Clarke County Public Schools School Board Meeting 2/28/2022

001nice we're having some technical difficulties so we're just waiting yeah okay um i will now call to order the clark county school board meeting february 28 2022 please rise for the pledge of allegiance any questions about tonight's agenda i would move that we accept the agenda as presented second uh all in favor aye aye all opposed any um questions about the consent agenda i'll move that we accept that agenda as presented as well second all in favor aye all opposed presentations yes february is recognized annually as school board appreciation month the theme of this year's celebration is building the future of public education it reflects the partnership of the virginia school board's association with local school board members as they serve their divisions and advocate for public education with local state federal leaders locally elected

002and appointed school boards play an important and vital role in a representative democracy decisions made by local boards of education directly influence instruction in virginia's public schools these decisions affect the present and future lives of children job is to establish a vision for the education program design a structure to achieve that vision ensure schools are held are accountable to the community and strongly advocate continuous improvement in student learning the time spent in board meetings represents just a small fraction of the hours school board members spend leading in their division their love for learning and concern and caring for students staff and community drives board members desire to lead so students can achieve so in appreciation of your dedication to the students of clark county we thank you for your service you know we've all been

003faced over the last couple of years with unprecedented change and oftentimes very differing opinions on what we should do and how we should do it and while school staff is in the on the forefront of that every day it goes without saying that you are too and even though we don't get we do get beat up in social media in various places so do you so and for not much pay so your dedication and commitment to clark county to our students to our staff administrators and all those that we serve is much appreciated and we do have a small token of appreciation for you we did a little bit differently this year so you just have a goodie basket you can dig through thank you [Laughter] thank you um i will also go ahead and

004say uh thank you to my fellow school board members we have we have done a lot and i've we've done a lot even pre-cove it so i appreciate you all and i'm really glad to work with each and one each and every one of you um this month is also clerk appreciation month um and so as everyone realizes miss uh weir is our super superhero thank you for everything you do for us you're the glue and i don't know what we do without you and hopefully you can put those little flowers on your desk thank you okay finance committee miss bennett make sure your mic is on yep it is it is left over um good evening the finance committee met on february 16th this was a joint committee meeting the board of supervisors finance

005committee members were invited and attended the meeting the first thing that the committee did was to review the fy 22 year-to-date expenditure report and while that is part of the consent agenda i was just going to hit the highlights of that that review um the committee reviewed the expenditure expenditure categories by function salaries and benefit amounts expended are at about 45 44 which is expected at this time of year we didn't see any any cause for concern in any of those lines the purchase services materials supplies as well as other expenses are at approximately a 50 to 60 percent expenditure rate which reflects the seven months into the fiscal year and that is also on track as we reviewed the accounts it was noted that generally speaking each of them was on track for expenditure

006through january 2022 some of the allocated budget may look a little bit different as we explained in the meeting the budget is set with particular particularly with salaries and personnel this past year budgeted in certain categories to perform certain functions or positions and then as those positions get shifted around it sometimes can take a little bit of time for the finance office to catch up to move the budget with the expenditure so if that looks a little bit different that's why so overall the school operating fund has expended eleven point six million dollars or forty forty six percent of the budget um the school food service uh fund fund 207 is tracking at a normal rate of expenditure at 414 000 for this time of year which is about 52 percent of the budget it

007was noted we did have a small discussion about the fact that some of that budget is now shifting from salaries to contracted services through sodexo fund 302 the school capital projects fund has been spent or encumbered at approximately 84 percent as of january 31st this includes some of the esser funds as well so as we reviewed it the total expenditures through january 31st is 14.687 million or at approximately 49 of the expenditure budget is there any questions about the expense nope okay so the next item that the finance committee reviewed is the fy 22 revenue to date the original budget for fiscal 22 was based on a lower adm at that time of 1713 the current projected fiscal 2020 to estimate is based on a an adm of 1820 so some of the estimated amounts

008are projected to change so that's why we're reforecasting and reviewing this um you have that up there so the first column on the left is the fiscal 2021 actual the next column to the right of that is the fiscal 2022 revised budget column and then the column to the right of that is our fy 2022 estimate so the uh next column is the estimate first versus the revised budget so you can kind of see which which amounts are changing the report is broken into sections the top section is the local revenue i'm just going to hit some of the highlights the like the first line being a negative 8521 based from the revised budget to the estimated and that is rental and facility fees so that's kind of expected we're not renting the schools and

009what not for some of the particularly the churches and some of the entities because of i think covet is still sort of keeping that tamp down one of the other lines that's actually gone down is our expected dual enrollment from 60 to 50 000 this year and then another one gifts and donations that's the um tips the apple federal credit union we're not expected to get that this year so overall as um just as an overall total local revenue is expected to be down about 42 000 from the original budget so we look down into the next section that is the state section so much of this is driven by the adm so a lot of that changes because of that the first item that is increased actually is basic aid and it's increased almost

010160 thousand dollars there's some other items that are increasing the remedial summer school at 25 000 regular foster cares due to increase special education just some of these i'm just highlighting some of these items the early reading intervention about halfway down it's expected to increase up to 54 000. the supplemental lottery per pupil special education regional tuition is actually going down that 69 thousand but i think it's because they shift some of it to some other line so they've reduced some lines the department of education and then they've also increased some others but the biggest change is almost down to the bottom of the page where you'll see the no loss funding there was a budget of 446 000 and so now that is actually not going to happen and occur this year so the

011bottom line on the first page is an expected shortfall of revenue of about 145 000. that is before sales tax so the next line shows the actual sales tax tax is expected to be up about 331 thousand so with that added back in we landed about 186 000 additional revenue expected from the budgeted and the bottom section is the federal federal revenue and much of this it has an expenditure expenditure match so it's kind of a one for one but what i do want to point out is the very bottom where the sr3 funds were budgeted we've actually reduced that because there's much of the sr3 funds that will be used for capital projects so that's been taken out of this report because we wanted this report to reflect operating and not capital so without

012the transfer without any local transfer what we're seeing is 11 million um well i'm sorry let me back up the federal revenue is 1.8 million dollars as a new 22 estimate so the total without the transfer is 11 million 527 dollars and the total with the transfer is 24 735 which falls short of about eight hundred thousand but that's that capital that's been taken out of that line and set aside so it's been about eight i think it was about 892 000 was taken out of that bottom esser line so that's the shortfall so it really isn't it's just not included in this report as operating any questions i do have one but and it probably should should really be asked at a finance committee meeting instead of now but so when the adm increases

013and we see an increase in things like regular foster care and gifted education i think there's an increase remedial summer school just because there's an increase in the number of students doesn't mean that there there's an increase in the number of students who are receiving foster care services right that's correct um because that's a separate report so the foster care number wouldn't necessarily change just because we have an increased adm of 20 students foster care students are reported separately just as special education students are etcetera ell students so that is correct okay thank you okay no questions okay thank you thanks ms bennett thank you dr bishop quite a few things for this evening school division has partnered with the education foundation to host gordon corman on april 4th and 5th alicia dean over at

014the uh middle school was played an important part in getting mr corman here he's written more than 80 children's and young adult fiction books over his career and he'll visit johnson williams middle school on april 4th and meet with students and on april 5th we'll visit each elementary school for a half day career and technical ed opportunities wow was on again it was on and then it was off and now it's on that's held at shenandoah's universe university's basketball complex there right off the interstate and it will be on april 22nd our seventh grade students will attend in the afternoon session and you're welcome to stop by there and walk around and visit with some of our students and see what they have the opportunity to see from the various careers and fields that are

015represented it's quite a day and i think our kids get a lot out of it interested cchs students will have an opportunity to participate in the day in the life of an athletic trainer that event is also scheduled at shenandoah university and it's on march the 9th we have 16 students who plan to attend that session and there is a informational flyer attached for you widget cup you might recall that we've participated this will be our third year the first year we participated we actually won the event but clark county high school will participate in that it is a competition among area high schools they are given a task something to develop they have a period of time to do that and then they have to sell it at the end and that puts it

