001um good evening everyone i'd like to welcome everyone to our regular board of education meeting this is monday october 5th 2020. uh i appreciate everybody being here in person by zoom and by other means uh so uh thank you for taking time out of your special days to spend time with us we appreciate it very much um i would like to ask that dr goldman please lead us in the pledge of allegiance liberty and justice for all [Music] okay item number three on the agenda is the approval i mean we approve the agenda as presented second a motion by mr beck with a second by dr gilpin to approve the or is that michael uh second by uh michael martin to uh approve the agenda as presented is there any discussion on the agenda [Music]
002what was that are we getting feedback all those in favor say aye aye any opposed that carries unanimously item number four on the agendas the recognitions for tonight the first one is a caring educator and nick emerling from bucker hill elementary is going to present the recipient for the ace award for october so nick the floor is yours thank you dr queen and members of the board and senior staff and everyone who's joining us for this meeting i'm here today to speak about jennifer smith and what she means to bunker hill elementary and why she is the perfect perfect example of a caring educator and jennifer is online with us here just a little bit of background about jennifer she first began teaching first grade at bunker hill elementary in 2005 and she has served
003as the school's librarian since 2014. jennifer's accomplishing accomplishments and contribution to bunker hill are too many to name and i will share only a few because of all the things that she's involved in at our school and part of our community she's very active in the pta she's a member of our lsic she set up an outdoor lending library that is used by students and the community she helps to operate our pta facebook page she coordinates parent pickup she's a school-based mentor for new staff we were having trouble in some cases finding mentors of course jennifer just stepped right in there and was willing to help us she runs a very successful book fair that the community students parents greatly enjoy it includes a grandparent's breakfast it includes a reading night with santa a reading
004extravaganza which is one pta idea of the year for the whole state of west virginia within the last couple years and she's very helpful with the grizzly obstacle course which gets members of the community in to take part in physical activity and is a big fundraiser for our school in normal years she always volunteers for all school events and she has worked tirelessly to secure sponsors for numerous fundraising initiatives that have resulted in our school track being repaid new technology for students and staff and countless other resources for our school she helps train colleagues on seesaw to help with parent and student communication which is especially helpful during these times we have students click learning she has helped organize steam projects and countless parent involvement activities and she's also a member of our sat team
005and leadership team and those aren't even all of her accomplishments anytime we have something that we need help with at bunker hill elementary whether it's with the community students or staff jennifer is always there to come in and help us you know throughout the spring during remote learning jennifer was on the front lines as we distributed instructional materials to students in yearbooks and everything else that we had to get out to our students jennifer was there to help us and help to put things together she was always willing to help students parents and her colleagues jennifer loves bunker hill elementary and she has made caring for our students family and staff her life's work she is indispensable to the bunker hill family and quite frankly jennifer or as we know her as smith does whatever
006it takes to get things done even as an administrator when difficult situations have come up for me personally or in our school i knew i could always go to jennifer for advice of support and she is somebody that the faculty always goes to and she makes them feel comfortable to share whatever's on their mind with her i can say without exaggerating that jennifer smith is bunker hill through and through and she personifies the qualities that make our school great i know that i speak for our students families and staff when i say that i can all think of a more deserving recipient for this award thank you jennifer and your legacy at bunker hill will live on forever uh congratulations from the board for being the ace award winner for this month uh we appreciate
007so much uh everything that all not only you but all of our teachers are doing right now but you've been selected as uh as the special person for the month of october and again thank you so much it's uh you guys have uh worked very very hard to keep kids in school and that's where we want to be so jennifer thank you so much for what you've done for the school system we appreciate it very very much a little speech jennifer i'm not sure that i can thank you very much nick those were very kind words i truly appreciate good thank you dear thank you nick uh item number two under the recognitions is the student recognitions and um and the first one is the golden horseshoe recipient and mr dillinger is going to introduce
008the following recipient so mr dillinger sir thank you dr queen it gives me a lot of pleasure to announce uh our golden horseshoe winners from this past year this past year marks the 304th anniversary of the golden horseshoe tradition which began in the early 1700s in virginia when then lieutenant governor alexander spotswood saw the need for exploration of the land west of the allegheny mountains most of which is now west virginia governor spotswood organized a party about 50 men to explore the frontier at the end of that exploration he presented each member of the party with a golden horseshoe translated from latin the inscription on each horseshoe read thus he swears to cross the mountains on the other side was written order of the golden horseshoe because of this recipients today are known as the
009knights and ladies of the golden horseshoe west virginia has administered the golden horseshoe test each year since it's the longest running program of its kind in the united states the top scoring students in each county receives the prestigious prestigious award each county has at least two winners the exams pass students knowledge of west virginia citizenship civics and government economics geography history and current events and is considered one of the greatest honors bestowed upon students in west virginia this past year 222 8th graders from across the state are in recognition as knights and ladies in the golden course shoot we can't talk those students were unable to be ignited in person with governor justice and state superintendent clayton burch because of the circumstances surrounding the covenant pandemic the western department of education will still plan to
010honor these students at a later date and this evening we would like to recognize our winners from berkeley county uh with us this evening from hedgesville middle school is aiding aiden hersig i think i saw aidan on also from hedgesville middle school brady hott there were three winners from north middle school nissa ian this is inicia denisia zanithia and zanisi i practiced that all afternoon too denisia jernigan phoebe porter and elena's rainier again from north middle school was also mason garrett and audrey haisley from south middle school with phoebe porter and atlantis vernier so congratulations it's quite an honor and i know all the hard work that went into preparation for taking the test and the examination and we're very very proud of each and every one of them thank you i'd just like to
011say to the seven of you that are winners of the golden horseshoe award i want to thank you all for taking such an interest in the history of our state our precious state that we all love so much and we appreciate you excelling and doing so well with uh with this so we appreciate it and hope all seven of you and all of our students have a great rest of the year so thank you very much thank you sir very well deserved item b under the student recognitions is the hispanic heritage month and dr walker is going to come and introduce the recipient of uh of that award so good evening up to september the 15th through october the 15th is hispanic heritage month tonight we have with us a student from musselman high school
012yacilyn cruz santos who's going to share with the board some aspects of our history that she wants you to know to give you an idea of how rich and special the heritage is to us here in berkeley county schools and around the world jocelyn is on uh with us this evening and i will give her the opportunity now to present hi my name is jocelyn um i go to muscle my middle i mean high school um i play softball i started playing my freshman year i wanted to be involved with the school some way and a friend suggested i do softball i've been playing ever since um my parents are migrants from mexico they came here for the same reason many people come here um seeking for a better future for themselves and or family
013in their case it was themselves um [Music] to come to a new country sometimes with nothing um sometimes not even knowing the language is truly um an inspiring thing in my opinion to overcome struggles and adapt to a new way of life um i'll forever be grateful um for the opportunity to be born in a country full of opportunities um had it not been for my parents i don't know how much different my life would be um there to the most hardworking people i know um and that just really pushes me to it reflects on to me and it makes me want to do the same and be the same um one of the most like common commonly known traditions is a quinceanera when a girl turns 15 her transitioning into womanhood um i got
014to experience it firsthand last year i had my own and um just being able to experience that was truly amazing um and beautiful like from the music to the food to everything else it's just awesome and i couldn't be more proud to be hispanic thank you for sharing with evening and if i may ask everyone to give her a round of applause for boldly coming to in front of us tonight to share about her culture and then also to thank her parents for allowing her to be a part of this event tonight thank you thank you thank you and thank you dr walker um item c under the student recognitions is the national merit semifinalist and ann lasky is going to come forward and principal kemlowski are going to announce the uh the student from
015springdale high school so both of you have the floor and your first yes sir but good evening dr queen and members of the board dr murphy and administrative staff it is my honor and privilege to introduce you to nina saluja who is a senior at spring rolls high school and she's just been named a national merit semifinalist i met nina when she was in fourth grade when she won her first of many berkeley county math field days um i watched her grow as a mathematician amazed at her tenacity drive and love for mathematics and her favorite number pie she shares his love of math with her peers as the president of the mu alpha theta national honor society at spring mills high school she participated this past summer with fifth graders in our summer skills
