Clarke County Public Schools School Board Meeting 09/22/2025

001Yep. Good evening. I'll now call to order the September 22nd, 2025 schoolboard meeting. And I'd like to ask everyone to rise and say the pledge of >> allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for it stands one nation under God indivisible with liberty and justice for all. >> Okay. review and approval of tonight's agenda. Um, are there any comments or questions about tonight's agenda? >> I move to approve the agenda as presented. >> Second. >> All in favor? >> I. >> And any nazs? Um, I'm too. Um, okay. And um, next the consent agenda. So, um, are there any comments or questions regarding the tonight's consent agenda? So, it includes finance reports, fundraising and facility use requests, head start, approval of the sheriff's officeou, and then approval of

002our minutes. Are there any questions, comments? Are >> we not going to cover this? >> That's going to be a little bit later. >> Okay. So, is there a motion to approve tonight's consent agenda? >> Approve the agendas presented. >> Is there a second? >> All in favor? >> I >> Okay. Presentations and recognitions. Okay. Dr. Neil will present and other staff members will pres pro provide information um updating us on the curriculum. Excuse me. >> Is that one too far? All right. Good evening. I'm Jessica Neil, the director of curriculum instruction. >> I'm Patrick Houseman, supervisor instructional technology. >> And we also have two teachers that are going to join us in a moment. And it's Alicia Solage and Matt Ernst. And they'll be up here um shortly at their part of the presentation.

003But we wanted to come back tonight to do a more in-depth um presentation based on some feedback that we received. Um and tonight's presentation is gonna involve some of the law, some of the curriculum again just to go a little bit more in depth, a sample lesson for elementary and secondary feedback, the opt out forum and then some committee recommendations. So we are going to go a little bit more in depth but we wanted to start with the purpose of flee. So the purpose of family life education as defined from the state of Virginia is the curriculum is designed to equip and empower students with knowledge and life skills to foster positive individual and family developmental and strengthen interpersonal relationships through an educational preventative and strengthbased approach. So the skills and knowledge needed for healthy

004individual and family functioning include knowledge of human development, skills to develop a positive self-esteem, communication skills, decision-making skills, knowledge and skills to develop healthy interpersonal relationships and emotional and social skills. So when we look at the law, I'm actually going to make mine bigger on my screen here so I can see it here as well. All right. 1987 um 22.1 2020 207.1 of the code of Virginia was amended to direct the board of education to develop standards of learning and curriculum guidelines for comprehensive sequential family life education or FLLE curriculum in grades K through 12. So we're going to kind of go through that law. This first piece is talking about um the definition of abstinence as it pertains to family life. Um but we're going to go through what the law says as far

005as public schools are concerned. So it says the board of education shall develop standards of learning and curriculum guidelines for comprehensive sequential family life education curriculum in grades kindergarten through 12 and shall include instruction as appropriate for the age of the student in the following family living and community relationships. Benefits, challenges, responsibilities and the value of marriage for men, women, children and communities. The value of family relationships, abstinence, education, the benefits of adoption as a positive choice in the event of an unwanted pregnancy, human sexuality, human reproduction, the prevention of human trafficking, dating violence, the characteristics of abusive relationships, steps to take to deter sexual assault, the availability of counseling and legal um resources in the event of an assault. and the importance of immediate medical attention and advice as as well as the requirements

006of the law, the ideology, prevention and effects of sexually transmitted disease and ideology is like what causes them mental health education and awareness. And it says, "All such instructions shall be designed to promote parental involvement, foster positive self-concepts, and provide mechanisms with for coping with peer pressure and the stresses of modern living according to the students developmental stages and abilities. So, any family education curricula offered in a local school division shall require the standards of learning objectives related to dating violence and the characteristics of abusive relationships to be taught at least once in middle school and twice in high school. Any high school family life curriculum offered by the division should cover prevention of dating violence, domestic abuse, sexual harassment, human trafficking, and the law and meaning of consent at elementary, middle, or high school.

007Family life con curriculum should talk about the importance of personal privacy and personal boundaries of other individuals and tools for a student to use to ensure that he or she respects the personal privacy and boundaries of other individuals. Harmful physical and emotional effects of female genital mutilation. Associated criminal penalties and rights of the victim. Any family life curriculum offered by school division may incorporate age appropriate elements of effective and evidence-based programs on the prevention, recognition, and awareness of child abduction, child abuse, child sexual exploitation, and child sexual abuse. So, as far as what the law states, because we've had a number of questions, I just felt that it might be beneficial to go through exactly what the law um states in the state of Virginia. So, these are the laws that surround and are the

008foundation for our committee's work in developing this curricula. And just to review kind of quickly on some of the curriculum pieces themselves because we had a we had a question come in about how it was designed, what pieces were us, what pieces came directly from the state. So in the curriculum document the draft that is linked in the standard as well as the understanding the standard the descriptive statement these both come directly from the VOE standards for our staff then at the elementary middle school high school level took that sorry the mouse is not going as quickly as I'd like to see pull this over our staff then took that and created what you see in the essential knowledge skills and processes column. Essentially taking what they knew as far as resources, what they knew

009was important for the students to know and synthesize that down into what the student will be able to do, what they will know from that piece. And the other component here to acknowledge is in that right hand column who is going to teach it and what resource they will use to teach it. that is also going to be something that was determined by our staff, found by our staff, curated or created by our staff. So essentially you can look at it as two halves of the whole. The two columns on the left hand side straight from VOE and then the two on the right hand side would be straight from our staff and our group working together to go through the samples. This time we'll go ahead and welcome up to walk us through one

010of the lesson examples and this one from the elementary. >> Good evening. So, this lesson um that I'm going to talk to you guys about tonight is on appropriate touch and self- advocacy. This is a skill that is important for our elementary students. Um as we know, there's, you know, there's a history of this happening in the world around us and having kids able to share that the fact that they have been hurt or be able to protect themselves and others is a really important skill. So, in this lesson, um students will will recog the elements of good and bad touches by others. The student will demonstrate how to say no to inappropriate approaches from family members, neighbors, strangers, and others. Students will be able to identify parts of their body that should not be

011touched. Students will be able to identify people that can help them care for their private parts. They will um demonstrate strategies for declining physical touch. And students will learn how to say no to inappropriate touch and who to talk to if someone touches their private parts. Um, I have a book that is linked here. It is a YouTube version of the book. Um, ideally in a classroom setting, I usually read to the students from a physical copy of the book, but I did not want to purchase that until this was all approved. So, here you do have the linked copy. It is Your Body Belongs to You. It's a really good um book about your body and what is to be touched and what isn't to be touched, who can do that, who can help

012you. Um, and then because it is so important for parents to understand what is going on in our school and how they can help their students synthesize this at home, I included um the body safety rules, which is a handout that parents can receive. It'll go home the day the student receives the lesson. So, not just um, you know, so that the parent can know how to talk to their student about what was taught to them that day at school. It talks a lot about um using appropriate terms for the students body parts. Um at school we'll use the term private parts, but it does encourage parents to appropriately name those parts at home. Um and it talks about different ways that you can include your children in the conversation about who can help them

013with their private parts, who should not be helping them with those things, um and what their private parts are. It also includes um something that I liked about it was that it included the mouth um ears, eyes, and nose as well. So, not just what people typically think of the private parts as being covered by a bathing suit. Um previous to this lesson, students generally get a lesson on family as a whole as it is. Um so, I usually introduce lessons with kind of what we talked about last time. Did we talk about something that relates to this? And in our previous lesson, we will have talked about what families look like, what it looks like to share love with somebody um appropriately. And I hope they can recall that and let it be a

014jumping off point for our lesson. Um so we'll start with a brief discussion of a positive and appropriate physical touch. This is, you know, hugs, snuggles, things like that that we give because we want to um children and adults. And then we will talk about times they might not want to be touched because we're not talking about sexual abuse here. We're talking about times when somebody just does not want to be touched and how they can say no to that. Um, so if you don't know somebody, if you don't like somebody, if you don't feel like it today, if maybe you're feeling angry or upset and you just don't, you know, want to to hug somebody or you're busy, you don't want to stop what you're doing and hug somebody, it's okay to say no.

