001[Music] Heat. Heat. [Music] Heat. [Music] Heat. Heat. Heat. [Music] Heat. Heat. [Music] I'd like to call our June 5th, 2025 Reno County School Board work session to order. Madame Clerk, will you please call the role? Mr. Greenway? Yes, ma'am. Mr. London? Yes, ma'am. Mr. Johnny? Yes, ma'am. Mr. Hudson? Yes, ma'am. Miss Clemens? Yes, ma'am. Right. Mr. London, would you please read us into closed? Well, I don't have the form in I don't either. Do we have it? I don't think we do. What do we need to do? Are we going into We do just briefly. It won't take long, but we do need to I don't have anything. I don't either. I don't think we need the exact language or else we can't go into closed. According to code 2.71 A00-2.1 she print it Here
002we go. Thank you. Are we ready? Uh, let's see. Motion that the Rona County School Board convene in close session for the following for consultation with legal counsel and briefings by staff members pertaining to actual or probable litigation and consultation with legal counsel regarding specific legal matters requiring the provision of legal advice by such council pursuant to 2.2-3711 A7 of the code of Virginia. I'll second. Thank you. I get that. Madam clerk, Mr. Yes, ma'am. Mr. London. Yes, ma'am. Mr. Yes, ma'am. Mr. Hudson. Yes, ma'am. Yes, ma'am. [Music] Are you doing? [Music] Heat. Heat. [Music] you please read us out of closed. Yes, Madam Chair. I move that the Rono County School Board come out of close session for the following. For consultation with legal counsel and briefings by staff members pertaining to actual or
003probable litigation and consultation with legal counsel regarding specific legal matters regarding the provision of legal advice by such counsel pursuant to 2.2-3 2-3711A7 of the code of Virginia and to certify that to each to the best of each member's knowledge only public business matters lawfully exempted from open meeting requirements under this chapter and only such public business matters as were identified in the motion by which this closed meeting was convened were heard discussed or considered in a meeting by the school board. Madam clerk I'll second it. Madam clerk Mr. Greenway. Yes, ma'am. Mr. Linda. Yes, ma'am. Mr. Yes, ma'am. Mr. Hus. Yes, ma'am. Yes, ma'am. Item 2.03, action from close session. We do not have any. Item 3.01, proposed sale of property at the corner of Bramamilton and Ranchrest. Madam Chair, members of the board,
004Dr. nicely. Uh we have with us this evening David Andrews who is with the shopping center group and he represents uh the owner of the adjacent properties and he they would like to discuss the possible purchase of two small tracks of land that we own at Cavering Middle School. Thanks everyone. I'm David Andrews. I'm with the Shopping Center Group. We I am based out of Richmond. Our offices are around the southeast. We're based out of Atlanta. I do retail commercial brokerage. We represent retailers, restaurants, financial institutions uh looking for sites along with property owners looking to develop their sites around Virginia and West Virginia. I cover that from our Richmond office. A little bit about me, I grew up in Cumberland County, west of Richmond on the James River. Uh was invited to be a
005walk-on to Virginia Tech. uh fortunately made the team and enjoyed a Peachb championship there and first couple years under coach Beamer. So that was uh a real highlight still today for me. Um there was no real estate program then. I'm fortunate to be on the Blackwood School Real Estate Advisory Board now. Um so I got my real estate license at night down at New River Community College and immediately after graduating got into retail commercial real estate. So that's all we've done um since since my time in Blackburg like to get back a lot. So this is really a discussion of kind of of the kind of the state of the staple on this property and what we're trying to do. Um I wanted to orient everybody. I think we all know here where it is.