016program and presently she is one of the tutors for the bcs virtual tutoring program what i adore most about nina is nina the person so with all her accomplishments and successes she's a very humble person she doesn't expect to win and she's thankful for all the support and recognition that she's given so i'm going to miss our math talks next year after she graduates but i know her future is bright at this time i'd like to introduce jason kamoski principal of spring mills high school who will speak more about nina and the national merit semifinalist recognition thank you miss lasky and thank you dr queen dr murphy board members senior staff um nina congratulations so much on behalf of the administration here you know we think the absolute world of you um and you continue
017a very strong tradition for us you're our fourth national merit scholar at spring mills in the last five years so we are very proud of that i also want to thank dr markham uh for the work she's put in with nina over the past four years she's kind of been nina's administrative rock uh and also jayla crane who's our our senior well senior counselor last year um she's been working with nina on her application um to get her started with this but uh nina is one of sixteen thousand semifinalists which out of 1.5 million students nationwide puts her in very elite company so this is one of the highest recognitions that any student can have and nino is one of those students that i heard about from miss lasky before i took the job at
018spring mills they would have math field day at musselman every year and whenever they would come down i would always hear about this great nina saluja and then last year obviously becoming the principal at spring mills one of the highlights of the year for me was meeting nina in person and she is absolutely dynamite um in our building she is one of the highlights of all of our days when you see her in the hallway you would not know that she is by far the brightest person in the building um she is one of the most regular kids we have and i think and ann kind of nailed it she is so humble about what she does um and that comes from both of her parents because when i called her mom to tell her
019that she was going to be a national merit semifinalist her her mom it was just i was blown away at how humble her mother was so nina congratulations um thank you for being such a wonderful representative of spring mills we are so proud of you we know you're going to do great things and we just appreciate everything you've done for us for the past four years thank you so much it's such an honor to be here tonight you know on behalf of the board congratulations dear and uh thank you for your efforts uh i know you're such a bright young lady and such a nice wonderful person because i have a little relationship with you as well too in my office so um thank you and congratulations dear that's quite an honor to be among
020uh that few out of millions so i know you're going to be a finalist there's no doubt in my mind so congratulations dear thank you so much for being a wonderful student thank you so much thank you okay that's great um item number five on the agendas of citizens forum and i want to read a statement about citizens forum the rules and regulations concerning that before we get started 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 the citizens forum to a reasonable level the president will determine an allotted amount of time for each speaker to in order to allow the board to conduct his federally scheduled business the board shall not consider discuss or take action on items
021addressed during citizens form that do not appear on tonight's meeting agenda due to the current current guidelines and best practices recommended by federal and state health officials we will be conducting citizens form in person and virtually the board has accepted email comments and those comments have been shared with the board members and will not be read aloud nor shared publicly unless the citizen joins the meeting to read his or her statement online as the board president i have determined that speakers will have the opportunity to share comments for three minutes tonight derogatory comments profanity inappropriate comments or referencing an employee or student by name will result in a muted microphone and removal from the active zoom meeting citizens who have requested to speak via zoom have been given access to join the meeting speakers have
022joined the meeting via the waiting room and will remain there until announced when announced the speaker will be given audio access to the meeting once a speaker has completed addressing the school board or the speaker's time is expired the speaker will be removed from the zoom meeting and may continue viewing the meeting through website streaming so with that being said i would like to start with the first person that signed up to speak at citizens forum tonight and that's julie abel and she is here hereby zoomed julian the floor is yours and you have three minutes okay can you hear me yes ma'am okay good evening dr murphy and board members as a parent and employee i appreciate the virtual board meetings as a way to stay informed at the last meeting dr murphy thanked
023his team i appreciate that response because as a hybrid teacher i do that every day in my classroom i'm a one-woman show operating multiple cameras and computers to stream live teams meetings for my brick and click students synchronously helping my brick students sometimes requires exiting the building to find wi-fi connections daily i provide tech support for frustrated click students and parents who have unstable connections monitoring teams requires ignoring a myriad of distractions to deliver art content while accommodating all learners in a full inclusion classroom daily monitoring sheets for accommodations while maintaining safe procedures and sanitizing guidelines are just some of the responsibilities of hybrid instruction asynchronous students also need nightly communication and support this is not sustainable your staff has never been so exhausted dehydrated or frustrated we are not educational athletes we are not
024specialists because specialists are respected and well paid how are we to expect continuously incorporating changes when the message from the central office is not clear or consistent i am trying every day not to give up i am surviving at the expense of my quality of life i have given much to my school and community and i am the last person i would expect to be saying this i love my job and my students but at the end of this year i will make a decision when parents are given every option and promises are made at the expense of the staff you are breaking the backbone of bcs my path has been with berkeley county for two decades but i will not continue like this just know that if i do leave it's not for more
025pay or for another state i will be leaving education and i hope that you are listening thank you the next person that signed up to speak is ryan michael and ryan is here i understand yes everybody hear me yes okay good evening board members and superintendent murphy my name is ryan michael and i am the aft west virginia staff representative for berkeley county and the eastern panhandle i've come before you this evening to speak on behalf of our membership who who both who do brick and click in speaking with our members and conducting a survey from last week which we have shared with superintendent murphy and he's been gracious enough to meet with us later this week regarding some of those concerns that have been brought up it's evident that staff that are doing both
026are barely keeping their heads above water and the amount of stress anxiety frustration that this is causing is pushing many to consider leaving the profession all together or like you've already seen some already have i'm not here to get into the weeds about the specific concerns that some of these teachers that are here tonight can get into about brick and click because it's different from school to school but i do want to share and to to let it be known that this isn't just a couple of teachers at huddersfield high school or spring mills high school this is a common theme across the county as well as across the state a majority of my phone calls and emails and questions are regarding virtual and in person and that it is double duty or that is
027two jobs and i know nobody intended it for it to be like that but that is just the reality of what's been dumped on the the staff members across the county so teachers have always wanted what's best for their students and that is why this double duty or two jobs is taking such a toll on them they want to give the best for their students that are in person as well as those students and virtually and it's taking they're not being able to provide that attention to best of their ability for both groups so like the lady said before is this something that is sustainable and i really personally i don't know if there's no know if it is um so i'm here this evening to ask the board of education members and superintendent mercy
028murphy to revisit your plan and take a look at this um the common theme that we saw in that survey as well as speaking with educators across the county's time time and compensation but time continued to come up over and over and over again there's not enough time to do this and they're taking so much time when they go home where they should be spending with their families kind of relieving some of that stress from the day but it just continues because they have to answer emails they answer phone calls they try to stay on top of this stuff for these families to provide that quality of education that these families come to expect in berkeley county so what i'm asking tonight is to take a look at the plan and see if there's any
029way to provide additional time for these teachers that are doing brick-and-click as well as the others across the county three minutes okay i appreciate your time and i hope you have that discussion thank you thank you ryan the next person signed up to speak is heather deener and heather is here i understand good evening my name is heather diener and i teach at tomahawk intermediate i'm blessed to work in a building where our administration is working to provide as many answers and as much support as they possibly can i am extremely grateful that my administration advocated for their staff and i am a click-only teacher i cannot begin to imagine the additional stress of hybrid teaching i recently had the opportunity to escort superintendent murphy through a tomahawk hallway during a lunchtime visit when i
030was asked how things were going my hesitant response was it's an adventure click learning is truly an adventure full of enormous potholes and numerous problems there has yet to be a day where all technology consistently worked and where every student logged on or completed work while these potholes are to be expected in any given teaching day typically these potholes are handled in the classroom instead of being broadcast live into a home where in some there is grace and patience for the journey and in others there is only anger and frustration some days this quick adventure feels like our journey is taking us down construction on 81 and we all know how painful that is other times this click adventure feels like i'm facing mount everest with a frayed piece of yarn the impossible is expected
031and required but despite training i don't have the adequate tools to achieve the goal set for me my students deserve more than an exhausted teacher who has spent countless hours creating digital lessons and troubleshooting teams and schoology issues my family deserves more than an exhausted parent who is constantly working from home because i spend the majority of my planning contacting families for attendance or technology issues i spent countless hours this summer completing the county schoology courses researching virtual learning instructional methods and taking courses on virtual learning engagement strategies i have given and given and given to my students my co-workers and my county just like the other amazing educators in this room as teachers we understand the educational physical and emotional needs of our students and we are doing our best to meet and exceed