015And we want our kids to know that. So, we'll do a brief introduction there and then the book would be read or shown depending on, you know, whether the hard copy is there. Like I said, I do like to have the hard copy because I like when I'm reading a book to stop and ask questions um to the kids as we go. But if you, you know, we're just showing the the YouTube video is all right, too. Um after the book we'll have like an open forum discussion where the students um can let me know how you can tell if someone likes what is happening or if you like the touch that you're receiving. When I talk about feelings with our kids at school, we talk about comfortable and uncomfortable. If the touch that you're

016receiving makes you feel uncomfortable, then it's not appropriate. No matter if it's from somebody that you love and respect or somebody that you don't know well. Um, if someone tells you that you need to keep their touching you a secret, then it's not a safe touch. That's something that's really important for the kids to know. Secrets um are not generally considered safe. We do talk about surprises being different from secrets. You know, if we're keeping mom's Christmas present a secret, that's okay. But if somebody's telling you that they're touching you as a secret, and you may not share that with another person, that is unsafe. Um, is it okay to tell someone you love that you don't want to be touched? That's a hard thing for a lot of kids. Um, they, you know, you,

017your parents might say to you, "Oh, you got to, you know, hug grandpa, hug grandma, hug this person that I don't really know." And some kids feel really insecure about that. Some are fine and will hug anybody, but others are not. And how can they say no respectfully? Um, we said, "No, not right now, please." That's a line straight from the book. move away from them to show them that you're requesting that space or not hugging or kissing back. Um, we have the conversation about if someone keeps touching you and you don't want to be touched, what should you do? Talk to a trusted grown-up. That could be, and we'll go through what a trusted grown-up looks like. parent, teacher, um police officers, a doctor, nurse, um anybody, you know, anybody at school can be

018a trusted adult, neighbors, friends, things like that. Um and then we'll go through the parts of your body that nobody should ever touch and that these are called your private parts. And these are any parts that are covered by your bathing suit in addition to the um the facial areas that nobody should be touching you without your permission. And also that if they ask you to touch them in those places that that is also considered an unsafe touch. Then we go through because obviously there are going to be times that children especially need help with their private areas whether it's through bathing or medical care. There are people that can help you in those regards, whether it be parents or, you know, sitters, whoever your parent has put in charge of you at that moment.

019Um, doctors and nurses, if you're at the doctor's office, and always emphasizing the point that if you are uncomfortable, you can always tell somebody to stop. Even if it's your doctor or a nurse, even if it's your mom and dad, always um being able to set that boundary that you're uncomfortable. And then we go through what to do Someone tries to touch your private parts, say or yell, "No, don't touch me there." That is a very direct statement. And the students will practice that statement. And we will practice talking about it in an assertive way. Something that we talk about in our Second Step curriculum is being assertive versus passive or aggressive in the way we talk to somebody. And being assertive, you know, means I mean business. I'm, you know, I'm not joking. I

020want you to stop touching me right now. um move away from the person as quickly as possible and tell a parent or trusted grown-up right away. So, these are the skills that excuse me that we hope our um kiddos will will learn from this lesson so that they can protect themselves and others as well. Um and then, you know, closing wrap up, we don't want kids to be afraid of touch. That's not the goal at all. We want them to know that there are appropriate times and appropriate places and that you can value hugs and kisses and snuggles from your mom and dad or you know the other people in your community um where it feels safe for you, but that you do have the right to stand up for yourself um and others if

021that's what what needs to happen in that situation. Um so this lesson is designed for kindergarten um and would be delivered by myself. I'm the school counselor at voice. So, it'll be delivered by me or the school counselor at I think that's probably most of what we have for that lesson. I'll go ahead and welcome Erns up to share a lesson at the high school level. Good evening everyone. Uh you I'm Matt Erns. I'm the uh P10 uh driver's ed health uh teacher at Clark County High School. And the lesson I'm sharing is healthy relationships, which is going to kind of piggy back off of um our last one here. It's essentially talking about our our boundaries. What is a good relationship within your family? What's a good relationship with your friends and in a

022relationship with a partner? Uh, one of the essential questions here, how can uh teens be part of the solution inside of these problems? Because when you're a teenager with your parents, you might not always feel like you have a voice, but they need to know that they can't, you know, express their emotions and how they're feeling in certain uh situations. Uh, also, uh, what are the qualities of a healthy relationship? within your family, your friendships, and again with a partner. And what strategies can we use to resolve conflict other than just, you know, yelling, what can we do? So, uh, with these little bubbles here, uh, vin diagrams, you know, what's a healthy relationship look like with our dating? Kids come brainstorm their ideas, family relationships, and their friendships. And then then ones all kinds

023of work. Uh then our boundaries, environmental boundaries. Um what could play a role there? Uh one of the things that we really want to kind of focus on at the high school is with our um communication with our phones. There's a lot of text messages get sent out that everyone sees. We want to make sure these kids are having good relationships uh pretty much the whole world on their phones. They don't want to be sending things on social media that are bad. Uh private texts or Snapchats, things like that. So make sure that they're having good boundaries with that as well. Um our physical boundaries we said earlier about being close uh if someone is being too close to you know how can we express that you don't want that type of um connection with

024them. So with communication about boundaries relationship be clear with your uh partners or with your uh family and because people can't read our minds right we need to make sure that we are expressing what we want and that people are respecting those boundaries don't push uh people have all sorts of you know reasons for maintaining physical boundaries and relationships don't be you know extra pushy with you know trying to push your agenda on on top of other Consent is a big thing. Uh making sure that people consent to anything relationship that you're trying to have with them. If they're not consenting, what can we do? Uh how can we communicate that with the person? No, it should be uh it does. So boundaries communication uh against explaining things well uh don't blame the blame or

025attack the other person. Listen uh don't dominate conversations. It's all just regular information they should have learned prior through elementary school, middle school, high school. So we're all just kind of building this up uh to come up with good solutions to demonstrate our boundaries and you know fix conflicts. So, at the end of the lesson, we'd like to have like partner discussions and role plays so the kids kind of have a scenario where they're putting it kind of a situation where they would have to use their skills and come up with a solution to, you know, help with what they're doing. Um, so example, you don't like when someone gives you a hug. There's a lot of times where you have people that are huggers. So, how can you communicate to the person, you know

026what, sorry, I don't I really like hugging you. Maybe a handshake would be better, but not being so aggressive with it and make sure that the communications are always in. And then at the at the very end, just kind of sum things up, you have, you know, write in a paragraph uh describe a conflict, maybe something that happened in their lives that they were willing to share. Explain how they might resolve the conflict using good communication decision making uh and conflict resolution skills. Explain how the positive qualities of relationship, love, trust, empathy uh might help them solve their conflict. >> Yeah. I might have to have you just help. Okay. So, as we come into the next piece, one of the things we wanted to share because we never want to ask for feedback that

027we're not going to utilize, incorporate, and adapt with is the feedback we received from the public survey that went out just before this. We actually had two things that came in today. So, we had 10 in total that came in on the online survey before it closed. And then we had two more people that have sent emails since that point. And the pie chart on the screen gives you a breakdown of what that looks like. For the most part, it was what we had termed for the survey as community members. And what we meant by that was our education community. So, students, parents, community members at large. That was our largest majority at 60%. And then you can see that 20% came in at the special education side as far as staff and then there's

028a couple other pieces of pie there too but the largest in whole was that community side and just to note the patch chart is only for the feedback that came in electronically. The two that came in today um we did plus one here via email but I received one literally as I was walking downstairs. So, the patch chart does not include the ones that came in through um email today. >> We did other than the one that came down on the way down. We actually did include the first emailed one in some of the pages that are after this. >> Would you go back to that? I'm still here. >> Yeah, but we can't I can't read that. So, just quickly How many responses? >> So, at the top you'll see there's 10 responses. >>