016in a nutshell at least and then the winner is chosen um there's some kind of project that some non-profit or other organization out there has identified and the folks in charge of the widget cup have selected that particular item that will be held at the on april 7th at the new innovation center in winchester it's just behind hanley high school up on the hill great facility the employer expo hiring fair will be held on may 25th this year at the winchester rec center we've also partnered with the education foundation and we've been awarded a 35 000 grant from the jack kent cook foundation that grant will support bringing world renowned authors to both elementary schools during the next school year and we'll have a minimum of four in-person or zoom visits with culturally culturally diverse

017authors and that funding will also provide the opportunity for our underprivileged students to participate in a book study discussion with the author and students will receive a minimum of four books for their home library as we go through as i've looked through all this cova data just some statistics to share with you and i broke it out by quarter so in quarter one you can see the number of students who were positive we had 39 we had 119 students quarantined eight staff members tested positive two staff members were quarantined so there were 130 students who were quarantined total 119 and column numbers column 3 there in column d and then the 11 that are in column g of those 130 were quarantined and then became positive because of a direct contact that quarantine or that

018positive was not necessarily associated with school they could have had a contact at home at grandma's house at some kind of community event and i looked at it from a period of 14 days so if on the 1st of october i was exposed i looked down our spreadsheet to the 15th for that incubation period so with 243 total entries into our tracking spreadsheets during first quarter 168 of those were covered related so 69 of them the other entries were could have been strep throat could have been flu could have been a variety of things the primary variant at that time was delta and i've already mentioned that eight percent of our students 11 of 130 ended up going from quarantine to positive during that first quarter second quarter with the onset of omicron it looks

019a lot different 670 entries into our tracking spreadsheet 553 of those were covet related so 82 and a half percent i mentioned the primary variant during quarter two was omicron 323 students were required to quarantine so the 313 in column d plus the 10 in column g and again tracking over a 14 day period only 10 of the 323 ended up positive at some point over the in that 14 day window so about three percent um you know this is just looking at the data a little differently all that data is as good as uh we can only process it and disaggregate it uh as it's reported to us so are there other cases that existed at that time in one of those quarters that we don't know about it's perfectly possible so that's just

020another way to take a look at some of the data that we've been tracking all year i can tell you now we have had very few identified cases we're following the new guidelines the new vdh guidelines for quarantine and you know making sure that it's that day one to five six to ten the contact tracing now is only done if there are more than three cases in a particular group a classroom a team etc or if it affects ten percent of the population so those are the new guidelines but this is the information from quarters 1 and 2. so we heard a lot uh throughout the process that we were quarantining a lot of students we were supposed to be that's we were following the guidelines but at the end of the day very few

021of them ended up being coveted positive again as we know what was reported to us so just another way to look at it um can i just interrupt you i know you have more to say but um so we've had um we don't have masks as a requirement anymore so it's been about five weeks right is that right well that's what you have about four about a month and so cases have been relatively stable and the cdc on friday changed guidelines so now your community statistic your community grade is based on hospitalizations and a number of available beds in hospitals so clark county right now is in moderate when some of our neighbors are still high but we're in a moderate phase according to those new cdc guidelines they also removed a mask from school

022transportation on friday that was set to expire on march 18th anyway it is still required in airports airplanes etc but it's been removed from student transportation so we're continuing to follow the guidelines as they've been updated and we seem to be going along fairly well i asked principals during our meeting last thursday just anecdotally about how many staff members were no longer masking boys seem to be a little bit higher than some or not than the others a little over 50 percent maybe it seems like every day a few more people take their mask off the others were less than half maybe 30 percent or so we still have a lot of students who are wearing masks but again it's the choice so it seems to be going well this is just an fyi because

023last year when we did this we had some reports that there was something weird going on at cooley upper campus we partnered with the sheriff's department on a lot of things but they also use the upper campus on occasion for some training and they will be doing that training again on april 1st and 5th from 6 p.m to 2 a.m so in case somebody asked you what in the world was going on at cooley upper campus last night i saw all these police cars there it's a training exercise pre-k registration for next year has been extended till march 15th children should be four years of age by september 30th and applications are submitted to boyce elementary and are on our website that was also posted on our twitter and facebook pages today kindergarten registration for

024next year will kick off on march 14th we will have a link available on our division website on that day and parents must register their child in the attendance area in which they reside and then the budget presentation just a reminder for the school board is set for next monday march 7th at 6 30 down at the government center that's when we have an opportunity to present the budget to the board of supervisors that's all i have um just before i forget i um miss brewer emailed me and wanted me to mention that the spring musical is happening this year and so it is march 25th i guess that weekend and they are doing your good man charlie brown um so it's the first musical we've had since 2019 looks like there might be 22

025high school middle schoolers in the cast and then the pitt and crew so we're very excited about that and then she also wanted me to mention that two students advanced to state championships for uh forensics which would be public speaking in the category of humorous duo so that was caroline brewer and maggie lair so congratulations to them claire lear i'm sorry if i'm mispronounced um so anyway you're a good man charlie brown that'll be exciting okay um any questions for dr bishop just a couple um so i think early january we had a parent come and um offer comments regarding boyce and the crossing of um the road from i guess the elementary school to the neighborhood um just across the street from boyce so has there been any progress on that yes mr chanery

026took the lead on that he took that off my plate and we are we have already issued the po to purchase the two flashing road lights uh those uh lights will actually be much like the one right up here by rosemont so it has the flashing lights plus the the speed check on it the radar that tells you how fast you're going and those will be installed right now by our maintenance guys uh over spring break so in about a month uh so that's that will be done within the next five weeks and then the other question i had for you is regarding the hvac system at johnson williams and the concern that we've had from yes last week sure or last month two weeks ago um i met with the two neighbors uh over

027there last summer we did have our hvac [Music] contracted services vendor go out and take a look about what could be done we have already made one repair some of the software did not shut the equipment off at the appropriate time at night generally our buildings go into an unoccupied mode so it was not being it was not shutting off that was fixed the noise screens are a totally different beast those would have to actually be attached to the structural steel on the roof so it's not as easy as just putting up a screen to block noise you have to take a portion of the roof off you'd have to attach it to us to the structural steel and then you would have to re-roof that particular portion of the building or patch that particular

028portion of the building joey brathwaite has been working through that process he's been the primary point of contact for our hvac contracted service service provider which is riddle burger brothers so we're aware that there's an issue we're aware that there's a concern and we're working to address that but it's not as easy as just snapping your fingers and magically shields appearing that would deflect noise okay thank you okay audience comments audience comments are limited to three minutes per person those wishing to speak should fill out a speaker's card uh miss clerk oh miss clark miss clark miss weir do we have anybody yes ma'am joanne spano hello my name is joanne spano i live in clark county my husband i raised our daughters here and they graduated in 2000 and 2002 so i haven't been

029to a school board meeting for a while although when they were here i was quite involved and uh i i would like to say i really appreciate the school system we've had and they had great teachers and great experiences but that's not why i'm here my friend michelle worthing asked me to come in her place and ask a question okay and people are concerned about what's been happening to the east of us and what's happening in virginia about things like book banning and she said i want you to ask them if they're banning books in clark county and if so who's asking them to do it and i i realized that um when i used to go a long time ago you didn't answer questions at the time anyway so um i just wanted to

030know that's a concern and we're concerned more from the angle of not being for it okay um not that we're trying to get books banned but um uh she just asked me to ask you that and um see if it's an issue here if you'd like me to answer i can yeah is there anybody else okay is your comment done yeah i'm done so i'm i'm done okay okay thank you the school board has a process identified in policy for anyone who has a concern about literature it could be a textbook or other resource that's used in a classroom it could be a library book in the eight years that i've been here we've not had anybody challenge any of our materials either instructional materials or those supplemental materials that we find in our libraries

031i think our textbook committees and our librarians do a really good job of selecting resources that are appropriate age appropriate but we have not in the eight years i've been here had any request or any concern about a specific material okay thank you very much you're welcome so um after a lot of back and forth and digging into the numbers and so forth tonight you will have the opportunity to consider and discuss and hopefully vote to approve a proposed budget that will then be forwarded to the board of supervisors i won't spend a lot of time over over the initial part of the presentation because we went over this a few weeks ago a month ago the first part of the presentation is full of a lot of data that we look at and track

