a lot of people probably didn't realize it was a one-year bonus uh but

095we have to try to make sure that they they see a board and administration uh trying to keep them here and i i know that uh you get paid by the mile if you leave this county lots of money i forget what it is if you go south or north but we have to try to work on our our salaries our workplace atmosphere all the retention tricks gimmicks things that people have here one thing i've heard going around in this county is that there are a lot of schools which have family and people will stick with family up to a certain point but if we if we don't try to keep these people here retention is more important in recruitment you don't want to have to recruit people because as i've read in some of

096dr murphy's uh background information that he shared with us in his friday newsletter it takes a year and a half to get somebody up to snuff performing when you bring in a new employee we don't have to pay for that year and a half investment if we can retain them here so we have to find ways to retain our employees payday has to be something positive or at least hopeful and i i i support and appreciate what you've done for us mr butts mr spenaugol and our superintendent i would urge us to go the route of injecting money into the salary schedule as it was said people look at the salary schedule first when they're looking at a job how much will i make not all these other things the second thing is how much

097do i have to pay in taxes i want to keep it as low as possible and that's in the salary schedule so i appreciate the work that's done here and i hope the workforce and the community realizes we want to retain our teachers and educate our children in the process efficiently and thoroughly i make a motion well i was just going to ask uh i see on our next board meeting we have a one hour session for budget work session is it propos are we going to be talking about this possible salary adjustment then do you know or if not i would like to maybe by january set aside i hope do a work session just to talk about that topic it's important enough to to address it as it is i i prefer just

098sticking with the housing allowance as per the budget and and go forward with the payment as soon as possible but but yes address the uh the possible salary of index schedule right and to and tonight on the agenda you have the housing uh consideration of the housing allowance uh if you take no action on that and we simply then send the checks as currently budgeted that would be fine if you want to though look at the salary schedule you can make a motion to either go with your plan later later in the year or we can slate that for uh either the next meeting or the the meeting uh the last meeting of the year don't we have a work session next month we do december 7th we have a a budget financial update work

099session uh i'll just remind this board also if we make a change to the pay table we do have to set up send it to the state and have it certified as well uh to make a change well i don't want to keep work i understand the concern and i understand todd's uh concern uh meeting about it again in january and then we're going to be in march or april and we're just uh getting to making some kind of adjustment to anybody's paycheck that's not uh what i was looking at trying to do so i would like to it to be placed on the next month's board agenda the six hundred dollars to discuss it at the work session so we can make some kind of decision and that'd be fine from the office of

100finance i mean we don't have an issue with that and as as i understand it it's not a it's just a matter of typing it into the to the computer it's not some big laborious process it would take a month to calculate correct it won't take a month to calculate but it's more than just typing into the computer we have lots of supplements uh tied to our pay scale okay well i mean i mean delaying it another meeting after the work session which mr beckwith brought up the recommendation of the timeline would be to deal with the first meeting in december and then have this schedule sent to the state for a january one information date which then would be paid on the january 25th check all right i had trouble hearing you there if

101we if we waited to the next meeting and approved a salary schedule increase when would the employees receive it by january 10th it'd be the january 25th check january 10th check page for services rented through december 31st okay so so january it would be on their second check in january correct okay because mr murphy he indicated remember he has they have to send it to the state and get approval so that takes the time so do we have anyone made a motion i did can you repeat that i would like to be placed on the december board agenda to discuss and or approve the six hundred dollar inc increase to both the service and the professional salary sub uh schedule is there a second second any other discussion i want to make sure i understand

102the motion do you mean discuss and consider yes because if they discuss and approve it's effectively your proven so we're going to discuss and consider i'm fine with that we in clarification we're we could approve it at the next meeting america if it's on we'll put we'll put it on as an action item as we put put this one on tonight as an action item for potential action are we going to limit ourselves to this discussion and possible approval of yes okay any other discussion all those in favor opposed motion carries unanimously thanks mr butts the next item is berkeley county file cf superintendent's performance evaluation dr schooley good evening before you this evening you have berkeley county foul c at the superintendent's performance evaluation this evaluation policy was brought to you for changes in

103west virginia state board of education policy 5309 this policy was put out for review and comment from october the 29th to friday november the 12th during this time no comments were received based upon this policy based upon the changes there were very minor changes to our previous policy and the superintendent recommends that you approve the changes to berkeley county foul cf superintendent's evaluation as presented to be effective july 1st 2022 can i have a motion to accept berkeley county file cf superintendent's performance evaluation as described by dr school we have a first and second any discussion um i just need some advice dr school for an update now this policy 5309 is before the state board or was it put on a november agenda yet it's already been done passed in september the only thing

104that was on the november agenda was approving the counties that have already changed their policy and the tool that they will be using here it was last week and then first week of december they're doing the same thing yeah because um in in our folder we had the two worksheets uh this one and that's the actual evaluation tool yes yes and but the uh um i'm just i'm just wondering somewhere in my mind here and i've been on a committee that was working on this where the state board was going to have a update a superintendent from preston county had a lot to do with this uh what would train w steve watch me the policy that was put out for reviewing comment by the state board was very different and it did not make