029Um, and then it says plus one via email. So, the first the blue category there is the CCPS committee member. So, that would be someone who's on one of our advisory committees, particularly SHAB came in. The 60% is are community members. So that could be parents, students, um, anybody else in the community that I'm leaving out. >> Yeah, anyone else who came in through the community. Um, there are no orange represented in the patchart, but the green is a school instructional staff or instructional assistant. The light blue up there are special education teachers. Um, and then the dark blue is Oh, is the shab. Yep. >> Only total 10 responses. >> We had 12 in total. >> Two extras, but 10 >> 10 came in before the survey shut down. Two came in since then

030via email. So, 12 in total. >> Did you have another question? >> Okay. >> But the and the two that came in via email would also be in that community member category. So that would have went up to probably 70% of the responses. And then what we did was try and pull out some of the biggest components of that as far as the different elements. We had four people that came in out of those 12 that expressed that they were fully in favor of the curriculum, in favor of Clark County teaching it. We had zero responses that came in that were opposed to all of it or really opposed to elements of it. Most of the feedback was geared towards the pieces that you see below that as far as different ways to word things

031or including certain topics more including the actual language for body parts versus saying private parts things like that. It was more variations on how to teach it than it was not to teach it at all. So the way we broke down this feedback is kind of through a qualitative study. We categorized it and kind of compiled it together to show these were the main themes that came in. So where you see like the three, the six, that's how many pieces of feedback that we got from those people that represented these categories. >> And just to touch on a few of them, we had in separating students by gender for certain lessons, we had one piece of feedback come in on that for each level. So there were There was interest there as far as elementary,

032middle, high to have those lessons taught at different levels. There was requests for certain topics to be covered throughout and those included substance abuse, bullying, texting, exploitation. All those appeared at every level of the feedback. We also had pieces of feedback at each level that asked about if the nurse in SRO or law enforcement could be involved in lessons that were appropriate. And we had a few comments come in to the effect of being appreciative of how comprehensive the curriculum was and something since I made the digital survey I appreciated feedback coming in on just the survey itself of making it so it didn't say community members but actually spelling out parents and the different elements that were in that and that would actually help us break the data down as well. So then we

033went to that first slide was kind of general feedback. We went then to trying to pull out some of the main things by level. At the elementary level, we had one person that said it was great. They really appreciate the fact that we were going to teach this. We had that comment that I alluded to before about saying the actual names for body parts versus private parts. And I won't go down through every one of these, but those next two points you'll see up here on the middle school and the high school as well that talk about the sexing, cyber bullying, and also then going into the substance abuse because it it would be great, especially I am a father of a three-year-old, so he's not quite into these lessons, but I do know these

034things are hitting in the elementary level. So I I would agree that they are important things to potentially cover there in the curriculum. But as we jump to the middle school, you'll see another one in favor of the biological facts, the real names for things. You see substance abuse appear again. You also see things talking about bringing up things like pornography, sexing, online predators. So you can see those themes coming through and that big importance to the community that that is involved at each level as we go through. And then last but not least at the high school level, one of the things that was really good as far as the feedback came in because it was a point for us to explain it a little better. The number one thing there you see at

035the top says there's not much at the 11th and 12th grade level. Though the standards go through 12th grade, the majority of schools have health lessons, health classes start stop at 10th grade. So that's where the majority of the curriculum implementation of LE also stops at 10th grade. But as you look through the curriculum, and you'll see it noted in ours, it'll note where a lot of those standards, especially the required ones, already taught. They're already incorporated in those ninth and tth grade health lessons. There's just not the appearance there in the 11th and 12th grade sections of the curriculum. We again see some of those themes coming through as far as certain lessons being separated by gender. The acknowledgement that families come in different makeups, sexing, pornography, and substance abuse again coming in as

036points that really as we read through the feedback, more than one said it would be great for things like that that are that important to almost be brought up every year as part of this curriculum in some way. And actually back on the sex team pornography piece on social media and um electronic devices, we do already cover that through our dig digital citizenship lessons. So that is already addressed within our curriculum as is the substance abuse. Um that is addressed through our health curriculum. So we appreciate those comments, but those are already a part of our um normal curriculum that we do uh cover in our schools. So the next portion that we're going to talk about a little bit is the opt out process. So um we will be if once approved um parents

037will have the opportunity to opt their children out of the full curriculum or given objectives and standards. So um we have the sample le uh letter here. >> Sure. >> It just talks a little bit about the purpose of the code of Virginia and why we teach. It talks about um it's it's there um to enrich. we have the child's PE teacher there, but in conversations with the schools, we may not have that form turned into the PE teacher. That's why it's highlighted there. Um, but if you determine that your child should not participate, you can fill in this form um on the back or attached to this form would be the standards that would be covered for the given year that your child is in. So, every year you will be given the opportunity

038to opt out of any standards that you see fit as a parent. Has there been any provision for parental presence particularly for the really little kids >> like presence in the school during the lesson? No, there hasn't been any comments regarding that. >> No, not comments. Any consideration? >> No, I haven't even heard that idea brought up until now. I would envision that that might be uh we would have to look at our policy to see what our policy states about that. >> So then what happens if your child is opted out? Um students will be given an alternate instructional either an instructional uh social emotional learning lesson, career health or physical education lesson in an alternate location. Um all students have to have a career plan. So depending on the student and their needs,

039um they would be given an alternate assignment. Also the level um it would be the alternate location would be in a non-punitive area. So they wouldn't be sitting with the principal in the off main office. um it may be in the library or with a counselor depending on what type of lesson um the child would be uh receiving. So the committee did recommend after um looking at this uh more in a different way I guess throughout this process initially when the committee started to talk about the standards we wanted to include everything that was already being taught. So if it was taught in a health class or if it was taught in the counseling department, we're like, well, that that can match some of the standards as well. So we added everything in to make

040it as comprehensive as we could. After um considering that, you know, a lot of those lessons are required in those in that curriculum. So we went back through um and I talked to Dr. Bowling about this. teeth up going through the document and kind of saying the committee would like to reconsider these standards only because they're already being taught. So, our committee has gone through and marked Renee if you can open that back up. >> Oh, or the last tab. It's already open up there. Um, and then scroll over to this right hand column. Renee. So you can see on this first um standard here, this is just talking about students will be able to effectively handle routines. Well, that's already um included in our SEAL curriculum that we have in our elementary schools on

041our regular everyday um classroom meeting. So this is a lesson that we would propose that we emit from the um FLLE curriculum. And throughout this document, you'll see that we're proposing anything that's covered in health or through our SEAL comm curriculum, which is our social emotional learning, um, or our standard counseling office, that we're going to take those out of our curriculum because we already are teaching those. These they have already been approved by our board. Um, and they're health health is required as a so it's one of it's part of our regular day curriculum. So although we were being intentional trying to be as comprehensive as we could, we now feel that we should probably omit those from our um curriculum so that if a child has opted out of all of the curriculum,

042it's they're not missing their required curriculum through health or or social emotional learning or counseling. Um, so as you scroll through, you can see um which ones that is like listening to others and um how to communicate about your feelings um with your classmates. You know, you want to have a climate that's positive. We feel like those are already included in our um social emotional learning lessons that have been approved and we're already doing those. So we've gone through and um proposed to admit some of those from the family life Yes. And that concludes our presentation. What questions do you have? >> I have one question. Um, the teachers that teach it now with the new curriculum, does it add any more time frame in the time frame that you have to teach the subject

043you're teaching now? I mean, do you still have adequate enough time to get it done? >> You'll need extra more I know like in high school, it's what how many weeks is it? Okay. So, with the new curriculum, you don't see that that needs to be expanded or anything. >> What do you see is the actual time spent in what we'll call it is physical education versus classroom setting. >> Do you want to come up here to answer so they can hear you online? >> Yeah. at any level with the middle school, the high school, you know, we have um the issue where I feel like we live in a in a nation that is kind of keeps squashing the the physical education aspects of it and the the arts, the you know, crafts, things

044like that. So, how much are we taking away from that on the physical education piece versus this new agenda? >> Uh taking away from the physical education part of it. Uh because we have set up two week two weeks of facilitation, two weeks of health depending on what they're in. Uh this would just be something added to our health component. Um at the high school, we're looking at like two week information. So um it's not going to really impact too much. a couple projects health process time for the but for education part of it >> and this isn't being taught right now right so so to your question Mr. site um like it's not being impacted because there we haven't we haven't taught it in years. The other question I have, if if we get