032those needs we are attempting to provide the best instruction support and relationships possible often at the expense of our own finances mental health and family obligations teachers need technology support in each building from someone who can be dedicated to only assisting with technology issues instead of managing specials instruction troubleshooting and managing all building technology i'm sure our building computer teacher is tired and our county support is tired of hearing from me but i've exhausted everything i know to try before i contact them there are some days that i get more tech support from teacher facebook groups than i receive from county support staff no one seems to have an answer or when they do get back to me their answers don't match up we need adequate instructional tools and adequately trained support staff to support
033ourselves our students and their families this 2020-2021 school year adventure isn't going to be successful if we're scaling mount everest with a frayed piece of yarn what can berkeley county change to provide actual support for our staff thank you heather the next person signed up is nathan fools is he online no zoom he didn't sign up okay um we received an email from amber butler also which has been um shared with the board the next person that signed up to speak is william cardozi and he's here by zoom mr cardosi hello can you hear me yes sir thank you thank you for the opportunity to speak tonight uh my question follows it uh and before i ask my question i like to preface it by saying it sounds like the teachers have really more than
034enough to do with just uh teaching without having a lot of other concerns uh heaped on them um but i'll get to my question um i've received a communication or actually two communications recently about woke reading lists and i'm a little concerned that uh the contents of books included in such a list are likely to include aspects of critical race theory and will likely delve into value judgments about social issues which i think should be the purview of parents and not public schools i look forward to hearing a response on why the schools are feel like to have enough time to promote critical race theory and woke reading lists when there's only plenty probably to learn with math reading writing biology chemistry etc thank you very much the next person signed up to speak is
035jessica salvia and she is here thank you good evening thanks for giving me the opportunity to speak tonight um i'm jessica salfia a lot of you know who i am i've been a teacher in this county for 17 years um i want to first say that i understand we're all doing the very best we can everybody has worked really hard to get school open and dr murphy has been very open to communicating with teachers and hearing feedback from us but to address the concerns that teachers have tonight he's going to need the support of you folks on the stage because we do have several concerns about teaching in this time of covet i want to talk specifically about teaching brick and click classes a hybrid class where i have students in front of me and
036students at home on the screen when we began planning for pandemic school back in june and july teachers were assured of a few things that the safety of staff and students would be our first priority in-person classes would be kept to low numbers and that no teacher would be asked to teach students in person and at home virtually synchronously at the same time and while our school administrative teams have done the very best job they can do and they're working very hard to keep us safe and address these concerns we've discovered the demands of the schedule and the inability to hire more staff and teachers has created a situation that has resulted in many schools having in-person face-to-face classes that are well above 20 to 25 students and hundreds of teachers across this district juggling
037hybrid courses courses that are both brick and click and these hybrid classes are not a handful of highly specialized electives but their core content classes reading math science kindergarten music all ap courses in this county are hybrid courses a hybrid brick and click class does not feel like a single course it feels like two separate preps a teacher who has six hybrid classes feels like he or she is teaching 12 courses on their course load every teacher with a brick and click class has their course load doubled and they're being asked to provide mountains of digital synchronous content in addition to teaching classrooms full of masked and sometimes very anxious students last week i posted an informal survey on social media for berkeley county teachers teaching hybrid courses and i'll be happy to share the
038results of that survey with any of you that would like to see them within 24 hours of the survey going live 120 teachers responded to it with very concerning responses about their workload their mental health their anxiety levels this county offers 1 7th pay to teachers willing to give up their planning periods to teach a seventh class but hybrid teachers are also being asked to give up their planning periods to host live meetings to have office hours to respond to click students to answer emails and they're offered no additional compensation for that planning time or that time they've given up either in their evenings four of my own classes are comprised of both brick and click students so right now my six classes feel like 10. being asked to teach a class of students in
039front of you and a class of students at home synchronously synchronously is one of the most difficult things as a teacher i've ever been asked to do um i work from the second i wake up until well past 10 30 11 p.m every single night and it's been like that since school started in august i'm recording lectures live lessons creating digital content answering student emails the workload never stops and my days are spent trying to respond to the students in front of me in the room i feel like i'm never caught up i'm doing my best every day and my best isn't good enough this is at times demoralizing and i know i'm not the only teacher who feels this way this system and schedule in its current form is unsustainable left as it is
040we will see a steady and rapid teacher burnout i had some positive things to say but my time is up i'm sorry thank you the next person signed up to speak is laura cochrane good evening my name is laura cochran i'm an english teacher here in berkeley county i teach seven sections of brick and click together all day long in the hope of helping you understand what this feels like i would like to share an analogy with you imagine hosting two dinner parties one is a barbecue outback with an open fire pit and the other there's a roast in the oven and you're getting ready to serve it on fine china in your dining room now also imagine having to find time to make doggie bags for anyone who doesn't show up even though they're
041supposed to imagine as well your electric company keeps cutting the power off briefly here and there throughout the day and during your party the lights go off and on and the in-house guests have to find their way back to the table or locate missed courses of the meal some of them joke about it some of them are mad some of them just get up and leave you then find out that some of your dinner guests don't even know how to use the utensils that you have or how to clean up after themselves some guests are still hungry but are afraid to ask or refuse to eat what you have some even have to have different food prepared you now have some in the dining room requesting to be outside with the barbecue and some of
042the barbecue now want to be in the dining room and you are responsible for keeping track where each of them go and some are in the wrong house new guests keep arriving and remember it's your responsibility to know where everyone is at every moment what time they arrive how much they eat or they don't eat and what time they leave the appliances sometimes change the utensils and plates seem to move to different cabinets on occasion and then you find out that the space that you have for serving others has to be shared with neighbors who are also hosting their own dinner parties too many guests elsewhere and you have to clean up fast enough between meals because you still have six more meals to serve you do all of this while wearing a mask while
043remembering to wash sanitize your hands several times throughout the day while hoping and trusting that the guests that are coming into your house without any ins unseen illnesses brewing you have to trust that they are practicing good personal hygiene and don't forget you also have to answer the phone and the emails while all this is going on because someone might need a takeout meal or to complain about their food portions the end is here the guests leave you catch your breath and you think about tomorrow's menu which has to be totally different than today's and while you catch your breath and anxiously take inventory of ingredients for tomorrow you're exhausted and you find yourself checking just one more time how many sick and personal days you have i pride myself on being able to say
044that in the 14 years of teaching here two years i've missed my bonus one was the year that my daughter was born and one was the year that she was diagnosed with juvenile rheumatoid arthritis and we spent two days a month in washington dc thank you for your time thank you laura next person on the list was elizabeth boyd benoit can you hear me okay okay hi i'm elizabeth benoit a national board certified teacher in my 14th year i teach family and consumer sciences multiple times this year i would close my classroom doors and tears would stream down my face because of a predicament set forth by a school board that i hope is listening because i assure you that my thoughts are commonplace and echoed frequently amongst my peers i have spent eight years
045in this county developing and refining a hands-on class by the nature of my curriculum it has to be the intent and delivery is totally squandered by a computer screen my students both present and virtual have had a completely compromised experience that isn't worth anyone's effort i am teaching dual classes brick and click six times a day for a grand total of 12 classes daily when others have been incentivized to teach just one additional class let alone sex every lesson has been revised to fit both platforms creating videos to enhance those revisions and learning a multitude of new computer systems all to provide a fundamentally mediocre class for the students and to be paid the same for far more than twice the work this is not sustainable i can't do this anymore it's something's got to
046change so i just ask that you revisit some of our policies and procedures for brick and click thank you elizabeth janna wolfter good evening as with others i've had to cut some of the positives out of my speech so if interested i will be posting it online so that you can see the full version hello my name is jana wolfter president of berkeley county education association in my role as bcea president i have addressed you many times and i thank you the board and the administration for working with bcea for the betterment of our staff our students and our county as a whole tonight i come with possibly one of the most pressing issues for our time for educators with the global coven 19 pandemic it seems that all aspects of our lives have changed