105it through the approval process it didn't no okay that's what i wanted to find out okay any other discussion all those in favor opposed motion carries unanimously the next item is the adoption of the superintendent's performance evaluation tool for schooling thank you attached to this policy you're required to approve the tool that you plan to use uh beginning july 1 2022 for the procedures to go with cf we put this as a procedure that you're approving to know the tool the tool that's being presented is in the same worksheets that has been approved by the school board association as well as the west virginia school administrators the superintendent association so the superintendent is recommending for use uh the tool that accompanies berkeley county file cf-a for july 1 2022. i have a motion to approve

106promotion a sec and any other discussion uh it will still retain the format of what the statute requires academics of the first priority correct that's what yours in your policy that one goal must be during to the academics and then you choose what the other goals will be at that point yeah and everything else is optional any other discussion all those in favor all right opposed motion carries unanimously our next item our personnel actions dr schooley good evening dr gilbert members of the board thank you this evening's personnel actions dated monday november the 15th 2021 are as follows we have five new coaching appointments two of those are paid three are unpaid two interim coaching appointments due to summing of resignations and issues that we've had there two renewals of coaching contracts two new resignations

107of coaches two new extra duty appointments one instrument appointment due to a uh leave that we've got going on we have one new uh resignation of an extra duty contract are they on the screen she's working on that right now okay we have seven health care appointments one new unpaid leave of absence we have one new 1 8th appointment on the professional side we have one actual appointment on professional side we have two changes of service and one will include the interim appointment of alicia rigelman as interim principal at musselman high school for the remainder of the year with mrs klapner joining the leadership team we have one new policy 5000 we have one resignation professional personnel uh one person we've been able to revise the transfer date and came up with a date there

108for that move to south middle occurred within the appointments of service personnel we've taken on the role of the midday runs and i must say lines 32 38 and 39 should have the word time sheet with the effective date because those are done by timesheet but there are 11 new service appointments we have two changes of service of service personnel unfortunately we did lose one individual of our service personnel last month we have three resignations of service personnel we have one correction there it should be a resignation and not a retirement and on pages four through seven we have ten service personnel transfers or excuse me four through six and then beginning on six we have 21 new substitute service personnel we have one correction of a previous classification of a service personnel one resignation

109from substitute list and 13 new substitute teachers and then finally on page seven the resignation of six substitute teachers for a total of 100 personnel recommendations with the superintendent's recommendation dated monday november the 15th i have a motion to accept the personnel uh actions summer data monday november 15th i have a first and the second any discussion all those in favor opposed motion carries unanimously thank you board announcements superintendents announcements before i start this evening i just want to thank our transportation department and staff our bus drivers our aides and also the leadership we've had several challenges uh over the last two weeks and we've made our families aware of possible changes but i do want to thank our drivers for accommodating running some double runs making some adjustments and we've been able to cover

110all those and we hope that continues into the future but i did want to recognize those folks this evening this week november the 15th through the 19th is american education week and uh this week annually happens right before thanksgiving uh each day of the week has a particular theme associated with it today was the kickoff celebrating excellence in our schools tomorrow is family day wednesday is educational support professional day thursday is educator for a day and friday then recognizes our substitutes and it's just a a positive way for us to recognize the influence and the impact of education in our community as well as in our nation we are preparing to move into the winter months and again this week is winter weather awareness week we too here at berkeley county have been preparing uh

111in the event of inclement weather but the governor has designated this week and he's encouraging families to look at just basic emergency kits in the event of a winter storm also to have food and water on hand and make any accommodations should schedules change so one of the things that we've been doing just is making families aware that if schedules do change they have a backup plan they have an alternative plan uh if they are not able to get home and their children arrive home without parents there we are coming up on the holidays here for thanksgiving and on behalf of the school board and berkeley county i want to wish everyone a wonderful thanksgiving season this friday tracy heck and her wonderful cooks will be providing a thanksgiving meal for our students and our

112staff no school for students and 200 day staff next week monday through friday we'll be celebrating the holiday 261 day employees though will be in offices though will be closed all offices and school buildings will be closed on november 25th in honor of thanksgiving day we've uh we're doing quite well athletically uh on the playing field or on the court and i want to recognize musselman and hedgesville high school who competed this weekend for the state championship in the triple a volleyball to musselman the state champs i want to recognize sean martz and all the young ladies on the team for hedgesville we want to recognize coach joy van dyne allison whitford laurie hercules and aaron whitford so congratulations to them they made us proud i was receiving messages throughout the weekend about both teams

113advancing uh and we just want to say congratulations to both those teams here uh you know i was hearing dynasty here in the eastern panhandle for uh berkeley county and that speaks well for our athletics also the martinsburg football team has advanced to the next round of the playoffs and they are slated to play on november the 19th this coming friday and they will be playing spring valley make parents and staff aware that our next early release day is a december the 1st so as we come back from the holidays we'll be prepared for that early release day we also have interims coming up here later in the week this is a fast grading period that i like to refer to so interim's on the 17th and then the grading period or the semester ends

114on december the 22nd so i always encourage folks take advantage of the time during the holiday if you have outstanding assignments or anything that you need to catch up on and then finally uh the next board meeting is slated for tuesday december the 7th it's already been mentioned that we're going to start the meeting with the budget work session at 6 00 p.m and then we'll move into the regular meeting session at 7. so to all of you have a a great thanksgiving enjoy families be safe if you're traveling thank you dr gilpin i have a motion to adjourn second that's right