045a large number of opt outs, does that put extra stress on the other areas that those kids go to opt out on like the library or the counselor? Because I mean, does that as maybe principles maybe answer that question? Does that put a big monkey wrench into it or not? >> If you if you were to get like say we were to get 50% opt outs, I'm sure that it causes some really tough issues, right? That's what I'm saying. But a minimum opt outs should be no problem. >> Okay. Thank you. Uh anything like this come up with a wonderful plan on paper. The problems come in the implementation and for this we are very much reliable on our four excellent principles. But I would like to know before I give this my wholehearted approval

046what they envision as their functioning supervising all this. >> Would anyone want to speak to that? >> So, we do have uh a supervisory person monitoring the actual presentation. I there's nodding >> but not every every lesson not every Yeah. >> Okay. No, I mean if an issue comes up it should not all of a sudden end up here because it was not addressed some of the problems. We all know what the problems are going to be. So, I would imagine as with any instructional um curriculum that's implemented in the schools, we have it laid out. Our teachers have done and our our committee members have done a phenomenal job of scripting the lessons. Um and the state has given direction on how to respond. If kids have um questions, you know, that's an excellent

047question. Ask we can you can ask a trusted adult regarding that um question. Uh, so I would imagine all of these principles and being a principal myself in the past, you oversee this um instruction just like you would any other instruction. It's our job to make sure that it's being implemented with fidelity and and being in the schools with these principles, I know that they're doing a great job at that. So they would be doing walkthroughs through the through the classrooms just as Dana um Miss Wearing uh gave the example with one of her assistant principles. Whichever administrator oversees uh that area would be doing the walkthroughs in that. >> And why have we shut this down at 11th and when they go on into the 11th and 12th grade? The first thing came to

048my mind is just want to get a driver's license and a whole new >> wealth of possibilities. the state sets the required courses that we have, right? Um and the state does allow us to alter the standards um to condense them into different grade levels. Um for middle school, it's up or down a grade level. Um and in high school, they can move the standards around as well. So that we've we've stayed within the um standards of the state in shifting it. But if we're going to be implementing this, we have to have it offered to all kids and they're required to have health at certain um grade levels by the state and they're not required in the 11th and 12th grade to have that health class on the opt out form. Um, is there

049a way to I'm sure I know that there's a way, but could we make it so that could you make it so that um it's more clear with um these are like um for example, sorry, like okay, K1, the students will learn how to identify when they're in an unsafe environment. have it outlined for the parent and they could check like no, I don't want my child to to to take this or to be part of this lesson rather than having um you know kind of this like these these lines where you know they may just throw something in there and you're left to interpret do they go into this lesson or not. It's just a it's just a suggestion. I know that >> so we did talk about that. it would just be making

050a different one for every single grade level. And >> we could do that if if it's the board's wish. Um >> one of the comments in the comment section, I don't know if you saw, was could we include this in our registration process, >> right? >> Um so that would make that a little bit more difficult if we are doing it in that way. Um I we have not decided if we're going to send it out >> because I think there's some opinion that sending out right before >> you know is beneficial for parents and then some parents believe that um during the registration process it makes it an ease of efficiency. So, we did talk about having it set up that way. Um, and this is what where we land it, but we certainly

051are not opposed to revising if need be. And I think even maybe having it offered twice, like opting out when you're registering your child for school in the summertime, and then you may have a change in heart, you know, as it gets closer to to implementing or to having the lessons um to say, are you sure you want to like are you sure you are okay with your child participating >> and giving a second? But I know that that we would do I would trust that we would do our system would allow any family to opt out at any moment, not just following these forms and deadlines, right? >> Yes. However, I would say the day of it would create a challenge for an alternate lesson to be created the day of, right? So we

052would prefer it to be ahead of time because yeah these these lovely teachers and administrators have to have a plan for supervision for that alternate lesson. >> So >> of course we would accept it anytime during the year preferably in advance. >> Right. So typically the I think at the high school level the time frame for your during the year to teach what you're teaching is it in the second semester usually >> the FL >> and what about the other levels is it in the second half of the year >> so there's yeah there's plenty of time that we can get a lot of education out to the parents to let them know even more >> to sit up front Um, >> where is it? >> Elementary lessons would likely be taught throughout the school

053year. Okay. >> Um, mixing and regular SEAL lessons >> throughout. >> Can you all share with us why you think it's important >> to teach? >> I mean, I agree with the state. We want to produce students and citizens actually that are going into our community that are well-rounded, can make um decisions, educ, you know, researchbased decisions, be educated on how to respond in uncomfortable situations. And although a lot of parents are teaching that at home, some children do not have that and are not afforded that. So I think the state's um stance is to give all children the opportunity um to develop the skill set for communication skills, for decision-m skills, you know, to to know how to respond in those interpersonal relationships. Um interpersonal with your best friend, you know, how do you

054respond? Because all of this, as you can see, is not um sexually related. that this is like how do we how do we interact as good citizens in society? How do we interact with our neighbor? How do we communicate? If I'm posed with a difficult situation, how do I process through that? You know, whether it be um an uncomfortable situation or a situation that it has has a decision- making um that a kid has to do just on the playground, you know, how do I how do I work through this? And then the knowledge of human development, what's happening with my body at different stages throughout my education? Um, and skills to develop self-esteem. Of course, we want kids to have skills that where they're developing their self-esteem. We want strong um mentally healthy students,

055you know, that that are self-aware and confident in themselves. So, and of course the social emotional piece of our social emotional lessons that are already being implemented. We want kids to be able to um work through their feelings. You know, uh suicide rates in um teens has been at an all-time high. We want kids to be able to say, "Okay, it's okay to feel angry. It's okay to feel sad. How do I work through this?" Right? And we want that to happen at all at all levels. So that's why I feel like um it's important to teach. >> Does anybody else want to add a reason why? >> I love children. I love families. And I want our families in Clark County to be the strongest they can be. When children know about boundaries and

056how to be successful um in in their relationships, whether it's like Dr. nails said friendships or romantic relationships or with their parents, we're going to see our families stronger and that's something we really need. Um, kids need to to know how to make decisions. They need to know how to communicate and with, you know, the rise in technology and kids being so focused on phones and things like that, a lot of kids are lo losing communication skills. And that is something we see in school. It's something that I'm sure, you know, parents are seeing at home as well. So when we afford them the opportunity to have a a comprehensive education at school, we're giving them the tools that they really need to be successful adults and to grow up and and have successful families

057of their own. >> And one thing that I'll add is just for me part of it is helping to fill in some of the gaps, especially in the world of technology. There's those pieces of you don't know what you don't know. And in some of these curriculum pieces, especially as I dove into some of the stuff about human trafficking and things like that, there's a lot out there that I think people don't know that some of these lessons can come in and help fill in some of those gaps and really, as Dr. Nail and everyone was saying, really help our students come out knowing more and being more prepared for the world they're entering. >> Anyone else have any comments or questions? All right. Thank you all for the presentation and for giving up the

058time this evening to be with us. >> Okay. Dr. Bowling will present on the 2024 2025 student learning outcomes within the state and the proposed new so cut scores. >> All right. Um, good evening. What happened with the cut scores are they were released and put on the state board site on Sunday before prior to our last meeting. So, some of the surrounding districts got to discuss this. Um, and we're one of the last because our meeting comes at the end, but the release date happened to really coincide with our meeting. Now, one thing I will say is I think sometimes, you know, I I think it's one element of student success. It's not everything, but sometimes I think testing gets a bad rap as well. I mean, if we're going to go get a

059driver's license, how do we do it? Pass the test. If we're going to law school, we take the LSAT. If we're going to medical school, it's the MCAT. You know, there's colleges, things like that. And I think sometimes not preparing kids for testing is also a struggle that we can have. You know, I do think that test anxiety is a real piece. But one thing that I always used to tell my students is that one skill I could give them is to make sure that they were ready to take an assessment when it's ready and it feels like that it's just another day that they have the confidence in themselves. So, it's one way that you can shine and show what you've learned. There's many other ways. One thing you'll notice too typically when I