047while many people debate and worry over a path forward one thing is clear all eyes are still on education i hope we would all agree educators have stepped up our educators all continue to work adapt and build bridges for our students and i am thankful to stand before you representing such diligent and talented workers again however this has become our most pressing issue in our most desperate moment the educators i represent are stretched too thin our educators are working extra hours teaching students both in person and virtually sometimes having rosters over the required class ratio caps trying to instruct throughout the day with no breaks losing planning time and lunches and writing plans that are above and beyond the standard expectations our teachers are tired many of them have already or are starting to discuss
048the option of resigning and leaving education more so than ever before the hybrid model of teaching is pushed has pushed as give is pushed as giving the most flexibility to our students and their caregivers and please understand that i hope we can still find a meaningful way to meet the needs of our families that being said our educators our educators are often our families too our educators are being expected to hold the weight of the nation on our shoulders we need a reprieve to create and cement the meaningful solution that will ease the tensions of this situation bcea would like to be added to the next board meetings agenda we want to have a seat at the table in the discussion making process that is currently affecting our educators we are formally requesting this now
049and we will be in direct contact with the administration and if necessary board members to ensure that this happens we will bring our concerns examples and solutions and hope that you listen and act on our concerns thank you and happy national world teacher day next person is kimberly shipler hi i'm kimberly shepherd and i teach second grade inclusion class and i do not have a prepared speech but the best teachers are always prepared and sees a teachable moment and this is a teachable moment i've been teaching in berkeley county for 13 years i have never been so exhausted mentally emotionally and physically my husband has held me almost every night when i've cried because i feel like i cannot give any more because i have given so much during the day every morning my littles
050come in and i love them with all my heart and i have to check them in make sure they stay socially distanced help them get their breakfast clean up spills because you know they're second graders try to get my day started trying to find them onto their ipads trying to teach my morning meeting trying to keep them engaged while constantly telling them that they can't get near one another they must stay one another they have to clean their desks we're always cleaning our desk sanitizing this and that and i feel like i never have time to actually teach because i'm doing so much to keep them safe and trying to keep them engaged and then comes lunch and i have to pass out 21 lunches all by myself 21 cartons of milk help them open
051stuff then i have to clean up and dump all their trays then i have to go jump right in and teach my math and i have to do math and keep them engaged while they have to stay at a seat i have to try to do stations at a seat and if you've not tried to keep 21 second graders engaged while they have to sit then you've never had a challenge in front of you and i'm just doing brick and there's colleagues in my building that are doing hybrid and there's colleagues in my building that are just doing quick and we are doing so much to try to keep our students engaged help our parents help our students regain what they've lost and help them to continue to learn and grow and i have never
052like i've said been so mentally and physically emotionally exhausted and i've always wanted to be a teacher since i was in first grade and my mom asked me the other night how i was doing and i told her you know if i had to think about it all over again i don't know if i do this if i knew that this is where i would end up i didn't think teaching would be like this i just want to teach my littles and watch them learn and grow but i don't want to lose myself as i do it thank you for allowing me to speak item number six on the agenda is the consent agenda and then we have the regular board of education meeting minutes for september 21st 2020. we have chaperone list from martin
053park high school we have two curricular and extracurricular trip requests we have one pass volunteer to be approved we have three student transfer requests we have one use of school property request we have a policy that's going on for comment review that being bcs filed gbj prospective professional personnel we have another policy for comment review which is bcs file gab critical needs shortage substitute teachers we also have 10 budget transfer requests and budget supplement requests six budget transfer requests and 10 budget carryover requests so and there's also we need to approve the payment of the bills and the invoices for the month ending september 30th 2020. so is there a motion to approve the consent agenda as presented second a motion by dr gilpin a second by mr beckwith to approve the consent is presented
054is there any discussion these policies i don't want to get into the agenda they will be available on the website for reviews right yes correct any other comments if not all those in favor say aye any opposed i carried unanimously item number seven on the agendas the monitoring items and the first one is the virtual program and holly branch is here to give that presentation holly the floor is yours there thank you holly can you hear me yes thank you good evening dr queen dr murphy board members and administrative staff um i am going to um give you a presentation today on the west virginia virtual school in berkeley county so um can you guys see my slides okay great thank you okay so my name is holly branch i am the assistant director of
055pupil services and i started in august so this has been quite an adventure learning about the west virginia virtual school and helping that become the program that it is in berkeley county i want to start off with giving you guys a little bit of history about what the west virginia virtual school is in west virginia it actually has been around for quite a long time it started in 2000 with west virginia legislature creating it and basically the idea was for it to bridge a barrier of time distance and inequity for all west virginia students and what that really came from is more rural areas having you know not not having certain subjects available or scheduling conflicts due to staffing or not having high quality highly qualified teachers to teach classes so this was a solution
056that west virginia came up with then in 2017 the legislature did pass a code that said that full-time virtual school could be utilized in the state of west virginia and it's open to public non-public and homeschooling students in berkeley county's journey we have been involved in this journey uh for its entirety uh since 2000 we have done uh the uh single classes for things such as um classes that weren't available or only one student was needing a particular class an ap class or something like that and certain circumstances for individual students in 2018-19 the people services department halving leader ron stevens and leah leah bass started the pilot program for secondary education grades six through 12. and then last year there were 48 full-time students in the west virginia virtual school in berkeley county this
057year has been a significant growth for various reasons this year as of october 1st we have 131 full-time students and 20 part-time students part-time being the single classes and basically you can see there that that's 173 percent increase in the west virginia virtual school program in berkeley county and you can also see that our highest group highest populated group are elementary students this is the first year that berkeley county has had elementary virtual school and i think kanawha county started it last year so i'm going to spend a little bit of time talking about um the cost of west virginia virtual school in berkeley county this year because of covid usually an individual student would cost 2 200 per year but this year uh each student is twelve hundred dollars so with our 131 students
058um i've broken it down here as to how much it costs to pay for the west virginia virtual school platform berkeley county has been able to provide these students with devices in grades k through five they have ipads and then grades six through twelve they're given chromebooks we have learned that and it makes sense that in grades k through five there are printables that are needed for for these young students especially grades k through two for example especially things about learning how to write letters and spell and handwriting so those binders are also an expense for the 55 elementary students that we do have and then in the past it has been determined that there is usually a need for math tutoring i see nina's face there so she would be a great help there
059too possibly for weekly tutoring for for students um in the virtual program in math so that total expense for berkeley county is right around 189 000 so i kind of want to talk about some of the other uh parts of that element of the cost of the west virginia virtual school and we get about 4 800 per student from the west virginia school aid formula which is six hundred twenty eight thousand eight hundred dollars and when i look through the students that we have uh 71 of them were already berkeley county students meaning that they decided to switch from brick or click to the west virginia virtual school program so that is three hundred forty thousand eight hundred dollars that we would have already obtained for those students and then um with the cost that
060we have we do have an excess in our budget of about 99 000 so it is good to know that this program is self-sustaining and that is able to take care of itself through the formula funding so who should participate in the west virginia virtual school um that is an interesting question because in berkeley county we really do and we just did decide as a county that we feel it's best for students to get direct instruction in brick but if if a student is unable or uncomfortable due to coven then we decided in berkeley county to provide click as an option the west virginia virtual school is a third option in berkeley county that has been here but has also become you know available to students based on the covid situation and so really west
061virginia virtual school is ideal for any any family or student that wants to home school but still wants to be given or using the west virginia standards and curriculum another important element of understanding what a west virginia virtual school student looks like is the student should be an independent learner someone that needs this alternate environment or works better in this environment than a brick or click setting and then the other part that's really important to understand and realize is that there needs to be a high level of parent involvement since there is no direct instruction a student on the virtual school west virginia virtual school does spend the same amount of time does need to spend the same amount of time on the materials in the curriculum that a brick or click student we tell
062them average about four or five hours a day in berkeley county myself and i have another person a couple people helping me uh we're the liaison between the west virginia virtual school teachers and the students in berkeley county i want to talk about the parent involvement in the west virginia virtual school they they really do play a significant role really because there is no direct instruction there's no teacher working with this student on a daily basis face to face the parent has to be highly involved so we we discuss with our parents that they need to be creating a schedule with their students they need to be checking in on overseeing uh the education their student especially in grades k through five these parents are going to be involved in the in the daily activity