032every year in the board packet that you have before you wherever there's a link you actually have a hard copy of the page as well of that link so you have membership trends i think we do a really good job of tracking our enrollment and our projected adm our membership um we have historical data we could go back further but our tracking spreadsheet goes back to 2003 2004 you know we've had a couple of interesting things over the last year basically year and a half last year we ended up with less students than we anticipated brenda mentioned earlier know our budget last year was based on 1713 students right now our budget has based on a revised adm number of 1820 and i'm not so sure we shouldn't revise that again because it seems like

033we weekly we are getting new students into our school division uh from december 7th to february 2nd we had 13 new students you know although that seems like two months worth of time and it is three weeks of that was holiday so really in a five-week period when people aren't worried about school during those three holiday weeks we've got 13 new students that's a lot for us we see the build out of shenandoah crossing many empty houses still over there i drove through the new portion of the hermitage yesterday there is a spec house in there or the model home is in there there are currently four houses under roof and a fifth one that i would guess in the next 10 days will be under roof the first floor is framed out and it

034looks like they're ready to start framing on the second floor and soon thereafter it will be under roof as well according to my conversation with mr boyce and he mentioned it at the finance committee meeting the plan is that that will be built out by by september so we're taking a look at tracking adm and we've made another adjustment today based on what we're seeing the average daily membership just in a graphic representation sometimes people just look and look at graphs and it tells a bigger story than a lot of words so just trying to to provide different visuals for people to be able to look at school enrollment you can see by school how enrollment has gone up and down over the last 12 years basically since the 9 10 school year the high

035school back 12 years ago was nearly 800 students and now we're right at 700 students cooley you can see has fallen off some boyce as well and johnson williams has remained fairly stable over the last 12 years they did have a couple of spikes with this current ninth grade class and 10th grade class at the high school that just went through johnson williams a year or two ago current freshman class is about 185 students current sophomore class is about 190 compared to our senior class it's like 160 165 and a junior class that's in the 140s so those two night those two classes that ninth and tenth grade class right now are really large and i know the staff at the high school feels that every day in those those courses that are taught specific

036to uh freshmen and sophomores our religious exemption and homeschool students you can see that spike during the 2021 school year where we had 104 105 students choose or families chose to homeschool instead of having their children two days a week in school or you know later it was four but initially it was two days or in a fully virtual program at the middle in high school so we did see a spike then but that's a spike nationwide it's not specific to clark county our religious exemptions have remained fairly stable since the 14-15 school year our sped in 504 numbers i'll just remind you that the state started splitting those two out back in the 15-16 school year that's why you see an orange bar just from 1516 until now but we have seen a slight

037increase in our sped population but i can attribute that to some of our home school students returning this year and some newly identified students as well but when we lost those 100 and 405 kids last year some of those students were special education students and were not enrolled in our school division at the time disadvantaged enrollment uh you can see that that has kind of grown slightly over the last few years with a more of a spike this year in 2122 although the percentage has remained fairly constant the the orange bar represents the percent of clark county runs 22-23 percent free or reduced meals and then our homeless population has remained fairly steady as well generally in most years we have four or five students that we're working with that are classified under mckinney-vento as

038homeless our english language learners uh we have a hundred students who are identified about 75 of those are actually receiving services the other 25 you might ask why aren't they receiving services they've i'll use the term achieved out of the program so they're not actually in need of services at this time our pupil teacher ratios can be a bit misleading based on the state calculations but this is an apples-to-apples comparison across all school divisions it's all calculated the same way you can see in the orange and blue bars or our case seven when you talk from the state level they recognize elementary is k-7 secondary is 8-12 so that's why this is split out that way our classroom ratios are slightly below the state average in both k-7 and e-12 when i say slightly below

039it's seriously like a half a percent to a percent or i'm sorry half a student to a student it might be 12.5 to 13.1 at the state level but it's very very close on-time graduation rate in spite of the many many challenges that we have every year our on-time graduation rate remains one of the highest in the commonwealth i think this past year we were a little less than 99 and we know that that was one student the good part about what we do is we find you and we push you pull you across the finish line whatever it takes so when we start talking about budget this is the first year of the biennium so we have a new composite index hours went down slightly and don't count your pennies because that's about what

040it equates to uh we went from .5729 to 5728 but you can see our comparison to our neighbors in frederick loudoun and winchester so for the i guess third consecutive biennium according to this to the composite index formula clark county is a wealthier community than loudoun therefore we're responsible for about 57 cents on the dollar spent in educa on education our role your role in terms of the code of virginia is to estimate the amount of money needed to have our program operate next year budget development so i mentioned this earlier i did adjust the adm again today when you saw this back on january 24th that adm number was 1802 and we went to 1815 and then today i adjusted it to 1825 plus our 30 pre-k students pre-k students are not counted in

041average daily membership just k to 12. you can see our estimated enrollment in each building next year and the black number beside each school and the current enrollment as of the 22nd of february is in red and you can see that most of our schools are going to be as full as they are this year we have 165-ish students graduating from high school this year we'll have about 120 come into kindergarten so over the last well again since i've been here eight years we see a reduction in enrollment just in the difference between the graduating senior class and the incoming kindergarten class that's where we generally see it but then we get a trickle especially at the high school as students leave private school and come to clark county high school we have students this

042year i think miss waring has seen 76 new students enroll at clark uh county high school and we've lost 45-ish so we have a net gain of about 21 22 23 students somewhere in there i think i got that right right miss waring so we have seen a net increase of about 23 students at the high school this year but 76 new students have come in can i mention the composite index every line item in the budget has been vetted and reviewed individually as we go through this and our personnel is expected to be flat for fy23 even though we very well might repurpose some positions like we've done in the past initiatives this year our instructional programming for our students not only our daily programming but also continuing our intervention and remediation services that

043we've started we do have those grant dollars that will continue to support our remediation intervention services for students who have fallen behind due to the abnormality of the last two years no new personnel i've mentioned in improving salaries and benefits for our employees those budget development factors salary comparisons between winchester frederick clark warren and loudon we did add loudon this year at the request of the board just as a point of comparison these budget recommendations are in alignment with our current strategic plan and we did keep school-based funding flat for fy23 and it was not adjusted based on anticipated adm generally i use a series of formulas to provide school-based funding for different expenditures technology instructional materials and supplies etc but since we didn't have huge differences between this year and next in enrollment i

044just left those flat there's a reminder of our strategic plan in your document with those five primary goals our instructional goal our safe and nurturing climate goal our personnel goal integration of technology and then continuing to try to implement effective and efficient operational practices throughout the division the operating budget factors since i've been here i've just been tracking this and the amount of additional county funds every year what kind of raise we gave or the board approved was subsequently approved by the board of supervisors and you can see in the right-hand column that that incur that local transfer has decreased once over the last eight years uh went down by 203 and we did have a high water mark back in fy15 of 811 681 of additional local transfer i would point out though as

045an example in fy22 that the big item there was the step increase plus five percent and the five percent increase for all others uh was a cost of eight hundred and nine thousand dollars the additional transfer was 471. so that's why we go through this thing every year and make sure that we're that we're reducing expenditures down to where they need to be if something was spent this year as an example we've replaced the sound system in the boyce gymnasium this year the old one was shot it was about 6 as i was going through the budget this year i removed that line item because we won't need it again next year so that's the kind of detail that goes into this teacher salary notes virginia ranked 17th in starting pay 26th an average teacher

046salary that is an improvement from 33 over the last year but yet virginia ranks ninth in terms of median household income so one of the wealthiest top 10 wealthiest states in the country but pays our teachers an average of 26th which is of course right in the middle i shared with you at the last meeting a slide on inflation since january of 2020 we've seen seven percent inflation in the united states i don't have to preach that to you because you go to the grocery store you buy gas you buy goods and services in our community and you know that everything has increased our proposed bachelor scale for fy 23 there was a five percent increase included in the governor's budget released in december 2021 now this is where we are in this budget process

047right now the house and the senate have also approved a budget uh for their respective chamber of in the general assembly of course they're not in concert so now it goes to a group of conferees and they will hash out and negotiate the final terms of the budget one of the differences in the budget is the house proposed four percent increase this year four percent next year with a one percent bonus each year so it's still five percent money each of the two years of the biennium but only eight percent of that 10 would be a continuing budget item those bonuses are not you know they don't continue once they're paid out they're done the senate on the other hand proposed five percent each year the biennium and a one thousand dollar bonus at the