060present is I will never compare us to local districts around us because I don't think that that's a a good thing to work on relationships with people around you. But I do think that you always need to be comparing yourself to the state. I think that zip code should never determine the level of education that you get, how prepared you are to go, whether it's going on to college or whether it's going to a CTE type of field. It's a conversation that we must always have. Um, what we're going to start by doing, and if Rene will pull it up, it's the one that says summary of student learning outcomes for 2025. It's a presentation piece, and we will go to page two. What has happened um since the implementation of standards standards of learning

061testing in 1998? And I think too anybody until they know whether or not it's a quality measure, you know, there's always released items and parents or community members can always go in and look at old test and take them and stuff of that nature, but since 1998, we have always been ranked in order of overall pass rate of all the areas combined as far as districts. And I think it's important that you take ownership of how good a job that you're doing. And one thing that I am proud of is since 2023, you can see an upward trend. Now, three years ago, there would have been 132 divisions. But luckily, the first year of having 131 was 2023. That was the year that Alageney County joined with uh Covington City Schools to make Alagany Highland

062School District. And if you go back further in that, there'll be different years that there was more districts than others. Um, but for this part here, it's 131 across the board. And if you can look at our overall pass rate, and when you look at overall pass rate, that combines five areas, which would be reading, writing, mathematics, science, and history. In 2023, it was 68.12. And we were 60th out of 131 districts. So you can see above average but right almost at the midpack part. Um and 2024 we were at an overall pass rate of 70.34 which put us at 57th out of the 131 districts. Now, some phenomenal work on our teachers and leaders behalf. In 2025, we moved up to 74.33%. And that's a very significant increase when you look at the large

063scale of how many tests are given. And we were 43rd in the state for this year. That was a data point that was just recently released. We were up 14 places out of 131. Now, I think that's good, but I think there's always room for improvement and that we have to embrace, you know, what we can do to improve. Going to the next scale, I think it's important that we break it out by different told you there were five areas. And when you break it out in the state by the five different areas, you do see a little bit of a variety of results. Once again, I only did 2025, but this is out of 131 districts. You can see in reading we were 45th, writing um 31st, history 40th. So we see some stronger

064points there. Science we were at 28 which was our strongest area and mathematics was our weakest performance at 57. And every district has different strengths and weaknesses which understands the importance of understanding curriculum and what you teach. There's a lot of districts that math is the highest of all of them. So I think looking Why would be a good question that we need to examine on these. You have to own the data and always ask why this is or is not happening. If we go to the next slide, what I did was break broke it down by test area out of the state. And for our strengths, I looked at anything that we were in the top 40 of. And you can see that for reading three, we had the 31 highest pass rate. For

065reading 11, we were also 31 out of 131. Algebra 2, I think, I mean, algebra 1, I think this is phenomenal because algebra 1's a gatekeeper course that everybody takes at some level, and we were ninth in the state in algebra 1. Algebra 2 39th, world geography 32, world history 2 first, US and Virginia history 8, science 5 38 and biology 9. Now when I looked at the where we were struggling the most and I believe I either did 70 down or 80 down to look at like a tier three math four, we were 82nd last year out of 131. Now, even though that's lower, we have improved a little bit in that area over the last two years. Our lowest performance was math six, and we were a hundth out of 131 in math

066six. So, those are just some areas of strengths and weaknesses for us as a division. Now, like I said, I will never put a slide up here that compares us to local districts. I think we all have different challenges and things like that, but I will always honor those that are doing a good job and say we need to look up to them and also figure out maybe are there reasons that they're doing a better job or not or is it something we can just work towards. So I did a demographic analysis of these here in a minute. But if you'll look at for 2025, you can see the highest uh performing division was false church city. They had a 90.02% 02% pass rate across all the tests at first place. Lexington came in second.

067Wise County was third. Um York County came in as fourth. Bodatat um has made a lot of upward mobility in recent years and you can see Bodatat's fifth. Another one that's a recent mobility piece is Louisa County going into that in recent years. You can see we have different size divisions. because Lowden is up there represented along with New Kent and then Patrick uh County is a you know a pretty remote district that has a lot of poverty and then you can what I did those are the top 10 and you can see there that's where we're at at 43rd and you can see the difference between us and the top 10 would be roughly about 8% increase would put us in the top 10. So I think that's doable and it's kind of like

068not to equate it to exactly but when you go on a diet if you never step on the scales you don't know how well you're doing and the same thing there. I do believe that we have the ability to offer a first rate education across all areas and testing being one of them. Now there are certainly other areas that are important to focus on too but you know there has been a lot of research that shows students who do well on these tests do perform better you know in college and sometimes in CT fields especially when you look at the math test rates and stuff like that. It's one measure but it is an important measure to me. Um, looking at those different districts, one thing that I did do was pull down the top

069demographics. And a lot of times I'm not an excuses person. And I believe we need to look for reasons to succeed now. But we also need to acknowledge our challenges. I don't think any superintendent of the Commonwealth though would say that we don't need to focus on student learning and make it a huge priority. And I think that everybody would say increasing rigor and having better academic results is an important piece. I think that kind of unifies us all. In looking at this, some things that I will note, we do have in that top 10, there's a variety of sizes. Lexington City Public Schools has 538 kids. It's a very small district, but you do have others that are similar in size to us because false church city um and um New Kent and Patrick

070are very comparable to us in size. So, and then you have a very large district being Louden at 81,578 kids, which brings its own challenges when you try to scale something up. Also, York County Public Schools is a large division, but at the lower end of large at about 14,000 students. So, you do see a variety there. Then, a lot of them are in that mid-range of about 6,000 students, which is where you're going to find your Wise and your um Louisa County population. So, you have a blend of size. So, that's not the reason. When you look at LCI, um, one thing that's interesting, the LCI of Falls Church is 08. That's as high as you can get, which means they're only getting 20% of their funding from the state. But then you have

071districts like Wise that are a.20, which means they're getting roughly 80% of their funding directly from the state. Patrick County is also a 2 something LCI division. And you go all the way up to false church being 8. We are 6032, but Louisa County is very close to us and LCI as well. So, we do have, you know, that's not the reason. It's all over the board there as well. Now, when you look at the economically disadvantaged piece, and a lot of people will talk about and make an erroneous comment or one that's really not valid, it is a partial correlator, but test scores do not always follow poverty. and you can work to help kids and to help break that cycle. When you look at the percentage of economically disadvantaged, the district up there

072with the most economically disadvantaged on the top 10 was Weise County at 67 uh or 64.7% kids being in poverty in Wise County. The second highest on that list on poverty is Patrick County and Patrick was at 51.4% poverty. And then you look at where we're at and Clark County is at 33.7% of our students are in poverty. So roughly a third. And it goes down to the uh the district up there that has the lowest poverty is Falls Church, which is 10.5%. But if you look at districts that are in the top 10 that have a very similar poverty rate to us, Lexington City's 30.7, York County is 30.1, and then um New Kent County is 28.6. So you can see you've got a lot of districts that are very close to us in

073poverty, too, that are having some good results with that. Now, special education, I looked at it for all the top 10. they're all within a percent or two of each other across the board. And that's one I just wanted to prove there. But typically, um, you know, students with disabilities is a relatively consistent percent across all Virginia school divisions. Now, EEL is the other population piece that we may look at. For us, we have an 8.8% EL population or English language learners. Some of those districts have very low EL populations with the lowest one being Wise County which is 0.4% EL. Also, New Ken is at 1.4. But there are districts that are doing a great job that are right there in that top 10 aligned with us in EL. Falls Church City has above

074us in EL population at 9.0. Lexington City's right with us at 7.1. And um Clouden County has a 20% EEL population and when you look at a large district getting that result that can certainly be a challenge. Now, as we move into that next slide, this is one that the state does every year where they look at not just pass rate, but they look at which school districts perform the best with students from economically disadvantaged backgrounds. And where that is where that slide comes from. That right there is those dots. If you look at them, that's 131 dots and it's the 131 school divisions in the state of Virginia. The line that's there is the regression line that if you were doing solid average with poverty, you would fall directly on that line. So if