063um and and to say that it's very similar to homeschooling is is a good good analogy because um in grades k through five obviously they need a little more assistance than secondary students and then when they get into secondary secondary level when we have a little bit more independent learners we still need parents to be a part of the process monitoring their students progress and making sure that they're keeping up and of course just like with brick and click students getting parents to make sure that they work with me as a facilitator if we feel like the student's not making adequate progress so the west virginian virtual school full-time students like i said have been around for three years in the state and one and a half years in berkeley counties and so there are
064some things that i've learned over the last couple months and observed and and studied and really the significant growth this year um is definitely due to coven and uh because of this the the state is have some growing growing pains with that and um one of the things that they've experienced is some counties don't use don't have a click option like berkeley county has they decided that any students that wanted to be virtual would be on the west virginia virtual school platform so they do have a large number of counties using that as their virtual platform another thing that i've learned is that the scheduling is all done manually we enter the students into the west virginia virtual school and then they're uploaded or assigned manually by another person into the learning platform so obviously
065human error is involved and so we've experienced some students having incorrect or incomplete schedules and that has taken us some time in the state some time to remedy even over the weekend we were trying to figure out how to get wevus to sync sync the grades so that i could help with progress reports on the county level so with the growth i think one of the one of the things that i've learned the things that i've i've had to encounter with the berkeley county side of the west virginia virtual school is the idea that virtual school and clique are confused i think just the word virtual those are both virtual options so i think it's easy to get confused as to which one is which another thing that i did encounter that i have encountered
066with the covid positive letters that have gone out that has created some anxiety with parents even though principals do a great job of explaining and the letter does a great job of explaining that does have some anxiety there and so i think there's been some confusion um with parents as to what west virginia virtual school is and also there has been a situation there's been situations where um where parents want to switch from brick to click and it's just not available due to scheduling uh requirements master schedule requirements and west virginia virtual school has pro have been presented as as an alternative uh first essentially overflow and that's not really the intention of the west virginia virtual school another thing that um we have encountered is that some students have joined west virginia virtual school
067and have ieps and this is being determined and we're working on ieps now that possibly this may not be the least restrictive environment for all students because of the limitations of the virtual platform i told you earlier that about what types of students would be in the west virginia virtual school so even looking forward even though we've just started i do believe that postcoded i think this would be a great viable option for families in berkeley county as a way to continue virtual learning in the future so i just want to take a couple minutes here and walk you through what a west virginia virtual school student would encounter on a daily basis when they're trying to learn and there's a couple things that are really the crux of what the west virginia learns platform
068requires and obviously since its virtual requires adequate access to the internet um the the one thing that i tried to stress to everyone principal students parents administration community is that this is not direct instruction this is for independent learners and the reason i say this is because it is reading to learn this platform is not a teacher coming into the classroom giving instruction it is a curriculum that set forth that the the child and maybe the parent if they're younger would be going through and reading to learn the materials each class does have a west virginia certified teacher involved in the classroom but it is again virtual and most of the communication is via the the teacher is grading the papers and giving feedback on assessments and they also are doing emails the students secure
069k-12 in the grade schools the state does require that parents and students have a weekly teens meeting with the core teacher to do a well check for the student so over on this slide you can see this is when a student logs into the west virginia learns platform this is the home page of what they see so i've gone into one of the individual classes this is what each class they would have anywhere from five to seven classes depending on what grade they're in and this is what they see so this is an example of an algebra one class and this is the course homepage where you would find welcome and pertinent information also email contact information for the teacher all the icons at the top are how they navigate the west virginia learns platform
070for each individual class so the next icon at the top is the book and this book is really what i was talking about this is where you're going to be as a student reading to learn so it does each class does start with an orientation and it talks them tells them walks them through how to go through the platform how to navigate the website how to create a schedule and a plan for getting their materials covered for the semester and then as you can see in the second area i have down at the bottom when the modules actually start that's when the actual content starts but it's really importantly stressed to the students not to skip any of the welcome or the orientation so if i clicked on module number one this is the content
071for algebra foundation so you can see anytime that it says external learning tool this is where the students would go to read to learn so when they click on that they might see something interactive and i'll show you that in a second and then if it says quiz then it might also say dr um assessment or dropbox i think and that's where they would go to do their graded assignments so this is if i clicked on module 1.00 into the introduction and module pretest notice at the top it has all kinds of tabs in this booklet where they've gone into module 1.00 they have notes glossaries they can print materials and you'll notice that there's five pages here so sometimes kids will mistakenly only look at the first page so they do have to go
072through the five pages either at the top or they can click on the five pages here this is page four of five of that first module and this is an example and showing them how to be organized and print their materials and then this is page five where it talks about what the assessments will be like so that would be the first module the first external learning tool so reading through that might take them five or ten minutes here's an example of content and you can see here it's not live but if i would click on this this was a video so it could have a video it could have just examples of problems that they have to read it could be a drop and drag it's various ways of presenting that information virtually the
073next icon at the top is assignments and this is where all their graded assignments are organized for them in the different formats that the teachers provide feedback on and here's an example of the dropbox so this is where they upload assignments to the dropbox so if you can see in the first module there were two assignments that have to be uploaded and how much they're worth so in berkeley county what are we providing as support and resources for our students well i'm excited and so pleased that berkeley county for click students provides the tutoring help desk and the technology help desk in the evenings monday through thursday and this is also available to berkeley county west virginia virtual school students these students are still berkeley county students and they do receive those services as well
074i will be the facilitator giving them progress checks and obviously the west virginia virtual school teachers will also be giving them feedback as well as they move through the courses in the semester so that is about the west virginia virtual school if anybody has any questions i'd be happy to answer them yes i do mr president first you said that they count they're drawing down these the 131 full-time students are growing about 340 000 in school-age from the formula that does not count the local funds correct correct that's from the school aid formula okay and and it's costing us 190 000 um so we're generating money off of students who are going through this process correct there there is a little bit of extra fund in the in the amount that we get versus the
075expense but this year is also um a little bit cheaper like i mentioned uh because uh the state gave out for lack of a better word discount for for this program it was uh usually twenty two hundred dollars per student this year it's twelve hundred dollars per student okay and uh you listened to the previous speakers at the citizens forum did that bring any bells for you that might help alleviate the problem for i don't know how many teachers in the county if we tried to steer some of our click students to the virtual uh and i i understand that parents have to be involved in the k25 limitation i was just wondering if maybe you should be involved in the discussion they're going to have later this week um i'd always be happy to
076help with any any ideas that anybody anybody wants to throw out there dr mark i don't know if you want me to jump in or not but but board member pat murphy uh if it was a normal circumstance and we reduced the number of staff and had the kids in the in the western university school then yes it may bring some additional funds to the school district but that is not the case we have not reduced any of our staff so that's an added cost to our district this year okay thank you mr butts also mr murphy i think the key here is is that with the direct instruction the western virtual school is dependent upon the student and the families working together and it's like how we talk about it's it's read and work
077our way through the modules and uh it's it's a whole lot more difficult and certainly with the quality of teachers that we have in berkeley county uh the fact that you know i certainly understand the struggles but the fact that our students can get direct instruction from a teacher uh is very very important okay another follow-up question to you mr dillinger mr marquez alternative school he uses a lot of program programmatic versus not in person teaching but the students have a program to follow am i correct they're working with grade point but there's a teacher there with them working through that so again it's still direct construction while they're working through the great point our grandfather grab point i'm just just watching this presentation and i was thinking about dave's program there on the pike