006It's a 1.39 acres and hard corner here at Bramamilton and Ranchrest. Uh let me get down to the exhibit here that shows this is our friends at Ballser created this exhibit. Um our client owns the corner that's mostly the wooded parcel here with the heavy black line. Uh there's two lots here that are shown there. I need my glasses. The 0 2 and the 18 uh lots that is currently owned by the school board. Um he acquired this property about 20 years ago. Uh Richard Bishop is his name, local resident, and he was going to buy these two sites. Ended up not doing it. Assisted actually the school board at that time to buy these properties. It's kind of coming full circle here. this property. The next slide, uh, we had, um, Rebecca James at
007at the county send us a letter about what is allowed here. Um, the current zoning classification is is commercial one, low inensity commercial district. What that essentially allows is medical office buildings, banks, um lower intense uses that don't have um you know a a drive-thru, for example, in a restaurant or convenience store, which you'll see uh concept plan here next. We wanted to show you what what fits currently. These are the uses. I don't want to bore you with running down these. uh this this is here for you guys to read through that are allowed office uses these uses down here u that have the asterric need for example uh special use permit so that's why those are are mentioned that way these were setbacks and so forth that the county sent us so I'll
008go to this slide first so this for example is a quick service restaurant this actually is a Zachby's footprint. We've worked with these folks around the state to find sites. Um you can see that this footprint does fit on the site. Uh entrances where VOTE, you know, would push them back on the far corners of the site um are shown. This can be graded down. This there's about a 4ft rise as you come upon here. It' be graded out. Um that's been taken into account. The caveat on this drawing, for example, is that the drive-thru use would not be allowed. A freestanding restaurant would be allowed, for example. The point I want to make here is this. See this corner that comes in here. This is where the school board's property comes down into this
009property. in order to grade the property, there's going to be some temporary easements needed. So, what we're one of the ideas you'll see here next slide, uh, I'll show you this convenience store concept here. This would show how much you need to get into the schoolboard properties in order to develop this convenience store. This is a current um, building down at Dixie Caverns. That's an Exxon some folks may know right off 81 that's developed there now that is this exact footprint show you let me see did I send you that other slide that has the Yeah. So if you see I don't know if I can zoom here. So what we did on in this if you notice these red lines this shows squaring up the property which buffers could be introduced. It does take
010into account a small part portion of this parcel, but it would allow this corner to go away and the site to be used much more feasibly. This would leave the school board this everything behind this red line and there would be, you know, some type of buffer arrangement added in here. in this scenario, if you squared the property out, um that we thought that might be more attractive as a discussion um point for adding buffers to the property. Let's go back to this. So, I guess in summary for us, um, we wanted to just share this information with you now to start a discussion if there'd be any consideration to sell the lots. um if there'd be any consideration to support a higher intensive use. Um if there'd be any consideration to allow some grading
011on the corner and allow the property to be developed, it would be developed in the C1 use code as it as is allowed now. um nothing could be done and the property would just be graded and you you this slide here would be most applicable here. Um this would the drive-thru would come off because that's not allowed by a special use permit. Um if we did go for a special use permit, we would be coming to the school board and the surrounding. it'd be a meet a public meeting held um for comment on that. Uh the other scenario would be to sell the school board the property as well. So that that is an option. Any questions for me? I know that's a lot. Are there any other proposed uses other than those two that
012you've shown us? Those were just concept plans we used because we wanted just to create examples. Um so it could be something totally different. Totally different. Yeah. Any of those buy right uses for example or if we do need to come through the public process we'd have to go through the more you know that we'd have the drive-thru for example. That would be a start of a public process. We would we would go through to allow the drive-thru but not come on to the school board's property. It would only be a grading right where that corner comes in. A retaining wall would have to be built. Otherwise, if we got a temporary easement, we would clean up school board's property, for example, in grading and then leave it in a way that's a negotiated, you
013know, shrubbery or trees or something. Um, if that was to be one scenario, you can see, for example, there's not room to put, you know, a couple of tenants like Jersey Mike's, AT&T, and a Starbucks. There's not enough room for that. Um, this building here is about 3,300 square feet. When you get into the larger buildings of the convenience store layout, this building's about 6,000 square feet. So, for example, we would, you know, we sometimes do these buildings. I'm just mentioning those tenants. Um, that could be applicable here. That could be another scenario. We take away the fuel island, park it, and put a retail building there and do those type of tenants. You know, for example, the buildings you see in front of Tanglewood, something exactly like that. That could be another scenario. So,