075you're above it, you're doing a better than average job with your students in poverty. If you're below it, you're doing worse than average. And you can see the districts are all over the place on this piece, but and you may look at those pass rates. Some of them even get close to a hundred. And you notice that Falls Church was the highest at 90.02. There are some districts that actually have their students with poverty outperform as a subgroup their total population as a whole. And if you look at some of those districts up there, those are just the districts that are doing the best relative to poverty. on the x axis or the horizontal is the percentage of students living in poverty. On the vertical axis is the pass rate of the students in poverty

076across all five testing areas. So I just always like to say yeah we all there's challenges but we all have them and we need to own the data and then work hard to improve to whatever level we can. Now on the very next slide um and before we go into this it should be cut scores. I do want to give kind of um a little background on why we actually got state testing. State testing did not exist when I was in high school. Actually I graduated right before it came into being. The first year of state testing was 1998 in Virginia. And I couldn't tell you who was governor at the time, but the governor at the time said, "We want Virginia's diploma to have more value when kids go on to postsecary ventures, whether

077it be CTE or college." That sometimes grading is an arbitrary thing according to the instructor that you get or the teacher you get. And that is an honest reflection. and they wanted to have a standardized metric that said this um gives value and lets the colleges know the quality of the graduates they're getting. And that's what happened in 1998. One message piece that I think was forgotten since 1998 though is in 1998 the 400 was defined as the bare minimum understanding of the content to move on. And really we should have been aiming for advanced scores all along the way. And I am thankful for my background. I will say that even when I was a teacher, that was something we talked about in grade level meetings every year. And every year that I was

078an administrator, we didn't only look at pass rate. We looked at their number of kids that were getting advanced and the number of kids that were getting uh perfect scores. I do think in some parts of the Commonwealth that lock got lost in communication that we were seeing 400 as a target and it was never really intended to be such. Now, one thing that we do know is over the um last started about four years ago, but last year was a formative run and this year was the real last year's data was the real run and the score that each school will get within the next two to three weeks. A big part of our governor's agenda has been coming up with a new accountability framework. Overall, I do think the work is solid. There

079are some things that I would tweak with it if I had, but you never get everything that you want. Um, but that has been a big part of that work. And one of the final steps to the accountability framework was noted about three years ago that there would be new cut scores in spring of 26. So, we have been talking these for a while. But I do think what we're looking at could potentially be a rather drastic and be a lot overnight. And I don't think that we were necessarily looking at it going exactly this way. But if we'll look at the next slide there, I want you all to have an understanding of this. And this is what the other districts around us have already had this presentation because they go um toward the

080beginning of the month. So these were already out for them. But I wanted to make sure that our board and community has this as well because I'm all for increasing rigor and expectations. But I will be honest with you that I have some concerns about this. And you look right now currently every so test has the same pass number which we call proficient and every so test has the same advanced number. Since 1998, 400 has always been proficient, which is pass. And advanced has always been 500 and that's always been consistent. If this passes, this will be the first time that that is not the case. Now, one thing I do want everybody to understand is they are not changing that for writing, science or history at this time. The proposal is only for reading

081and mathematics. But what I have on the slides for you right there is what is proposed to happen for reading. And you can see we test reading in grades three through eight and end of course reading is given in the 11th grade. What I would note to you fail basic is not as big a deal. There's basically two categories fail below basic and fail basic but they're both not passing. That's the cut off there. Now, one thing you will notice is that for grades three, four, and five, failing basic is now above a 400. So, what kids took last year would now fall in fail basic. If a 400, so you see it's 49 in grade three, 415, grade four, 402, grade five. But that's not to pass. If you look at the next column,

082that's the pass it's going to go to. Starting in spring 25, spring 26. If this passes grade three reading, you'd have to have a 444 to pass. And I'm not going to read it all to you, but you can go down there and look at end of course reading, which is reading 11. And that is a test that's required to graduate. You have to have a 479 starting this spring on it to pass if this passes. So, it's going from 400 fall to 479 in the spring. Now, it's equally as important to me, but another but it it only it's good and it's good for the kids, but advanced as far as getting verified credit counts the same, but you can also see the advanced scores there have um also went up beyond 500 to

083different amounts there. Now there was a standard setting committee at the end of last year and that work you know was all done in house not released. It had teachers and educators on it. Um but these do not reflect exactly the standard setting committee's recommendations and that's where people get confused if they go back to state board meeting docs. They're very close, but a few of them are all five, six, 10 points. And the BDOE actually recommended different numbers for a few of them. Um, typically higher, but not up a lot. Um, so if you go back and you say that's not what's on the standard setting committee document, that is the case. But this is the draft motion scores, which are what are recommended from the BDOE, and that's reading. When you go down

084to the next screen, we can look at mathematics, and it has a similar And we'll only focus on the proficient category, but you can see that um to pass it goes from like a 440 um three all the way um to a 4 uh down there at algebra I mean at geometry at a 452. Now, of all those, the one I would say in the math that concerns me the most is the algebra one. And you can see the algebra one is proposed to go to 453 to pass starting this spring. Now, something that is a key is for the end of course reading, there's what's called a substitute test that's approved by the BDOE. We were really wanting to go away from it because giving it counts the same as a failure on the

085accountability framework for the school. the kid passes which is work keys. But if we do get boxed into a corner that gives an alternative route to graduation. There is no alternative route no substitute test for algebra one and the algebra one test is required for graduation. Now, before we go on, I do want to kind of tell you what the effect would be on our scores on this, but also what the effect would be on some of the districts in the top 10. Clark County Public Schools had an overall pass rate in reading last year of 75.87%. If this is implemented as as written, it would drop to 39.32. Clark County Public Schools for 2025 had a math pass rate of 72.90. If implemented as written, it would drop to a 39.30. Now, I don't

086think any district is wanting it to happen overnight. We want to see kids have higher expectations in an Excel, but I would appreciate a phased in approach that started at the beginning of the school year. If you remember, um I don't have the data on this for church. False which is not a member of the CIP. It's public data, but when it's put on the build the table on the VOE website, they don't keep the exact number anymore because it gets so big. They just tell what category the kids test fell in. But the CIP has the ability to do that data analysis for us. And Lexington City was number two. They had a reading pass rate of 92.18 as a whole district. They would drop to 65.80. So even though they're still going to

087be pretty solid, they're still going to have a big impact there. Lexington City would go from math at 87.39 to 63.59. Wise County reading would go from 87.49 to 51.41. Math and Wise would go from 89.15 to 58.99. Now even with this and you look at that, one thing we always do need to be doing is looking toward excellence and looking and seeing what we can bring back in those districts. There are schools that have had 10 years above 90 on every test and they a lot of them have high poverty in their carry in the district. So there are examples of those that will bounce back more quickly from these cut scores than others but it certainly does have an effect and one part that would concern me would be graduation long term. I

088don't think we would have much of an impact this spring because most of the state testing is taken before you end 11th grade. So most of that would already be set for this current graduating class. You just would have a handful of kids who hadn't passed a test yet. And hopefully we can work with the small number. But next year we would have to have everybody that gets English 11 reading would have to have that 479 or we'd have to work through work key. So we see an impact there and certainly in three years when algebra one came up because there's no substitute test we would definitely um see an impact at that point. Now one thing that I do want to share as well is that they are there is some work going on

089with this um this is on for an information and action item. The state board agenda and related documents were posted this week. What they actually were posted today. They've come up with a new category called approaching and nobody knew what even that was coming out of left field which means you don't pass. But it's like a higher not pass. You'd have a fail below basic, a fail basic approaching proficient pass advanced. Even if they do that, the question is would the kid get any would the student get any credit or would we? And we don't have that answer yet. But it is up for action and discussion this Wednesday and Thursday actually the actions on Thursday. Um and then they're going to do an implementation vote in October. So they'll have a vote on the