078side and i'm just trying to think of other alternatives we have to uh to issues we face thank you that's all i have i miss caught back with just one question of course it's a pretty new program uh has there been any attempts or has it been around long enough to evaluate seniors who graduate from west virginia virtual school their their academic success test scores ability to how they function in college and such i haven't looked at anything like that yet not saying that that information is not available but that hasn't i haven't jumped onto that concept yet i do know that we have a couple students that are doing the west virginia virtual school that are seniors this year on track to graduate that might not have been able to do that otherwise and
079they really are flourishing in this platform any other comments questions holly thank you very much for your nice presentation appreciate it number two under the monitoring items is the tutoring and technology help desk which was part of the slides that holly put up there but uh ann lasky and miranda ralph's are going to do a presentation as far as those help desks are concerned miranda and anne good evening i'm going to share my screen okay good evening dr queen members of the board dr murphy administrative staff thank you for giving ann and i some time to discuss two really exciting projects that are coming out of the department of curriculum and instruction we know that 2020 has given us so many things and so many things to reimagine so many things to think about in
080the way of our traditional thinking things like unloading the bus eating lunch attending extracurricular all of those things now require us to do totally different processes than we have been used to with that being said the need for academic support is still there that's one thing that has remained unchanged traditionally schools have offered after school tutoring sometimes multiple times a week lots of different students were able to partake in that program however in keeping with the trend of 2020 that process has had to be reinvented hence the creation of virtual tutoring our mission for virtual tutoring hold on let me get rid of that our mission for virtual tutoring and the vision are very simple yet effective our mission is to establish a virtual environment that welcomes both brick and click students and supports them
081in the areas of math english science and social studies it is our mission that all participating students achieve academic success our vision for virtual tutoring is to utilize both bcs students and bcs teachers and we're able to do this four nights a week from five to seven in all of the areas that were previously stated something that was really impressive to all of us here was the support that we had from our teachers we put out a survey asking for assistance in making this vision come to light and we had over 75 teachers respond and be willing to help us in this endeavor in addition we have about 14 high school students that are on call and ready to assist as well all right and i'm going to explain to you how it works how
082do you sign up your child for some virtual tutoring so we have some screenshots here for you so on the left you will see our virtual tutoring icon and this is on the berkeley county school web page as well as each school's homepage so as student or a caregiver we'll just click on our icon there and then a microsoft form comes up and our form asks for a lot of information but it helps us figure out and put the child with the best tutor so we asked for their name we asked for their phone number um we asked him up front would you prefer a berkeley county teacher or would you like to work with a high school student of course we need to know the grade in the course and we also ask the
083parent what what topic or what was description of the help that you were needed so that we can let our teachers know ahead of time we have um to help us with this endeavor we have two site coordinators so leah height an assistant principal at south middle school she's our site coordinator on mondays and wednesdays and on tuesdays and thursdays we have a teacher named brook steyer from eagle school and what they do is they monitor this form they download it and they share the information with our tutors from the from honestly from during the day and through the twittering hours of five to seven all right and so what happens what we've done is every tutor even the high school students have all been assigned to a microsoft team on their office 365 and
084we have housed everything they need to know in this team so they'll find the tutoring schedule they'll find um their assignments they'll find this great shared spreadsheet so we put a um screenshot here of what our tutors look at in the evening so the greatest the great thing about teams here is our tutors can collaborate and if you see the fine print you'll see here leah is saying hey everyone's been assigned make sure you fill out the spreadsheet brook's on there saying hey i have your first three people assigned let me know if you have any problems please don't forget to to do the resolution column which i'll explain better on the next slide for you all right so here's how it really works so every tutor we have a shared spreadsheet and you'll see
085on this spreadsheet a column for so a tutor looks on the spreadsheet and so for instance jennifer null says oh i have this student that i need to work with what they do so we don't want kids waiting on hold for hours the tutor will call the family and say hi i'm miss miss jennifer and i'm i'm going to i'm a i'm able to tutor your child can we just verify that this is the correct email that you need the parent will you know verify it's a great time they will get the right email the tutor will send them the link for a teams link then the student you know the child gets on they have their tutoring session we ask that it you know no more than 30 minutes so we can service as
086many kids as we need and what the tutor does is then they fill out this spreadsheet for under the resolution so they know so that brooke or leon says oh they're done with that student they're ready for another one it also gives us documentation of what's occurred so a couple of things we want to highlight is you'll see that you know a tutor said hey i worked on number recognition with a child we did a read aloud we worked on comprehension uh splat is a great website math that um they worked with the kids or the one i really liked on here was you'll actually see a teacher wrote i just worked with a parent on click instruction i gave them ideas to how to work with their students so we really are reaching all
087students and parents with our shared spreadsheet so some of the data that we have collected from the first week this is as of 9 30 and we chose 9 30 because this was out seven days so in the process of seven days of putting this out on social media school sending it out we had over 190 responses for tutoring and i checked this every day and we were a little concerned when the number continued to grow we're very excited that we have this many people reaching out but we were also very nervous at how we were going to service all of these students the good news is of those 190 not all were requesting tutoring on the very first night that was a good thing for us a lot of times what people were doing
088of those 190 there may be five from the same family because they've requested tutoring for the next five weeks every monday evening and that's how the process works but you can see our grade distribution of what grade is is asking for tutoring is really relatively equal we have just about every grade represented and a little bit of everything listed there one of the biggest things that is important to dr murphy and a vision that dr murphy has is to have our high school students reaching out and helping some of our younger students and that's question number six on our survey it asks if the family wants a berkeley county teacher a berkeley county high school student or no preference we wanted families to have some input when we toyed around with the idea of bringing
089in our high school students we wanted families to have an input as to who the who they got when they were doing their tutoring sessions the cool thing about that almost half almost half 88 families said they had no preference so for us that was a really exciting experience for us because we really want to try to have our high school students out and helping and now those 15 students are really becoming a viable part and we're depending on them to help keep this process going with our families another question that i showed on here tonight is question number seven and that's what subject do you need support this was of no shock to any of us the two big were math and reading in math and reading language arts science and social studies we've
090had a little bit but the beauty of the teachers that are working this help desk they are all very willing to assist if we don't have someone for social studies oftentimes the social studies teacher will reach out and say hey i can help with language arts so it has really been a great process of people kind of coming together and really just working to support our students of berkeley county all right so we thought since nina was being honored tonight for her national merit finalist and that she is one of our tutors so we asked nina to give you her perspective of being a student tutor so nina hi miss lasky thank you so i originally joined this program because it seemed like a great opportunity to help out in the midst of a pandemic
091and honestly it became one of the highlights of my summer i worked with the class of mostly fifth graders in reading and math and throughout the four weeks we saw a lot of light bulb moments and a lot of growth obviously in their abilities but just as importantly i saw this tutoring program foster a sense of community that we had lost because of the pandemic um honestly i think the kids learn just as much from each other as they did from us so that was really cool to see and now in the current tutoring program i've been working one-on-one with students and seeing just how excited they are to learn outside of school um it gives me a real sense of joy to see how adaptable and motivated they are under even under these circumstances
092and i guess i'm just really thankful for this program and everything it has offered the county and to all of us high schoolers students who are tutoring and i'm excited to see where it goes next so thank you all right thank you nina all right so at this time um sharon dove um the assistant director of instructional technology is unable to be with us tonight so miranda and i are just going to talk to you about the technology help desk sharon has done a lot of work with this and she gets all the kudos and credit um sharon has implemented and organized the bcs technology help desk since the first day of school so this help desk has been around since september 8th and she works with berkeley county students berkeley county teachers with our
093brick and click students and the parents with their technology questions so to date she has had over 460 responses requests for support this help desk works just like the virtual tutoring with a form with phone calls with a shared spreadsheet honestly we modeled our program off sharon's program for for to keep consistency with the parents in berkeley county so they both work the same thing they work the same hours monday through thursday five to seven and it's the same process so some of the things that we would see some of the data that we are seeing with this help desk there are three areas that we are asking families to identify and which they need support one is schoology one is the student device and then another section is others so schoology sometimes it's things