048end of this year for staff now that one thousand dollar bonus will be based on soq funded positions and every school division that i know of staffs their schools above what the soq calls for so there is a increased cost to the locality the proposed scale that follows this particular slide represents our cost to compete it is the um it's actually follows the next slide and you have a hard copy of it it is i'm sorry renee it's it's the next slide that one but they have a hard copy of the salary comparison in their packet it is our cost to compete scale what i see across our locality is across the area is school divisions are proposing a five percent pay raise next year this exceeds that at every step of the scale if

049you multiply the current salary in frederick county let's say by five percent you will see that clark's answer to that is a higher dollar amount it is the scale that needs to be funded this year to compete to hire and retain staff i don't want to get stuck on a percentage it's the scale we need to compete just a couple of other notes a master's degree stipends we are slightly higher than our part our neighbors in winchester and frederick unless they've adjusted theirs or plan to adjust theirs we do have 64 and a half percent of our teachers in clark county who have earned a master's degree each one percent is a hundred and sixty nine thousand seventy dollars and that includes all of the salary related fringe benefits and those salary scales are not

050adjusted for our neighbors because we haven't seen their adopted budgets yet but i just know what i read in the paper and what's been proposed in the other localities so the scale that's before you for this evening would have a starting salary of 47 300 compared to this year's starting salary of 44 000. again at each level of the scale if you multiply our neighbors by five percent other than loudoun but if you multiply our neighbors salary by five percent which is what i've seen proposed you will see that our salary proposal for next year actually exceeds that so these major operating budget changes they remain the same from where they were on january 24th and where they were on february 14th salaries and wages increases 1.69 million health insurance increase of 10 percent 521.

051we did have a joint administrative services meeting today the group is going back to a particular vendor and trying to negotiate the price down and that information will be forthcoming but the 10 percent is within the range of where we expect the increase to be although we are trying to negotiate that down at this point i can't release a lot of detail because we don't want to hinder any negotiation with that particular provider so we feel like that the 10 increase will be on target so a total of 1.9 million dollars basically our food service fund is that standalone account remember that the food services is by itself it's not part of our operating budget that program is managed by sodexo we do have four employees that are currently with clark county public schools the

052rest remain are now on the sodexo side of the ledger we have adjusted all of our expenditures in revenue uh budget based on 800 996 so revenues and expenditures match that is a decrease of almost 57 000 from fy 22 56 698 our capital projects fund we we like to address both planned and unplanned capital expenses generally those year-end fund balances are requested for capital the operating fund balance from fy21 as you'll recall was returned to the county for work toward the broadband initiative that was about 1.4 million dollars so coupled with the county's grant we'll fund the broadband initiative in the county for the first time in a long time maybe forever we do have a proposed state budget which includes school construction money differences there between the house and senate budget the house

053has proposed that that be done as a grant program the senate has proposed that we go along with or that the budget that's adopted follow the governor's guidelines which means everybody gets a share based on adm and a million dollars and then your adm adjustment would put us at 1.416 million so our capital projects fund furniture athletics buses asphalt sidewalks hvac painting security flooring technology and fencing those are how we would divvy the money up for next year we do have the ability to move funds within those different categories so if we needed a million dollars in hvac work we could take money from other places to be able to get our million dollars worth of hvac work so our capital request is for a total of 1.57 million that's 1.416 in the school construction

054money from the state and 154 000 from the virginia public school authority technology bond those funds are distributed 50 000 for each school division 26 000 per school and that's uniform throughout the state you get those funds on a reimbursement basis those have to be spent on infrastructure or on testing devices we can't go buy a kindergarten a classroom a set of chromebooks and you use vpsa tech money because kindergarten is not a testing grade so infrastructure or to support the school the testing program because of the revenue coming from the state this year there is no specific request for capital funds from the county so for the first time in eight years that i've been here we've had we have no request the state funds can be carried over three budget cycles so whatever's

055not spent this year can be carried over until next year and the year after according to the way it was proposed since we don't have better just put a disclaimer on that until it's the inks dry on the final budget so there would be no no request for capital funds from the board of supervisors you can see graphically our county capital transfer requests over the last few years the one spike in fy 17 was the renovation of this building the school board had set aside about a half million dollars and then the board of supervisors supported that and paid cash for the renovation on this facility so our updated executive summary and i'll walk through this by thirds like i did previously on the expense side you can see fy22 adopted in the left column

056the variance and then the fy23 proposed so we have 1.9 million dollars of anticipated expense 1.69 for the salary improvement 217 000 for the health insurance increase the variance is 1.394 million so there's been a little over 500 000 tightened up for lack of a better way to put it in the budget expenses that were incurred this year that won't be incurred next year the boy's pa system in the gym as an example you can see the food service fund on the expense side would be reduced by 56 698 the debt service fund by thirty six thousand and four dollars and the school capital fund would actually go up nine hundred and fifty four thousand but that's without any county contribution those are solely the state funds construction funds and the vpsa tech bond on

057the revenue side based on an adm of 1825 the revenue from on the school operating side would increase by 728 0487 the food service fund revenue there would also be reduced by fifty six six ninety eight to make that uh to balance on the uh with the expense side debt service fund a reduction of 18.98 and then you can see the school capital monies there the 1.416 increase because the 154 has been there forever it's something we get every year whether we want it or not we don't spend any money because we don't need to buy computers or we don't have any infrastructure needs then we don't get the money because it's done on a reimbursement basis the revenue side current school operating fund revenue is 13 million three forty seven the proposed is fourteen

058million thirteen thousand nine eighteen food service nothing from local tax funding debt service you can see a slight reduction there on the debt service side based on our mortgage payment is ultimately what that references then on the school capital side you can see a reduction of 462 because that's what we received this year based on the request from the school board so i said to you last month that if we get what we got this year including the operating fund the debt service fund and the school capital that we would be i think at the time it was like 102 000 short as we've continued to massage this thing it's a hundred and seventy thousand two hundred and forty dollars to fund that large salary initiative that we've spent two meetings talking about but you

059see the revenue increase just on the operating fund side is 666 346. but again when you add the debt service and the school capital amounts the total true cost if we just get what we got this year would be a hundred and seventy thousand two forty so that's actually the request fund us the way you did this year plus 170 thousand 240. i'm happy to answer any questions you might have and you factored in the increase in the adm yes 170 yes okay questions comments i can tell everybody's digesting this for a second but so um i know you said that we're not talking about percentages but the executive summary speaks to a ten percent uh what's that what's the vision for for what's being what's being anticipated if we receive the 170 uh right

060now it would be until we received further direction it would be 10 across the board for every employee we did look at the um requests from the last meeting from two weeks ago uh about the funding the first one 69 eight dollars at ten percent and then anything over that would be five ultimately what that does is it's the the administrative group uh that would be over sixty nine thousand the average increase as we started to look at it would be around seven and a half percent the savings there that could be applied back to other local other areas in the salary scale was about fifty seven thousand dollars one percent for the teachers only is a little over 100 is slightly more than 111 000. so it doesn't even fund a half percent additional

061for teachers and that just shows we don't have many administrators we're lean mr shooty any comments well i thought it was a very good presentation obviously we've been doing this for a couple of months now and dr bishop is the numbers master um i just think back really first i i have to say uh over the last particularly eight years since dr bishop has been here the county has given us uh something even in tough years that we've asked uh and i think the the board of supervisors has been just great to work with i think and there there have been some tough years mixed in there um when we did our initial salary comparisons um with our surrounding counties uh we took loud now at the request of the board of supervisors because they're

062they're allowed this year we've added it back in because that is where the teachers that we lose that is where the majority of them go i believe i'm correct and still in saying that um but we were told to concentrate on our immediate neighbors and to stay competitive with them and to do and um then the last three that has gone on frederick county is now one of the fastest growing counties in the state um they are you know they have moved ahead and we even though we have gotten an increase every year as was pointed out we still are find ourselves falling behind and so i think everybody on this board [Music] one of if not the top priority is teacher retention and and salaries and so at some point we've got to catch