014the two scenarios you provided, um, my first thought was is you're going to have to go before the board of supervisors anyway, if if some one of these type you would occurrences would be issued. So, as long as that's the case, I'm kind of okay with where we go. My only concern, I think, well, a couple couple things and then I've got a just a hokey question. I like Can we go to that one first? So, you're a part of the I didn't catch the We don't have it on here. I didn't catch the name or David Andrew. David I called Mr. Andrews, but um No, it's my dad. You're not You're not uh part of or done anything with Bruce Smith. Have you? No. No, I was after after him. Well, no. Yeah. Well,
015Peach Bowl team in the late late 80s and then Beamer's first years. So, Beamer's first years, but he was 86. 86 Beach Bowl 87 88. Okay. And Bruce finished up 86. 85. 85. Okay. Well, I was right there when I graduated, too. So, yeah. Um, but anyway, that I'm digressing. So, my main I think my main concern for Kring Middle would be the buffer area. You know, I think that would be of of con concern for the for the schools. Um, that well, that's completely open for discussion. I mean, there could be a very heavy buffer at at that existing parking lot. Now, you see to the east or to the right. Um, you that could be something that we could have a landscape design team um in collaboration with the board completely design something
016that would be acceptable to the board um on that side as well as around to the sheriff's office side. I think for me if and and again I go with Shelley because it's her area primarily but if um if we sold those lots or we allowed the use or whatever we did with these lots that would be my only thing I think you ought to condition would be to have the the buffered space. Now I get I'm not sure we this wouldn't be for us. This is what I want the public to understand is that if we agreed to move forward with these lots, we wouldn't be deciding if a Sheets goes in there, a Zach visa, right, a Jersey Mike's, whatever. You know, that wouldn't be our call. That would be the board of
017supervisors. And I'm sure they'd look after us for that for those in those respects. But for the schools, for me, I think that would be the only thing I would really add is that we make sure there's some conditioned part of the sale or usage or whatever that the buffer and we don't have to go in that now, but I I just because there's a lot of discussion, I'm sure the way we've done this in the past with other localities, we we've worked with Walmart in the past and that I've gotten a lot of experience in this. We uh you we would have all the exhibits done before we even went under contract, right? That are acceptable to the board. Yep. So So for us, I guess all I'm saying is for us if we
018want to move forward, I'm not sure if you're asking to buy them now, if that's conditioned on whether you do what you want to do. We I don't know that the process of of this entity selling property. I imagine it's probably an appraisal involved. Yeah, it's an appraisal and it's got to go through the board. all that stuff, right? But I didn't know if that's your intent, I guess, is what I'm asking. That's our first priority. Yes. Okay. Would be to buy the sites. Gotcha. To purchase both. Yes, ma'am. And will something go on that corner regardless of Currently, we have the C1 zoning. We can put, you know, Lewis Gale Urgent Care there now, right? We could put um you know uh pick a bank a name bank a credit union can go there
019those those are by right use but the intention is to put something there is that understanding regardless of what happens with those lots correct the intention is that something will be on that corner that's correct yeah the growth of the area you all know better than I do yeah this it's a great corner and we will put it in use we call it is Mr. Bishop prepared to pay more than appraised value. I hope it would be an appraised value. I imagine I don't know how that works with the with the board. I mean, we're I know typically like in the Walmart subdivision down there near Clearbrook, the last hold out got the most amount of money. And if this is a parcel that allows him to do something that he couldn't necessarily do otherwise,
020it's probably more valuable than just the appraised value. Yeah, there's an economic breaking point for every project, you know. I mean, that's and it and we know we probably have to go through a public process anyway, so it's going to be transparent. Um, you know, we're we want to have that discussion. Yeah. Um, David, to your point though, also, like you said, the economic breaking point, they can still put anything they want. I mean, not within reason. The C1, correct? The C1's not allowed us. Whether or not we sell it or not, something's probably going to go there, right? So, it will clean it up. And yeah, right now it's, you know, gives you more freedom to do more. That's correct. And work and work in partnership with the board to enact, you know, buffer
021areas, you know, more parking possibly. I we could, you know, see what Boser can lay out. See, for me, everything's on the table. That's the most important part is we're adding value here, cleaning out the corner. Yeah. Yeah. In our opinion, my my concern is always safety, you know, in terms of the traffic pattern, uh, buses coming through, parents driving their kids to school. Um, and then of course adding more traffic, you know, a sheets versus a Zachbies is going to be different, right? Sure. And, um, check doesn't fit, guys, by the way. That should have been the first. Well, well, and I'm sure VTO tried, but VOTE takes all that stuff into consideration. That's right. Yeah. So, we should be fine with that. So, it's just safety. They're adding um a crosswalk uh here