094like i don't know where the assignments are posted and just that basic navigation piece that our staff members are able to help families navigate through the student device concerns we're getting things like we're not connecting to a wi-fi the hotspot isn't working we're trying to download apps and they're not loading kind of some of those basic troubleshooting lines were able to assist with that and then the other section those are things more like passwords we we do get a lot of information a lot of families asking for student passwords we also get some help with teams sometimes they will get on and ask us to assist them in utilizing teams so that their students can partake in the class lessons and then there's also been a couple situations where families have asked for some online
095textbook support most of our schoology classes have that information listed but sometimes families just need a little extra support and that's why this program is so beneficial for our families moving forward what we are looking at is definitely a work in progress we have already made one change just in the first week of tutoring we quickly realized we need more k5 tutors so we have been able to extend from two tutors a night to three tutors a night which has definitely been a major improvement we also have added our students in there so really at any given point on a night there may be upwards of five or six people working with our k5 students something else that has really come up throughout this data and in going through our responses with families is more
096geared towards our high school students but that's the need for an sat prep support group we've had several requests for tutoring in the area of sat test prep so that has kind of been a conversation that we have started in and we are discussing better better avenues for supporting our students outside of their traditional classroom day something else that we really are looking at moving forward is just gathering the feedback from parents from our students and from our tutors i know every night last week each and i both got emails from some of our different tutors just saying hey this went really well hey we might need to re-examine this so that feedback has been very authentic and real and that is going to help continue to guide and mold our program to be and
097run as smoothly and efficiently as possible and probably the last and most important point is the sustainability how do you keep this going we knew and we expected this huge infiltration in the beginning because it's something new it's something that parents haven't seen before it's something students haven't seen before but how do we keep this going in november and december so things that we're thinking about is just continuing to be open continuing to share the communication social media our county facebook pages we really want to do a heavy push around the interim mark and then also at the end and beginning of every marking period because we know a lot of times parents if they're not happy with the grades of their students that's a conversation that typically would happen and we just want to
098make sure that they know the support is there from us to help their students so that concludes our presentation if you have any questions we would be happy to answer or just one are the people who are providing a service paid extra yes i was jumping from around all t all the teachers are being paid um 25 an hour for every hour that they tutor so essentially when they work a night they're getting fifty dollars because they're working two hours all right any other comments yeah i have one um with the tech help desk you said there's 460 responses like the last 28 days like how many staff members are working to help the students and teachers and they helped us i think in the evenings they have anywhere from two to four i think
099it just depends on how many think how many requests they have in the beginning the data was skewed pretty heavy that first and second week as you can imagine because everybody was really just kind of getting in and getting situated so we had a whole lot of requests those first two weeks this last week we've only had 30. so things have really started to calm down so that first week it was kind of all hands on deck anybody that was there and available was assisting but like i said as we've moved week after week things have somewhat slowed down just a little bit thank you the one thing that we have done with the technology helped behind is that we're encouraging our school it doesn't just have to be a parent or student request we
100encourage our administrators that if they have a student or encouraging our teachers that they have a student that the reference can come from a student or can come from a teacher for a student or a family also and that's that's something we've been working on thank you ann thank you miranda very much for a very nice presentation i appreciate your efforts are taking advantage of education that they wouldn't have otherwise so thank you all very much number eight on the agenda is the action items and the personal actions dr school good evening dr queen members of the board and dr murphy the personnel actions dated monday october the fifth 5th 2020 are as follows we have two coaching appointments six resignations of coaches and then on pages one through four you will see extra duty
101appointments for the newly designed school-based mentoring program to go along with our county-based program there are 64 extra duty contracts there for your consideration and request for approval and then beginning on the bottom of page four we have the health care appointments procedures there are 27 of these and these go through page six and then beginning with final line 101 we have four uh unpaid medical leave of absences for your consideration all varied in time in line 105 with us tonight we have tyler martin who we're recommending as the new assistant principals from spring mills primary tyler was with us previously at north middle school and is currently teaching out of state and is wanting to come back to berkeley county and he is on zoom with us this evening there are two appointments professionally
102we have four one seventh appointments we have two resignations we have six new service appointments one correction with a date for a service appointment we have two service resignations and we have 13 service transfers through page number 10. beginning on page 10 we'll start to see our upgrades of service personnel the first two have received their paraprofessional certification then we get into the individuals that again pass the accounting test it was part of the budget and we had one individual have college hours and was able to increase her aid status we have um 10 new service substitutes to add to the list we have one resignation of a service employee four appointments of new substitute teachers one change of placement due to certification and one resignation of a substitute teacher for a total of 159
103personnel actions for your consideration this evening i hear a motion from the board to approve the professional service coaching and substitute personal actions this is all dated october 5th 2020. is there a motion for the board we approve the professional service substitute and coaching positions as presented second motion by mr beckwith a second by dr gilbert to approve all the personal actions as presented tonight is there any discussion uh dr schooley um do we have you have the ex of interviews that we lost any teachers because of this issue that was before us on the consent agenda have we had any resignations who said it was the stress of being a hybrid teacher yeah i have not necessarily seen that particular response on an exit survey yet that i can recall pardon me that i
104can recall i can't recall i've seen that yet okay other comments questions hearing none all those in favor say aye aye any opposed it carries unanimously item number nine on the agenda is the uh board announcement does anyone have anything from the board dr queen uh i've been appointed to a committee at the state level to the school board association to re review state board policy 2322 and uh another just a note we were talking about golden horseshoe winners mr myers the teacher at north middle school long retired now but a very productive golden horseshoe winner teacher is in the hospital uh in a rehab situation with uh an illness he had not another family would appreciate your prayers uh the gym was uh he used to dominate the golden horseshoe category years ago with
105the students from north winning a lot thank you sir [Music] any other uh item number ten of the superintendent's announcements uh dr murphy [Music] yes uh thank you dr queen and i was hoping earlier uh if you're not aware we do have a celebrity of golden horseshoe winner amongst us mr dillinger was actually a golden horseshoe winner when he uh attended middle school so i just became aware of that recently myself so i was hoping he was going to share that with the group but since mr murphy you brought up uh you know one of our previous employees i wanted to recognize donnie this evening actually mr murphy uh mr myers was just beginning his teaching career when i was an eighth grader at north and then um prior to him was mrs snowberry he
106was slippery everybody accused his success to her notes i could tell you that was my success with her notes [Music] so i've got uh some information to share with you uh and the first is that this week october the 4th through the 10th is fire prevention week and our county and martinsburg fire departments have previously uh brought a house on wheels to our k2 schools but they haven't been able to do that this year so what they've done is they've developed a series of videos that educate students about fire prevention and safety and um they were also providing the same materials to our middle school teachers you know we're coming up here also on daylight savings time change which is uh the first of november uh and this is also a good time that we're
107here to check your fire alarms or your warning alarms in your home and check those batteries oh we have on friday coming up a remote learning day for all students so all students this coming friday october the 9th will be receiving an assignment on thursday for their friday asynchronous learning uh faculty and staff will be in then on friday for a two hour faculty senate meeting followed by professional development opportunities and then interims are going to be made available that same day and parents can access that information on school g touch base what i also want to do is this is a great time and i usually send out messages that talk about where you are in the school year and based on those interims it'll give you sort of a guide post to either
108adjust what you're currently doing stay the course or you know consult with your teacher and your counselors if you need additional help so this next slide is uh interesting that recognizes national school lunch day which is october the 12th through the 16th and as many of you are aware too that i've been out and i've been visiting schools and visiting our folks in our food service department and the work that they are doing i found out in my visit that salisbury steak day is extremely popular among our school children and i want to thank all of our folks in nutritional services but on the left is a series of thank you notes that came from the students at eagle to the folks there in the cafeteria for chicken nuggets on that particular day i want