063up because they're pulling away and we don't know yet what the numbers from the other counties are going to be um but at five percent if they come in at five percent this would make us competitive that's um and uh and for me i really feel that where we have to be super competitive is at the lower levels of experience because my experience has been that mr catlett has gone out and i've said this before uh sometimes it feels like we're the minnesota twins and loudoun county is the new york yankees and we are our farm team for them we we have to go out and find younger teachers and we know that because of the way the retirement game is set up it benefits teachers for the last few years to to go to

064a school that they can get a a salary increase that shows up on their retirement um it's just the way the system is set up so i am a 100 supporter of trying to take this year and to catch up particularly because of the circumstances that go along with it the increase coming from the state uh the fact that we have no capital uh requirements this year i just think it's as good a year as we're going to find and um and i am not in support of uh of trying to ferret it out between different levels i i think after the last two years uh i think everybody sort of deserves a combat pay um premium you know if nothing else and administrators and teachers alike so um so i'm i support we've been

065reading these numbers for three months now i'm in support with the way they ended up i hope that we can negotiate down the uh health uh insurance costs a little bit but we'll see about that so that's my comments thank you mr mcdonald i'm i'm not sure i can really digest these just sitting there i'd have to really dig into some of them but i mean it's a great presentation i do have a couple of questions though and and this was just numbers that sort of struck me what was the population of the 10th grade class one about 190 and the ninth uh about 185 and then the eighth one 45-ish and the seventh do you know it's a little smaller it's it's 130s i i'm just wondering why the spike in ten and nine

066and and based on again i i think we're going to have to live with this the way it is and and i got it i understand it i'm the new guy so i'm not too bright on this stuff yet and there's a lot involved here but in order to get smart on this i think we what we really need to do is we need to understand where we risk to lose teachers at what point in the scale do we truly lose our teachers and we need to focus on that in the future and say okay if we lose them between the 7 and 11 year mark that's where we need to start focusing changing the incentive plan um to to try to maintain some level of of just standardization across the board when you're right

067we're not going to catch up we're still not going to catch up i mean the math says we're not going to catch up unless we really do something uh we really have to find a way to try to make this equitable across that board in terms of of the surrounding counties if we want to be able to educate our students and and the reason i ask about those numbers is we're we're seeing an influx of new housing being built and all these new houses aren't farms they're going to have kids and they're going to be and the ones i've seen built are are pretty pretty substantial houses and for the value that you're going to pay for a house if it's going to be seven eight nine hundred thousand dollars the education they're going to

068expect especially if they're coming from the east is that's what they're gonna be looking for and and we have to be able to respond to that we have to be able to find ways innovative ways to attract good teachers and keep them here particularly the keeping them the retention of teachers is so important to me it's just i've had teachers that changed my lives my life and and it's just they're they're just so important and i don't know how to stress that enough um i i don't get soapbox so i got it i understand i'm i don't think i have a lot of questions without digging down into real real deep numbers but i think the data in terms of teacher retention i'd love to see some raw data who who who leaves why we

069leave do we do an exit um what is it what is it general reason most teachers leave it's usually a spread on a variety of reasons but salary is often the top reason you can't eat benefit you can't eat you can't eat environment you can't eat you can't put environment in your gas tank i mean it can be a wonderful place to work but it doesn't doesn't feed your kids it doesn't feed yourself so um and and again i i look at these numbers and i'm a former army guy and this is less than you pay a incoming second lieutenant and second lieutenants don't have much to live on it's hard and they get a 1500 housing statement on top of what they get paid so this is this is this is something we just

070really need to look at and and for you you know quality of life for the people we're hiring is something we just need to consider and again this being my first year i really can't say much else about it so um but we need to think outside the box and figure out a way to attract good people and keep good people and that's that's that's pretty much what i got to say so i'm dumb done i don't sorry mr truckel i don't mean to take your turn here but it's a national conversation right now right this isn't just uh specific to clark as far as keeping people and retaining our teachers and and paying them what they sort of deserve and what value they bring to the education system right so um it would be

071nice to see if we could get an idea of who leaves maybe abroad reason right of why people are leaving maybe some categories i i think the the board of supervisors would be very interested in some hard numbers in terms of where we lose teachers why we lose teachers and then we can go to them with a solid plan of saying look we need we need this to fit in here yeah do a do the cost-benefit analysis for them and just yeah that's what that's sort of my what i'm hearing from the cheap seats they're good points okay mr turkell um i had a question on the um the the sense of what the neighboring communities are are proposing for an increase for staff um five percent is what you said is allowed included in

072that uh i have not seen what they've done or what they're proposing right okay um so uh uh you know this year this year we have a unique opportunity this is our year to make a difference it's not next year it certainly wasn't last year um you know the way that the the funding from the state the has worked out uh you know we have the opportunity to address our salary scale this year uniquely and so i i think um that that this is the year to to hit the salary scale and and so for me it's differentiating particularly we talk a lot about the the teacher's salary teacher salaries and then um i think we need to be careful in uh in understanding that that you know certainly there's what's deserved by folks and

073then there's what is needed to be competitive and to achieve two of our strategic plan goals in being efficient and attracting and retaining staff for our students just today was circulated a comparison between some other counties for their salary scales so there's a different discussion about the salary scale than about the percent increase i think we need to focus on improving the salary scale changing the salary scales percent to the maximum extent possible and not confusing that with um saying a teacher that's here is going to get a 10 raise but we didn't adjust the salary scale 10 percent that teacher is gonna if if if the county and everybody if we were in dire straits and everybody said that the board supervisor said everyone's getting a zero percent raise my assumption is the teacher

074coming back the next year would get a raise am i incorrect would depend on the funding that was available i mean if they might even get a step increase that's happened in the past okay all right would you say that again sorry i missed that if the funding is not there to fund the step increase then they don't get a step increase what happens is you generally slide the scale so step 14 becomes step 15. 15 becomes 16 so it's the same money okay but the expectation is is that when we present the salary scale that that's going to be the future and and that's what you're looking at as a new teacher that you're going to have 30 years of this if there's zero funding then of course it can't be done that's interesting

075there's some misconceptions out there folks i'm just there are some misconceptions that the scale's automatic and the scales written in stone and the scale occurs regardless of the scale the the the step increases occur only post budget uh acceptance i want to make sure that that's right i mean that's why our salary scale says 2223 or fy23 scale it's it's not a promise for future years because what if the board of supervisors or the governing body if you're in a city the city council reduces your budget for some reason terrible year economic downturn whatever that scale is only good for that year there are some misconceptions out there and i think we need to clear that up i think we need to to drive that home to folks because i was speaking to some folks

076today who are under the impression that there's a step increase automatic and then a five percent on top of that and so i think that there may be some misper misconceptions among some of the other some of the leadership about exactly the way those scales work but i would say there's a difference between you know the idea of what is uh deserved versus what is needed to be competitive right i mean so you know regardless of what someone's opinion about you know what's deserved the fact of the matter is if everyone's leaving to go somewhere else um you know you've got to do something and that's kind of my point is we've got to do something i i completely agree i just want to i understand though that if there's a consent if there's a

077conception among the leadership in the county that the step increases are automatic and anything that we request is above and beyond the step increase we need to go back and say stop wait a minute those step increases are based on the fact that you are going to accept our budget as submitted and i think that and and i know there is a misconception among some people because i talked to them today about it that was they were like how are you gonna you know you every every teacher gets an automatic step increase and then you want a 10 on increase on top of that there's definitely a there's definitely some misconceptions i think we need to just make sure everyone understands how this is working yeah and i think it also goes to that if

078the teachers come in the next year then including their step plus the raise they're going to be 10 better off i mean that's what i'm seeing here and so really you know if it's not the other way around right they're they're they're actually the scale didn't move ten percent they moved ten percent our new our new teachers aren't looking at the zero is the one that's consistent and a first year teacher wouldn't be ten percent above um you know this year that's correct when you come into the system you wouldn't you wouldn't be ten percent better off you'd be eight something or you know whatever the math is yeah but the point is is that you know from a retention standpoint and from a a attracting new teacher standpoint the tool that's used the turtle