022where you know I you all may know about this balls are explained somewhere down near that Brambleton entrance for that church parking. They're adding a crosswalk. Okay. Well, I had requested that a long time ago. I heard they didn't have enough money for it. Yeah, I that's in play. Looks like it's happening. Yeah. Breaking news. Yeah, it was a lot of money. Uh it was too much money for VOTE to take that on, but it it it needs to be there. Those are this is all the type of of opportunity this provides. Right. Exactly. Um so it's a growth opportunity. So from this point are we basically saying that we are willing to look at the option? Is that what we're saying at this point? We would look at what the appraisal looks like and
023we're not saying no. Right. So we just this is a jumping off point. Is that what we're saying? Yep. Yeah. It's exploration of are you willing are you interested in pursuing this further? I think so. We can send an offer in on a letter of intent, you know, on a letterhead or something to start the process, but I don't want, you know, we don't want to offend anyone. You know, everybody's got an opinion about real estate values. Um, so I mean, we can start that process. I don't know how you kick off the valuation process. That's a big question for me. T Yeah, say Todd can probably answer what we would need to do. Well, they're certainly welcome to send an offer to to start it. I mean, that doesn't we wouldn't sell it without
024getting an appraisal done on it. So, obviously, there's a cost to that. So, there's, you know, before we invest money on there, we want to know that they're um, you know, they're serious about purchasing. I I would we would be I think our owner would be open to paying for an appraisal to share our thought on what it's valued at. And that's probably a great starting point. Um, because there's always, you know, couple appraisals and you average or just different methods you do this. Mhm. So at least it's not David Andrews, you know, number. It's um, you know, respected MAI appraiser here in the area that we attach our offer with their report. And we have folks that we typically use that we trust to provide good valuations. So, but I do like Mr. Andrew's
025approach because you know what we got to lose and and getting uh getting their appraisal and if they're willing to if I understood you correctly you're willing to pay for it and sure I just spent some of his money but yes he has plenty. So uh anyway um I mean there's I'm okay with that. I think it would be a fair I mean I you know they've got ethics just like every other group you know so they they abide by and I think we'd be okay with that. Yeah. What I've learned over these the years of these resoning cases I've been on PBS about you know Walmart ruining a small town in Ashlin Virginia all kinds of things. It's if we have a full discussion about this stuff and stay in communication you know we're
026glad to work work with you as until that economic breaking point and then let you know. Yeah. and and drop back and develop it by right. Yeah. The key for us is to know we can't decide what to do with it anyway. So, you know, we're just looking at money that can come into the schools to do something. It is a valuable piece of property, I think, because it's attached to to Cape Spring Middle. I don't want to lessen that, but I'm just saying, you know, this will go through the proper channels and the board of supervisors and planning commission and all that stuff. So, correct. You know, that would be out of our hands, but I'm I'm good to look at it. One question on the red line that you had on there, it
027looked like it took into account some additional property that is not either of those two parcels. I was going to ask that like the parking lot. Yeah, that kind of tip. When you said to square it off, are you also trying to look at that parcel to the right that that joins that parking lot? to the right of what he currently owns. That triangle right down there. He owns this, right? Are you talking about this? I'm talking that Yeah. Yes. This does get into that it the property be replivded. Um, yeah, that would be part of the valuation we'd have. I don't have an acreage calculation, but you can see that's probably, you know, 0 0.05 maybe just on a guess, which if there's a barrier, it still shouldn't present a problem. It should be
028the buffer area anyway. Yep. And that would Yeah, correct. If you're you're getting into these designs, um yeah, see it doesn't get back into here on either one of these designs. So you're that's going to be your buffer area a part part of what would be constructed on this card corner property as well as school board's property questions. Good. Go Hokes. Absolutely. Thank you. Thank you for your time. I'll be in touch. Thank you. Item 3.02, major construction project updates. Mr. Todd Kaggels, Mr. West Mitchell, and Mr. Kamal Khalil. Madam Chair, members of the board, we have with us as our usually monthly guest uh Kamal Khalil who's the project manager for Scansa at the uh two elementary schools and Wes Mitchell who is the project manager for Scansa uh up at RCCTC. All right,
029good afternoon. Good to see everybody again. And I've seen several of y'all at the job site, so you've got a good idea of how much progress we've been making at CTE Burton Center, which is quite a bit. Um so over the last month um still masquerading going on but it's getting very close to the finish line. Um that that fill field is about done. If you go by there you can kind of see the front parking lot really taking shape where it's subgrade and probably 90% of it. So and they've actually started laying uh storm structures at the edge of the parking lot as well. Um so over the last month we've really been focused on that area. It's come up quite a bit and also on the eastern parking lot um but should be