090cut scores and then a vote on the implementation a month later in October. One thing too that we are getting is there's a bill that was meant to be active which was kids in the upper quartile the upper 25% of state testing and math were supposed to automatically be placed into advanced coursework starting this year. That got delayed until this next school year. But one thing that I've noticed and if you all will look at the math one if we go back to it um the math which is on I think it's eight that next one there. You all look down the proficient column and see what you tell me about this part. Um the upper quartile scores and this is oftent times where we have a state board making some decisions and then we

091have legislature making the other. This one was completely made by the legislature not by the state school board. the the upper quartile pass rates for and it says any kid in the middle school must be automatically advanced if they're in the upper quartile. The upper quartile for math five this year was 466. You can see that is a little bit above what we're now going to be saying is passing at 445, but it's not much above it. So we're saying to be put into an automatic advanced course, you're barely above it. Math six, the upper quartile was 440. Now that is a little bit above the 443 to pass. I mean the 433, but it's almost neck and neck that one law doesn't communicate with the other, but look there at math seven. The upper

092quartile is 425. So a failing score by the advanced coursework bill would say you ought to be in advanced math coursework. The upper quartile for math 8 is 421. So the Virginia advanced math bill is saying score should be automatically accelerated. So I do think that there's a lot that we need to figure out with this. And just as a final statement, I'm all for increased expectations for students and all for owning data. I mean, if you run a business, you want to see, are your products performing as good as others and how are they selling at what rate and things of that nature. We're putting people out in the world to become good citizens. We need to embrace data. We need to work to improve. And I'm all for increased expectations and rigor, but

093we really do need a phased in approach. And doing this and saying we're implementing it this spring to me is a very drastic approach. What I'm hopeful is that maybe some logic will work out and we'll look at a phase in approach over a few years and um that we could also start a new with the beginning of a school year because I look at us and think it's not quite fair because we're on a year-long schedule. So if this happens all of our kids will be under the harder expectations piece and our results will likely be lower than students that are on a 4x4 block because they get half Half of their testing happens in the fall, half in the spring. So, they're going to districts that are 4x4 block for high school going

094to get half of it under the old, half it under the new. But to be fair to them, they also have a hard piece to sell because they're going to have to tell their kid that by the luck of the draw that had English 11 in the fall, but a 401's okay for a verified credit to pass, but the kid that gets a 478 in spring doesn't get a verified credit and did not pass. So, um We've got the next two months. We'll kind of tell where this is going to go. It's going to be on the state school board in September and October. And I'll keep you all informed about the progress along the way. Do you have any questions related to this? >> Have there been any request I know I sent a

095letter of concern. I don't know from other divisions because they've not shared back any information on what they received. But I think we do need to look at increasing our expectations over time and I'm not so sure that we should norm it back to the 400 and 500 and make the questions harder or something like that because that's what everybody's come to generally accept and they know what it is and now you're almost going to have to have a key to know whether or not your child passed or not. And I do think that we should at least start it a fresh with a new school year. And I do believe when you're looking at such a large increase, we got to do what's right for kids. Yeah, we want to prepare them for life,

096but it should be done step by step and should be phased in over time. >> Well, and I just had one comment. So you said in 1998 that was when this kind of came to be and that 400 was the bare minimum and it was never really intended to be the target. But so that hasn't changed but the tests have changed since 1998, >> right? They they don't look this like math doesn't look the same >> as today math five. Those tests don't look the same as what we were given to fifth graders in math in 1998. >> Standards have changed now. Like the algebra one is somewhat consistent. I taught it. Some of those things. One of the new things that came about was innovative item types came to be which mean they weren't

097all multiple choice. Some of them where you type in answers or you drag and drop and stuff like that. But I do think that they are relatively comparable in some ways because we've kind of had eb and flow. We've had increases in rigor, make it harder. Oh, we're going to make the cut score lower. And to be quite honest, the last big one change was in 2019 and the cut scores were reduced. So, the amount of questions you had to get right in 2019 to now to pass has been lower. And this is probably the lowest, you know, part Does anybody else have any questions or comments? >> Do you have a regional superintendent meeting before the state acts on this? >> Uh we had one last week and um we have one next week

098which will be in between. >> Was it discussed? It was discussed there but it was only the superintendent and you know we didn't have any BOE membership or anybody there so >> we discussed it among ourselves. >> What was the feeling of confer with you or >> I think everybody I think you would look at any district every district that's concerned is going to have a major impact. >> Would it would it do some good for our district as your representing our district to have that district submit something to the state? I think if I'm we talked about it and I you know it's doing public comment you can't really tell you know people to do it but I if I'm guessing I would think most everybody's emailed >> okay >> from that office their

099feelings. Um but I think most superintendents recognize that there's a lot of great going on in their division. So I think everybody is saying yeah we want what's best for kids and we want to prepare them for a world that's more complex and challenging. we would like to move up but can we be you know have a part of that discussion and think about how to do it over time. Okay, moving on to um finance committee report. So Mr. Nucci will provide a report from the finance committee meeting held on September 10th, 2025. Okay, good afternoon everyone. If we can start on attachment number one and we'll just kind of run through it from there. >> Yep. Okay. So, um, usually when we give these updates, we follow a similar cadence. What we do is

100we talk at the top and we say, "Hey, the fisc year 25 revised budget amount is 29.2 million. That's where we thought we were going to be at the beginning of the fiscal year." And then we talk about all the changes that happen throughout the fiscal year. We talk about changes to local funding. Then below that we talk we talk about changes to state funding. We talk about changes to federal funding. And then we wrap it up at the end and say the fisc year 25 estimated revenue with all that change throughout the fiscal year is where we project our revenue to be now. Uh four lines up from the bottom where it says general fund transfer for 655,000. We talked about this the last two months. Uh, two months ago that number was 731,000.

101Last month it was 627,000 and now it's settled at 655,000. What that number is is we operated below our budget so we can we're in a position where where we can give back $655,000 to the county. What we're going to propose and we're going to be talking about today is to what are we going to do with that $655,000? Are we going to give it all back to the county? Are we going to give some back to the county? and there's other projects that we want to spend. So, that's what we want to talk about today. It's something that you guys will be voting on in new business. If you guys approve it and vote on new business, it will then go to the board of supervisors next month and they have approve it, then

102that uh proposal can go live. So, if we can open up attachment number five, we can kind of talk about the specifics of what we plan to do with that operating carrier uh operating surplus. So at the top where you see operating, that's where you see the 655,000 and below you see five projects. That's what we'd like to spend the $655,000 on. We would like to spend $240,000 of that on the cooly lower D-wing HVAC unit. To replace that would be $240,000. We'd also like to use $100,000 to u replace the schoolboard office multi-purpose room HVAC unit, which is this room. We'd like to use another 100,000 to replace the chiller at Boyce Elementary. Joey Bradweight, who's our uh outgoing maintenance director, he did a walk through and on on a lot of these buildings

103and these are three things that he identified as um high importance items that if we had the funding to do it to go ahead and replace those things. Uh especially with the Chillet Boyce, that was something that was scheduled to be replaced in fiscal year 29, but it's starting to break down a little earlier than than expected. Also, we'd like to take $27,000 to repave parking lots, more specifically the Boyce Elementary playground and parts of the Johnson Williams uh middle school parking lot. Then also the Johnson Williams Middle School's HVAC unit. There's three units there. They broke down as early as last week that were starting to break down. So, we'd like to allocate about $67,000 for that. So, uh my numbers are a little bit different than what you see up here because we

104had to make a little change from the parking pavement. So, in total, um, we want to spend about $534,000 of the $655,000 that we have remaining in operating, and we like to spend it on those items, which means we would have about $121,000 remaining. That 121,000, which isn't going to be the 160, that 121, we can give it back to the county. So, essentially, we said, "Hey, uh, we can spend 534 on these five projects. We'll have a remaining amount. we can give the remaining amount back and we would spend 81% of our remaining operating uh uh surplus. For reference, last year, last year that 655 was a 515. We requested and were approved to spend 390,000 of that. So that ended up being 76% of our ask. This year we're asking for 5% more