079that's circulated among us all is the salary scale and so you know that's what everybody looks to for comparisons and and that's that's the thing that i think that we have to to focus on um i think we need to also be uh clear about differentiating between critical staffing needs and critical need positions every position that we have is critical otherwise we wouldn't have it i mean that's just that's just what it is we would remove it chuck would say you know that we vetted out of the budget so every position we have is critical to the function of the school system but we have a difference between some positions that are critical all positions are critical so we have a difference between some of the positions that um that we're having a hard time

080staffing and that we're seeing attrition and turnover and people leaving and then and then and then you know the other folks that if they weren't there something wouldn't get done that needed to get done and so there's a different differentiation that i think we should be focusing on this year to say that this is the year that we keep talking about this national conversation local conversation about teacher shortages this is the year that we talk about you know as i read that there's school systems in the state that have to cancel because the bus drivers can't get the kids to school or that parents are getting called to pick up their kids to take them home so we have a bus driver problem this is a year we say that our special ed population is

081being served less than what i would hope because of the fact that we have such a high turnover of those positions that we need to have an emphasis on the critical need positions and and i think this is the year to do it so i had proposed something that turned out to be pretty um inadequate the last time as uh chuck did the math and i appreciate you doing that um i think that that that what we what we've done in the past when we've said like last year for example when we asked the board of supervisors that you know we thought we needed seven percent increase across the board to help our competitive position and the board said we don't we're not going to fund that and that and that we want you to

082to match the best will do for you is to match the county positions so there's always this this um difficulty from the board's supervisors to [Music] say that the school system across the board should be treated differently than the county employees and so that a similar position here an administrator a clerical staff janitorial staff uh that that has a comparable position in the county they they it's not well received for us to propose a higher rate and so we've been declined based on that discomfort regardless of what we feel about deserves or not deserves when i was a new school board member i went and i asked some principals what is it that i can do to help you succeed in your job and one of the principals talked to me about the biggest thing

083that they thought i could do was to help them retain staff and so that stuck with me and that's been a big push on um on on what i'm been focused on so i i would like to see the salary scale increase a minimum of 10 percent i would like to see i i would i would like to propose that that what we do is we we have a good budget number that we request that budget amount from the board of supervisors we have to do that next week that we say to them we will match your pay increase for for our non-critical need positions and by critical need positions i'm definitely talking about this the salary scale i'm talking about bus drivers and then there's the opportunity that it with even within the salary

084scale if we have sped or that's something that we can work on but that we would just say that if there's a comparable position you know with the county that that person is not going to see a greater pay raise than the county employee and that would that would be the way to look at and then what would that mean for our salary scale that would mean that our salary scale could potentially the scale could potentially increase more than 10 percent and we would start to be in a more competitive position i took a look at what does it take for a first the difference between a first year teacher in clark versus a first year teacher in loudoun it would be a 20 26 percent jump for for that to happen this year if

085loudoun does a five percent we don't know if they're doing more than five or what they're doing but if they did five percent next year it would be 23. we're not really making it that much less attractive to our largest competitor and so that's why i think this is the year that we have the unique opportunity to really put our resources towards a salary scale and and and make make a difference so that's what i would like to uh that's what i would like us to ask the board of supervisors is to say we'll we'll match you for our our our non-instructional staff and and then we'll put the um the school bus drivers in there as well so i've heard that and then and then for everybody else it's oh no sorry we'll match

086you for for all the positions but then the salary scale on the school bus drivers we're gonna we're gonna put all the rest of the resources towards that not talking percentages at this point so that's what i'm proposing um ms kerhobert i'm doing the math are you doing the math [Laughter] um so i'm in favor of of the budget that dr bishop has proposed um and just i guess in light of being on the board for the past few years and also being a former teacher myself um you know having a a substantial pay increase um was really not ever heard of you know when in the last few years that um i taught in frederick county and i'm pretty sure that my salary either stayed flat or actually went down those few years that

087my last few years teaching in frederick county so i recognize that this is a huge ask of our of the board of supervisors but i also think it's important to commend dr bishop and mr catlett and and the other administrators with the way that you all have collaborated and gone line by line and you know vetted um programs and and money that's being spent and cutting whatever can possibly be cut to make this happen for our teachers but also you know our bus drivers and other essential personnel i think bottom line what's most important is making sure that to what you were saying mr mcdonald that you know you can't eat a good working environment you know that doesn't put food on your table it doesn't help pay for day care it doesn't help you

088know with the needs that families have financially and so i think hopefully between this proposal and then also potential changes in health care that that could mean that that we are a more competitive county um in regards to to the to our employees salaries so um and you know i just looking at what has been going on locally and then also nationally i'm also just tremendously grateful for the fact that we have a positive working relationship with our board of supervisors right now that because if we don't have that the people who suffer the most are going to be our kids and so thankfully you know despite this turmoil that we've been living in for the past two years we have somehow been able to keep our eye on that ball and so you know

089i again recognize that this is a huge ask and um i'm thankful to work on a board with other with other people who share the same mindset that you know we have to do better for our teachers and our bus drivers and our custodia well i know custodial staff separate but in our administrators so i'm in favor of of this budget i agree with everything that's been said tonight so i won't necessarily repeat it but i know that that mr charcoal that um you know you're bringing up these this really um sort of important point which is we need to take care of our critical positions and i appreciate you wanting to highlight that um so i'll just say something a little differently here um you know when we get increases when i get an

090increase for my employer right yeah i'm worried about cost of living yes i would love to have a little more in my paycheck there's also a level and a sense of feeling valued which i know is a little more subjective in all this but it matters and [Applause] you know i think next month mid-march will actually be two years of going through all this right um and last year we said oh our teachers and you know staff everybody needs it this is the year they need it and we're realizing this is the year they need it too and in my opinion almost tenfold so um so so i guess my point is is that i want to make sure everybody feels valued and that um you know i i also want to um go ahead

091with this proposal um but i want to make sure everybody's valued and that that for me that includes the non-instructional staff um so i guess that's really all i'll say about that but it sounds like that we will request this money we're hoping it can fund this 10 percent or however we want to um sort of define that and then we're going to do the best that we we can every year it's the same conversation every year i i think we all make the same points that our education staff our teachers are incredibly important and that's one of our main focuses with this budget um and i think the board of supervisors appreciates that it's it is i don't want to say frustrating but you know sometimes it's a little frustrating when we think about

092needing to um match our increase with clark county um other clark county employees and so you know i think it's it's probably time to start just shifting the mindset just a little that this isn't always apples to apples that this is definitely apples to oranges um but like mr hobart said mr shooty said we have a great relationship with the board of supervisors and we're always um whether we agree or or or not and i know during covid there were definitely um some passionate conversations with them but i know we can always have a good open dialogue and i trust they will continue to hear us and work with us closely so and we are very lucky to not have this contentious relationship with them like even our neighboring counties have so um so i'm

093really grateful for that so um any other comments or questions just one then then what you're saying mr list is you want to see the entire scale be brought up to be comparable so if that's a case and and we as an organization need to lay out a three or a five year plan to do that and we need to lay it out and we need to lay it out in hard numbers and say this is where we want to be in five years we want to be comparable we want to be on the same pay scale as i don't care pick somebody except for loudoun because i recognize loudon is a different animal but it is still sort of the gold standard for salaries but it is definitely different but let's just say we

094set the goal that in five years we need to be equal to frederick county how are we going to get there and how we're going to lay out a plan we'll get there next year with this plan the plan that i've proposed tonight you exceed frederick county in every salary category on the teacher scale will it do it is that include what frederick county is going to be making if they give five percent it will exceed their dollar amount and that's what they've proposed the thing is with this is is is um you know loudoun county complains that fairfax county steals all their teachers fairfax county complains that prince william teaches steals all their teachers and it just keeps moving you know that direction the vacuum is occurring and clark is you know getting getting

095pulled on i mean you can't say you know we need a plan to get to to any everybody but loudon when loudoun is the is the thing that we have the most issue with so if then if then okay then if louden is and again if loudoun is the gold standard and we want to move toward the gold standard then this year we we make one step but we still have to have the plan to continue to step to continue to move toward the gold standard because if we just say okay we've given a 10 and we've reached frederick we have to next year we have got to we've got to make it another step we can't become stagnated and we've really got to recognize that we have got to start planning 3 5 10