109to remind everyone that meals continue to be free regardless if you are brick or you are click and we want to just continue to emphasize the importance of people staying healthy and eating nutritional meals and this is all part of the national school lunch week that we highlighted this all right today we did push out a message to families about what i just spoke about with the friday and everyone doing a remote learning that day but also coupled with that and we heard a little bit about this this evening when we started the school year we asked parents to select a pathway whether that pathway be a brick or click and what we said is we would revisit that or re-look at that you know as we approach the nine weeks one of the things
110that we found is that we have staffed our schools accordingly so that we can accommodate uh families with the particular pathway they selected at that time and while i must say some schools are balanced differently they have may have more brick students or they may have more click students their ability to make adjustments with their staff is going to be limited so while i will say we are absolutely not considering any changes they are going to be have to be very individualized they're going to have to be on a case-by-case basis and as i've been out visiting with principals and talking with them they've told me well my school is has the ability maybe to take a few more click students or maybe a few more brick students and that really just depends on the
111makeup of the school so i'm you know sharing this and we've shared this message with parents kind of manage expectations i think everyone will try and make adjustments as fit and if two students want to switch a particular environment um you know we'll consider that or we'll look at that again what i will just ask is that we are patient with the process and allow our principals and our staff to kind of work through that and make those particular adjustments recently you may have also seen that um berkeley county uh is now uh elevated to a gold status and so uh while we are continuing with um uh you know brick instruction uh it does uh recommend that we change some of our practices and those include increasing cohorting of students no assemblies or large
112groups requiring face coverings at all times athletic and extracurriculars permit just parents and guardians only and so you know this is of a concern to us as members of berkeley county the community at the same time we have been transmitting messages to our community when we have positive cases either in our schools or in our departments and just to give you a quick snapshot of what that's looking like as of i believe saturday we have sent out um messages i think over 30 messages 13 13 to in schools and two in departments of where we have had situations where individuals have tested positive 66 percent of those cases though are adults with the the balance the other third balance being students so the safety and well-being of staff continue to be you know our first
113priority i think face coverings social distancing we are finding is something that we need to continue to remind ourselves with and just common interactions that we have taken as normal we just need to be cognizant of how we conduct business and how we're going to be moving through you know the pandemic here in the future so we are gold status right now we're watching the the state map very closely uh and we just want to make folks aware uh of some of the concerns we have not only in our school but in the county as a whole we have also been working this fall on developing our mission vision and core values and you can see here in updating those some of the things that we have done through the month of september uh and
114we have just completed the application deadline we did have um you know good response we sent this message out over to 44 000 in touch subscribers we have also had responses from 76 individuals who are interested in serving on the steering committee and later this week uh this friday we will be announcing those members of the steering committee and then they will begin to do their work in creating a new mission vision and core values for us so thank you to all those who signed up and are interested in participating and we look forward to hearing back from them here later this fall you did hear two great presentations tonight i want to thank miranda and i also want to thank holly and ann uh and nina for their work with the technology and tutoring
115help desk um i just wanted to swing back to that just highlighting that and making folks aware of it but i think all the presentations this evening were exceptional and you know we just want to remind folks about those opportunities with our help desk again those help desk hours are from 5 to 7 pm monday through thursday a couple of date reminders uh to save we've got parent-teacher conferences coming up here for our high school students on tuesday october the 13th and then the end of the first nine weeks november the 10th so again those are good times to kind of assess how you're doing and what plans or adjustments you need to make and then for no school for students and staff on election day which is november 3rd this year and then on
116veterans day which is november the 11th again i just want to thank everyone for the work they're doing um you know these are different times and how we approach our work and just want to encourage us to get the good messages out that we have out there and use social media to do that thank you sir uh the next meeting is going to be uh october 19th uh at 5 pm and sharon i believe that's muslim high school is that correct or did we change that martinsburg lsic uh october 19th at 5 p.m in martinsburg high school auditorium be here i had a okay for dr murphy yes sir oh okay ready um you and i have discussed that this morning i was expressing concern about covid uh well let me back him if an
117employee goes to work breaks a leg they qualify for worker's comp and i was just sitting here wondering because i've talked to some people they have to use their sick leave after they've used the federal days for uh when they're sent home and so when we're sending closing these schools down and and they have to use their sick leave i'd like to request staff consider along with our attorney if we couldn't do a test case and see if our employees could qualify for the workers call so they would not have to use their personal simply because if the school is identified like some of our schools have been closed and all the staffers go home and they have to use their sick leave after they use the fourth the federal base some of them it'll
118have a negative impact on their retirement or if they actually get sick in the future they will have done it they will not have days in the bank um and the second thing is we should make sure they're aware of the sick leave banks and get them enrolled in that if we could looking at a policy and helping them out but those new employees are really vulnerable when the school is closed down and we've only gone nine weeks into the school year with quite a few more um 27 weeks or something and uh we could have a lot of closings with uh individual schools especially if the same areas keep having the coded uh reoccurrences so uh i i just i don't want an answer now i just well i'd like to give you i'd
119like to give you an answer so that we have some clarity around the issue yes i'm going to ask dr school i believe he's still on um the first piece that i just like to clarify and yes we have had circumstances where we've actually had to close schools but the teaching is continuing it's just in a remote environment so if i'm able uh and i'm healthy then there's no leave that's being charged to any of those individuals so um i was hearing in your question just because i'm out of school's clothes then i'm going to be on leave that's that's not the case so i just want to clarify that you may not have intended that but i i wanted to make sure that we we understood that but if they got the coven well
120let me let me let's let's let's step through it so we're clear on it now there have been instances where individuals through the contact tracing may not be sick but they need to stay home and be either isolated or quarantined again if they're capable of working they can do their work from home so again those individuals would not be charged leave you and i did speak earlier this morning and i know dr schooly i'm going to defer to him because he's a little bit more well-versed on this than i am but then if in fact an individual is you know does test positive and is uh falls ill how does that play out justin if they're not able to work yes uh using your fir the middle example there about being able to work from
121home uh if they're subject quarantined or if they've been diagnosed and confirmed as positive but still able to work even for those brick kids if it's a brick teacher or they've got a hybrid schedule we're still providing a substitute in the building to allow that classroom teacher to work from home so we're actually increasing our time and our cost there just so that doesn't affect the teacher in those 10 days that the federal leave so we're not even hitting the sick leave that they have there as well and then if for some reason someone does have to quarantine for the 14 days during that time it's 14 calendar days so that is typically covered within those 10 days of leave there and it all depends upon that date of exposure so it could be a
122few days less just depends on what happens in that home with that individual and how they quarantine or the positive person isolates from other members of the family when we have more than one employee or individual in that same household for that time period so there's a lot of scenarios we work as hard as we can to work with that employee so we aren't getting into that situation right now for this time period as much as possible so that we can be as flexible for those individuals to continue to work so the only risk then because justin and you and i are dr school you and i discussed this today the only circumstance that this that what mr murphy is raising might come into play is if i was an individual who did test positive
123and subsequently needed to take leave that if i was tested positive a second time maybe later in the year that's where the this leave may play out and you told me to date and thank goodness we've had not had any um repeat cases of any of our individuals who tested positive correct but the year is young and the the the exposure is possible i'm just asking if justin and staff and council to consider trying to do a test case to cooper because if these people have been staying home and not coming forth to work in the schools and they're volunteering they're exposing themselves to the possibility of getting it into school if they've been like from march or last year to september of this year they didn't get it then i i would suggest that
124we consider doing a test case and say look if our employees get covered the second thing that we try to take i guess you have to wait till the problem arises but we should consider doing a test case to get our employees covered under workers comp and as and that and i know we're all advocates for employees and i don't want to see our employees lose their sick leave in the future because they had to use it for something that they've probably got within our environment that's my that's my request thank you okay there's nothing else again the next meeting is october 19th at 5 pm here at spring mills high school and it's for the first part of that meeting it's for the martinsburg area lsic so if there's nothing else is there a
125motion to adjourn soon [Music] mr murphy is second by dr gilpin to adjourn is there any discussion just we're meeting with martinsburg's lsc here yes okay thank you all those in favor say aye aye aye opposed we are adjourned you