105and 81%. for our capital. Um capital and operating. So operating is more like uh our year-to-year capital is more long-term. We have about $300,000 in capital that we'd like to carry over. And these are the projects that we'd like to spend that money on. We'd like to spend $40,000 to repaint the schoolboard office. We'd like to use $127,000 for a bus. To maintain the most accurate bus fleet, what we have to do is every other year, ideally purchase one bus and Between that the every other year purchase two buses. So one bus, two bus, one bus, two bus. This will be a year that we would purchase one bus ideally. Johnson Williams Middle School basketball hoop. We like to use $20,000 to replace two basketball hoops there. Transportation building cameras. Our transportation building which houses

106our sheriff's office in Palman lot and our buses. We'd like to update the cameras there for security reasons. That would cost $20,000. track repairs to the high schools, long jump runway, and repainting of the track lines. We like to spend $20,000 on that. That 72 is now 60,000. We like to spend $60,000 to upgrade the Johnson Williams Middle School auditorium sound system. This sound system is extremely old from I think 1999 and is outdated and has received quite a few complaints. It also serves the county and the school. So, we feel like that would be a good justified purchase to use there. And then not listed on there would be of the remaining 13,000 would be to replace the Johnson and Williams Middle School HVAC unit that just happened uh last week. So we would

107plan to spend 100% of our capital and 81% of our operating. We can't do this unless again you guys approve it as a school board. The board of supervisors approves it next month. And just to keep in mind in order for us to carry forward this request, you have to itemize what you're going doing down to the dollar. You can't just say, "Hey, we have $655,000 remaining operating. Let's just throw 300,000 into the next year." So, we really have to have a plan for every dollar we plan on carrying forward. Before I toss up for questions, I also have a couple other attachments to just kind of go over a little bit more of our ask. So, if you can pull up number six. So, this is a diagram of the basketball court at Johnson

108Williams Middle School. So, as we just went over, we're requesting $20,000 for this. Everywhere where you see a green circle is where there's an operating basketball hoop. So on either side of the basketball court, on one side of the basketball court, there's two. And then when you have the red circles, there are no basketball hoops. That's where there was the bleachers. Uh the bleachers would pull out, but the basketball hoops aren't retractable. So when the bleachers would come out, the basketball hoops would kind of meet the bleachers and you would have a situation where a kid could actually climb on the basketball hoop from the bleachers and end up hurting himself. So, the only way to solve that problem was to get rid of the basketball hoops because you can't retract the basketball hoops. They

109were mounted into the wall. So, we removed them. So, $20,000 would go to having two new basketball hoops there and have a turnkey style retractable system. So, both those basketball hoops can retract all the way up to the ceiling. Um, little bit of an issue if you're having like a basketball practice for seventh and eighth graders because you can't play basketball on either side of the court, four court, full court because there's no basketball hoops on the other side. Also, we've heard that the high school will sometime practice here if there's uh something going on at the high school gym. If you have a JV and varsity practice here, it's just tough to kind of use the full court to its capability if you don't have basketball uh hoops on one side. So, when you

110see the $20,000 purchase, that's what that's for. Two basketball hoops to be able to be retractable. Um so, when the bleachers are out, they're out of the way and no one can get harmed from them. Uh if we go to attachment number seven next. So this is the Johnson Williams Middle School sound system. Uh this will be $60,000 to replace. This is an actual picture of the sound systems main circuit board. On this orange line that you see up here, you have about 12 buttons going along that orange line. And on the green line, you have about 30 buttons going across. So 30 time 12, you have about 360 buttons in that rectangle. And what's kind of tricky here is that um not all the buttons work and not everyone immediately knows how to use

111the system. There's a lot of buttons there. They don't know what it goes to. If you take the buttons just outside that rectangle too, you probably talking about 500 buttons on this. And um you know, if you're not familiar with it, it's just a tough thing to uh get familiar with. So $60,000 would go to be replacing this, replacing the wiring and some of the speakers. Um we think it's an advantageous purchase just because it's something that the county uses and also the school. So, um it benefits both both groups there. >> Is sorry to interrupt you. Is this the sound system in the auditorium or in the gym? >> Auditorium. >> Okay. >> Yep. >> Thank you. >> And again, that's for $60,000. So, we think that'd be a good uh time to kind

112of upgrade that system. And then if we can go to number eight. So, this is just a diagram in reference to the lower D-wing HVAC unit. So that would cost about $240,000 to do this work and it's the biggest ticket item that we have on this sheet. So essentially what we want to do is add VRFs which are variable refrigerant flows to the wing. So each star that you see can represent a different room in this wing and then you have an outside unit on the outside of that diagram which could be your outdoor HVAC unit. You stress out your out outdoor HVAC unit if you have it going to all the different rooms and you have to kind of run it continuously. Whereas you can put a VRF system in each room. VR RF

113system is pretty much like a window unit that doesn't need a window. And that way you can more advantageously cool each individual room and not stress out your HVAC unit than um just have it run on the outdoor unit. So to do this, we would need about eight VRFs at $30,000 a piece, which would equate to the $240,000 ask. Again, this was something that our old maintenance director did a walkthrough and think would be advantageous. It would address some of the uh humidity issues that were flagged, but um just wanted to kind of give you that visual, bring this to your attention as this is the biggest ticket item um on our carry forward amount request. So then we can jump back to the attachment number five. Um, are there any questions on what's on

114here? Anything that you think needs to be added, changed? Um, again, we're going to spend 81% of the CA of the operating carry forward and all of the capital carry forward. >> Um, Mr. One thing, >> two things I would like to point out relative to it, and it may have changed a little bit now, but when we were looking at it, I believe the HVAC, and we did have a total of what it was, but it's by far the majority of the uh project request. And one of the things that I will note is in that wing of Kulie and in this building here, we've had a lot of humidity issues. And I hope that in doing those projects that could be more proactive and not to bigger concerns with the building. The other

115thing that I would point out is if we're able to do this, this actually does 100% of our capital request for our next budget cycle. So, we did try to be really proactive and say, let's go ahead and get what we know we need to have done. Now, so if the budget got really tough, we wouldn't have to do capital request in the next budget. Now, of course, you know, I work at the will of you all. We work together or something else breaks or there's a new project that certainly could take its place. But when you look at this using what we were able to save last year, this takes care of every bit of our FY27 capital request that we would have. That's why, you know, even the bus is in there, everything.

116So, this would be our total capital request already taken care of for next year, unless there's something else you all want to address. It looks like we have the money for it. The reason we did that is we will be pretty far into our new budget cycle before the new local composite indexes are released. And I just want to be prepared. I mean, it could be favorable, could be negative, could be equal. I just want to remove as much ahead going into that ahead of time is my thought. >> And um like Dr. was saying of this ask, you know, 500,000 of the operating ask is just an Hback. So there's not much, you know, bells and whistles to it. That's kind of why we want to show you like the basketball hoop and the

117sound system. You can kind of say, hey, that's kind of like a bells and whistles request, but when you actually kind of look at it, um, I think it does have a, you know, a purpose and a place on this on this request as well. >> The Hback, did we get competitive quotes? Um we always we just have to have eight quotes to start to do the get approval but you have to have a certain number of pro uh quotes and competitive my colleague does all that. >> Okay. Hearing no questions on that. Again that'll be something that you'll be uh voting on in new business. If it is approved again we send it over to the board of supervisors to vote as well. we can jump back to number one and then we can

118kind of just run through what we usually do with the uh revenue budget. So, um right now we're in fiscal year 26. We're in September. So, July, August, September, we're three months into fiscal year 26. This report is still talking about fiscal year 25. It'll probably be the last report we talk about for fiscal year 25 because by October, fiscal year 25 will be closed out and then we'll start updating you on fiscal year 26. So if we're jumping um to the operating fund we can briefly talk about which is the uh bottom about middle of page three uh just down a little bit. Yep. So our grand total there you can see at the bottom is 97%. Essentially we've uh received 90 97% of our revenue for the operating fund. A question you may

119have is you know if this is the last report I'm going to see in fiscal year 25 why is it not 100%. And the reason why is because that's uh comparing your revised budget to your year-to-ate actual amount. Our revised budget was 29.2. That's what we thought we're going to be in the beginning of the year. And then our year-to- date actual is actually 28.2. It's lower because of the changes to the general fund transfer which you just talked