096years out to maintain a budget and how is that budget going to grow and how are we going to be able to to continue to continue to make this work it's the only way and so into your point i think that that's that's going to have to be a conversation that extends past us right i mean it's beyond us right right we've got to bring it forward right right to to to the entire community and say look this is what we have to do this is three five seven ten years and there needs to be again i go back to that's why i want to be on the strategic plan we've got to come up with a real strategic plan and we've got a budget for that strategic plan and then we've got to be

097able to go to the board of supervisors that strategic plan and say here it is and they're going to want to know numbers they're going to want to know specific numbers attached to specific line items and what the return on that investment's going to be that's that's what they're going to want and then they cannot they have to sell it to the taxpayers so they have got to be able to say okay is we're going to do the funding i think we we we're going to have to start thinking about if we want to deal with the board of supervisors and maintain a decent relationship with them we've really got to start digging down and saying okay here is our 357 10-year plan i think without that we can't just go every year and say

098we want a 10 across the board increase because louden's killing us this is gonna that's gonna say no i mean i'd say no i think that it's just it's one of those just you you've got to come up with a real comprehensive effort and a real plan in terms of where do we want to go as a school and as a school board and as a as as the school environment and and develop a strategic plan and it's i just that's what i think so well i think if you're talking about fixing existential problems to me and everybody will laugh and and be bored because i've said this before any composite index that says that we are more wealthy than the county of loudoun which is generally uh in many business magazines seem to be

099the wealthiest county in the entire country is a flawed um is a flawed formula index and when you take into the fact that a smaller school like ours just has the um economies of scale that work against it and you add a flawed uh it it is just beyond my comprehension that after all these years no one has sought to take out average and put in median even though many of the other state formulas are now based on media but understand it would cause a huge shift of money away from our larger counties to the smaller counties and they aren't going to vote for it so but if you want to figure out how to how to fix an existential problem where we're always chasing a hair that we can never catch up with that's

100the way to do it but we have no controller that's that's beyond our pay scale i believe the last time the composite index was seriously looked at was like early 90s i know so it's been nearly 30 years and there have been no changes yeah so you want to figure out how to fix it it felt sweet i tried to i got online the other day and tried to decipher that thing and i couldn't make head and a tail of it so it's yeah i think the challenge i have with what's being proposed is that we're talking about competing with whomever frederick winchester warren louden anybody and we're talking about 10 but the only thing we're not moving 10 percent is the salary scale and when we compete with the other schools we compete we

101compare the salary scale and the salary scale is not moving 10 percent a zero a year zero teacher is not going to be a 10 increase over a year zero teacher as proposed and so that's what i'm struggling with is that it seems like we're not focusing on the thing that we keep talking about and the thing that we talk about competing with other divisions and so what i'm suggesting is is that we focus on the thing that we keep talking about i'm not i'm not understanding why you why what you mean by moving the scale ten percent because if you look at it is ten percent if you look at step one right now or step zero in clark county it's forty four thousand dollars the proposed step one next year so brand new

102teacher moving from first year of experience to into year two is forty eight four give it to zero it's 47 three zero well we have to set a new starting salary that yeah i'm sorry so step zero is forty four thousand yeah and next year step zero is going to be 47.3 but the teachers the teacher is on step one now step zero is is for future years step one so that's why over in the gray box you'll see you know one individual is getting a 10 raise the returning individual is getting a 10 raise but the new teacher that you would say i'm not going to give you 10 more than a new teacher got last year yeah i'm not following your logic so you go to a a a teacher fair and you

103talk to somebody and you say this year we're gonna offer you four thousand okay and then that teacher moves on and then next year you go to the teacher fair and you're gonna talk to somebody completely different and you're saying i'm gonna offer you 47 300. that's not 10 more than the year before the scale didn't move ten percent but it's close it moved ten percent for everybody but the person who's not been employed here yeah but but when when a new uh when a person compares clark and is competing against frederick winchester whatever they're not talking about you know uh the returning staff uh now they're talking about that intro level so this is attracting teachers so are we attracting teachers when we attract teachers when we attract new teachers we didn't move this

104we didn't move the year zero teacher ten percent from from this year that's what i'm getting hung up on so what you'd have to do could put that number's just scaled back from the teacher with one year experience the step zero doesn't happen forty seven three it could be forty eight if you kick that up 48.4 you'd solve that problem then the whole scale would jump all you have to do is is is get rid of the 47 300 and and change the one to zero and just run it all the way down and you'd have a 10 radius across the port step 0 is a number right we have to set a new starting salary so i get your point that step 0 is not a 10 increase over what a person this year

105made at step zero but it's what eight percent just under nine yeah so it's just under nine percent so that number could be forty seven thousand seven fifty it can be closer to the forty eight four but you can't you can't have a system where we're going to guarantee that the entry is gonna increase ten percent a year no i'm not suggesting that i'm suggesting this is the year that we can bump it this is the year that we should take the salary scale and say if you were a zero teacher last if you were zero teacher you know again that it that it would be a 10 or a year 10 or whatever i mean you know you're getting you're you're netting out at 10 percent raise for all returning staff i mean we

106could make step 0 48 000 and there's just a 400 difference between a new teacher and a person who in fact did get a ten percent increase from step zero to one yeah but that's not what i'm suggesting i'm suggesting that the entire scale moved ten percent and it and that and that that that you would just you would just basically sh um but are you against the budget we're asking for because we get to we get to apportion that money as we see or you are saying we ask for more money i'm not suggesting that we ask for more money i'm suggesting we apportion it differently okay well but that's not it that's not the issue before us tonight the issue before us tonight is do we approve the budget before us thank you

107for that clarification i know you already know that okay so essentially mr kelly you're saying you would love you would like for step one to technically be step zero and shift on down yeah so that instead of the scale being shifted that we just erase the line zero we turn one into zero uh two into one three into two and so on and so on and so on we can okay so can you we can calculate that in just a matter of no time yeah out so okay so we're asking for a pot of money we know we we want to do with it we know we're hoping it we can get to the 10 percent for everybody and you all will look into this um sort of the shift by one step yes sure

108thank you okay any other comments mr charcell none sure yes thank you all right um may i have a motion then i move to approve the proposed fy 23 budget as presented there a second i will second that any further discussion all in favor all opposed sorry to throw you a curveball i'll put or amended or as amended in there just in case okay okay calendar so the calendar that you had an opportunity to look at a couple of weeks ago it's been posted for two weeks uh of course in board docs for review did receive some staff review uh well some of some uh comments period um rather go a few days longer in december and have january 2nd as a work day make december 9th just some small suggestions purple elementary day and

109set december 16th as an in-service day most of the comments came down to these asynchronous days for elementary to try to equate or to equalize planning time um but there were five only five comments related to that so there are two reasons for concern there one is child care for elementary aged children of our teaching staff i've had a conversation with lisa cook our director of parks and recreation and we are working on a plan that would allow our teachers to have their elementary age children at parks and rec they are open on fridays on those asynchronous days and then the other comment was that the number of preps for middle and high school teachers and related grading etc when compared to elementary well our elementary teachers are also prepping for multiple subject areas i

110mean you know kindergarten teachers teach math and science and social studies and reading just like our teachers of our older students also have multiple preps it's it's there's always going to be a reason to try to compare these two and it's one of those things where again i go back to what i've said even last year if you look at 90 minutes of day of planning at the middle and high and 45 minutes a day at the elementary school it's it's not equalized so that this calendar just like the one we currently have is an effort to do that i know and uh mr american ms tinsman could certainly probably talk with you privately about how teachers have been using that time but it has not gone to waste so the calendar that's before you

111is the proposal we are addressing the child care situation for our elementary age children of our employees so that people aren't taking off to care for their children and we hope to be able to do that at no cost to our teachers so we're hoping to be able to provide that correct the calendar committee uh collected input from uh their colleagues yes and you know it's been posted for three weeks now on board docs too so any questions i guess more comments than questions so again because i know someone's going to ask me this around labor day um why are the same answer i gave you two weeks ago it is but we'll go ahead and go through this again because every year it comes up so we are not required because of a variety

112of reasons shared programs clark was grandfathered in to start prior to labor day previously you know this is the the answer to the age-old conversation about the king's dominion law that seemed to go before the general assembly every year so now that school divisions have flexibility if you did not start school prior to labor day before if you do now you have to do the friday before as well we started school before labor day well before i got here the only time since i've gotten here that we started after labor day was last year when we started on september 8th i think it was so we could finish preparation for the pandemic and coming back to school in the midst of a pandemic so um and then you know i always receive comments or feedback

113about having the getting out earlier in june so getting out earlier in june would mean that our students could potentially have to go to school during fair week i mean we have to have 180 days or 990 instructional hours and with every calendar that i've ever been a part of building there's always so give and take if you if you start school later then it's going to slide the week later you know sometimes we'll hear comments from folks about well you know we've only used x number of inclement weather days this year can we have that time back you know everybody nobody minds the extra minutes per day while we're banking time until it's gone and then you have to make up days and literally if we were to start cutting back on the number

114of hours it's minutes per day i mean we're not going to be reducing you know 20 or 30 minutes a day i mean it's going to be minutes per day a handful of minutes and then that bank time will soon go away so part of the benefit of banking and having a little extra day a little longer day is that when inclement weather happens one hour delays two hour delays early releases for weather or closures those are days that we're not required to make up because we still will meet the 990 instructional hours um and so we we did receive a lot of feedback or you know relatively a lot of feedback about the elementary asynchronous days and so my initial thought was well could we just you know have have elementary school teachers have

115a planning day and have substitutes come in you know and so a fourth grade team would have a fourth grade planning day and their fourth grade classes would be covered by substitutes the problem with that in my mind is then you lack the ability to work with specials teachers special education teachers and it's not our school our elementary schools aren't so large that you have one special education teacher per grade level so you've so then that special education teacher could potentially be pulled to miss three days in one month to be able to plan appropriately with three different grade levels versus having that one day that allows for collaboration and and right cooley has two reading specialists as an example they have a k2 and a three five so in order for the k the

116three five miss michael the three five reading specialists to work with the classroom teachers she would have to take have the planning day when grade 3 4 and 5 had their planning days you know that's that's the way this has worked out is it's given as you said special education teachers reading specialists or other elementary specialists an opportunity to work with the grade level teams to plan right which is important especially you know just working across the curriculum having you know maybe the pe teacher working with a grade level on you know a common goal um and then also along those lines just having your having your classroom to yourself without all of those students and and having the opportunity to organize things is it that's that's huge it's it's really important um you know

117i liken it to like having my entire family leave my house so that i can clean it up it's it's really important and so it's just my way of kind of relating to what elementary school teachers are are dealing with but along those lines too i i have thought a lot about middle school and high school teachers and i've wondered could we work towards um however the administrators at the middle school and high school see best to have a planning day for the sixth grade team the seventh grade team or you know all of the math teachers at johnson williams or vice versa to have that opportunity as well and that would look differently i don't think it in my mind um which needs some editing in my mind that would mean that you know

118the students would still be in school but we would provide teachers with an opportunity to have a substitute to plan in addition to the 90 minutes that they already get yes maybe once a month or or every other month or and again i i don't see this as a as a board telling you what to do but i'm just asking is it something that you all could work on and that our budget could allow for so that middle and high school teachers have have an opportunity to collaborate with one another during the school day and also special education teachers may be having a planning day to you know get data in line i think the best maybe that's already happening yeah i mean i think the best way to go about this is to have

119some conversation with mr rob and miss waring about whether these would be beneficial right right and how it might be different than the planning that they're already provided yes so that's just a thought as in in response to the comments that we've had about the elementary teachers having these asynchronous days and i know you guys will work through that any other questions may i have a motion um i move to approve the proposed 2022-2023 school calendar any further discussion all in favor aye all opposed school board member comments mr shooti i think i made my comments during the budget process the last two years has just been plus this year have been incredible uh for a lot of reasons but the budget the way it has gone and um and whipsawed along with the incredible

120migration from the east that is going on that to a certain extent is skipping over our county because of our zoning uh but on both sides of it the demographically i just it's the switch is just unbelievable and it is going to have a big ripple effect on our school system in the years to come just a prediction so that's what i'll say mr mcdonald i'll second that and and i will say that clark's county's changing and it's changing as younger families move in with children and it's it's just something that we need to drive we we need to make it known to everyone in the in the county that demographically this this is changing we are changing the county's becoming younger at least the way i see it and and people are moving out

121of loudoun i came out of loudoun because i needed to get out of loudoun because it's loud um and i'm coming here but it's it's you you come here with an expectation and and that expectation particularly the amount of building that's going on the amount of young kids i see and and i've talked to some of the powers that be and i've heard you know well we need to keep our aim but we need to improve our ambulance services and we need to improve this service we need to improve that service well i don't see ambulances on the road every day but i do see school buses on the road every day and we need to drive that point home and and i'm i'm just going to keep beating this dead horse and mr turkle

122i agree with you that these these these people that drive buses and these people that take care of our kids drive our kids around and they take care of our kids and that's that's we have to make the i'm probably considered an old guy but i have very young kids and i don't consider you old thanks [Laughter] trust me it's the mileage but anyway um we we have got to make sure that we we make folks understand that you know this is the the young kids are are the ones that we really have to have to focus on sorry but that's all mr charcell i think it's just uh nice to have the sense that we're maybe kind of coming to terms with uh with covid that it's been such a big um aspect of

123of the last few years that one thing that you know we keep hearing about is the is to maintain positive relationships and to come through such a you know life-altering uh episode and and to be able to say that really i think speaks volumes about our community and so um in in light of the appreciation that's shown here tonight and i certainly uh want want to appreciate that uh that we live in a fantastic place mr hobart gosh you just took the words right out of my mouth thank you i agree that i am quite thankful um for the positive relationships that we've somehow been able to keep together for the past two years because it's been rough um but really i think we're i feel like we're in a good place with our daily

124membership on the rise um and positive working relationships with our board of supervisors and one another because that doesn't always happen and and by doing all of those things um it benefits our kids which is why we're all here that's it um i'll just say um sort of piggyback a little bit off of mr mcdonald is that um you know it's our job as a school board to advocate for our students and our teachers um and and that's our job so that's what we sort of fight for as a community member i appreciate and understand that the county also has other priorities and that it's really an and right we need to take care of our law enforcement and we need to take care of emt and we need to take care of the school

125system i think what what we can start doing is trying to emphasize that it's going to be our our kids the little people our students we're sending them off outside of clark county and they're going to do great and you know great things um and they're also going to take care of the older generation that's still here right so um uh i can't you and i had a conversation i can't actually say it out loud because it's a little appropriate but our younger kids are going to be here for the older folks and so um we need to just kind of change our mindset that you know when we hear things like um well the older generation or you know people don't have kids in the school system so you know why does it matter

126that the point is we we have kids here in clark county who need to be educated and we want to provide them the best education we can so there's that also to my principles our principles clark county's principles thank you for everything you do we made it through the first semester hallelujah we only have what four months to go so i know it's been it's a broken record interesting year to say the least with the masks the no masks the this the that so thank you for ebbing and flowing with us and we appreciate it very very much ms bennett thank you for all your work with the finance and helping us get these numbers straight for the budget and obviously mr catlett dr bishop thank you for putting this together year after year and

127doing such a great job and also dealing with the ebbs and flows of us appreciate it may i mention one of the people that look out for me on occasion sent me a message at loudon's proposed five percent pay raise for next year huh well good to know okay we have a motion to convene to closed session i've moved to convene a closed session to discuss personnel matters including appointments and resignations pursuant to code of virginia 2.2-3711a estimated time required for the closed session is 20 minutes and action is expected second all in favor aye aye all opposed i move to reconvene in open session second all in favor aye aye aye all opposed um pursuant to code section 2.2-3712 of the food virginia how do you certify mr hobert aye mcdonald aye mr shooty

128aye smith aye aye [Music] action motion on action please i'll move that we accept the personal agenda as presented all in favor aye aye aye all opposed said it i will adjourn the meeting thank you everybody you