030to the side of the building is where we still have some rock that we're crushing. The last bit that's remaining and they should be done with that by the end of the month barring any equipment breakdown. those rock crushers are they take a lot of beating so sometimes they don't cooperate as much. Um and then also they started this week if you've been down Peters Creek they started in the median there um they've got to tie in a storm structure to an existing one in the median um so that they can put in a turn lane um from Peters Creek onto the property. So they're doing that as well as they installed a few more utility poles. they're doing the transition um so they can run it across the street um across Peters Creek for
031your B dot controls, your stop lights and everything. So, they've been working on that as well. Um area D construction uh steel is all done um including the steel decking. So, the roofers are mobilizing this week just getting material put up there so we can start uh with the roof. Um over the past month, our MEP has been up there, too, installing roof drains. Um and then any of the curbs that go all the way to the deck for our mechanical equipment up that's up on the roof. So, they've been doing that as well. Um and then inside the building, all our inwall overhead roughing for MEP, mechanical, electrical, plumbing trades has been hot and heavy. Um and then they've actually started framing some walls in there this week as well. So, uh, it looks
032very much different on the inside than it did last month. Um, area A construction is ongoing as well. Um, CME bearing walls will be done by the end of the day tomorrow. Um, barring any weather event that happens overnight, but they'll be good to set steel come Monday. And that's the plan. um our steel U subcontractors coming back to site with all the steel for area A to start setting that so we can get that under roof as well. Um and then also in a going behind the masons is our inwall MEP work just as we did in area D. um area B and C over the last month. At the beginning of last month, we finished pouring out um all our slabs on grade and it's kind of been at a standstill since then.
033Uh but that'll kick off again next week with CMU um bearing walls in area B as the the steel folks will kick out our masons um from A into B. So, we'll get back to work in that area next week. Um just some pictures. So you can see here that's the main mechanical room on the left. You can see all of our uh mechanical and um piping going in. And then mechanical hangers on your right. So all your duck work, piping, everything like that. That's what they're hanging on the right. Uh this is area A, our high walls, um bearing walls where our steel would be placed. That's all set. Less one wall on the other side here in the corner that they'll finish up tomorrow. Um area on the right, that's area D. You
034can see the uh cornice repair pit framing going in. Um and the the canopy framing as well, which that's all wrapped up. All the inspections on the steel are done with the canopy. And then that big face wall that you see right there is actually already covered with our spray foam insulation. So, it's all but ready to start receiving brick. Um, and then here on the left, you can see it doesn't do it justice how just how big that pad is, but that's area B and C all poured out. So, our last remaining slab on grade. We will have a slab on deck to pour for area B, which is our our twotory section of the building. On the right, uh that is our mockup for the skin of the building, that stacked rock and
035then two different colors of brick. Um and then you can see the spray foam insulation and some blue skin too to just show how that all ties in. And then those two panels on the bottom are is going to be our metal paneling cladding as well. And this is the parking lot. I told you that Phil has come up in the last month. Um you can see storm structures on the edge of it. So that's going to be your subgrade for for the parking lot that the main parking lot at the front of the building. Um and then just some more storm structures on the right going up to that. That's all I have for CT. Anybody have any questions for that? Hello everyone. I don't know where to begin because school is out and
036there's no kids, there's no teachers. Um, if you look, we started probably three more phases and when we used to come in and before we used to start with one phase and it was a big deal. Look at it now. Uh, phase 2 a I mean they're whatever is on the list and more. I I try to condense it as much as I can just to give you an idea where they are. I mean you name it from demo of walls, ceilings, doors, windows uh on condom. We had a visit from uh OSHA the other day actually like three weeks ago based on ask you know branch asked them to show up just to be on the safe side. We didn't have any major issues and they gave us recommendations on a couple things. on
037phase 1B um we're cutting and capping like conduits or for electrical wire u water just to make it safe for the guys to work in that area. It's like you're isolating one building from another. That's what we call it cut, you know, cotton cap. We're temping lights, you know, for the guys to work in these areas. Um, again, demolition just like up up in the first item, walls, ceilings, light fixtures, you name it. Tile removal, uh, even we started painting on some of these phases and that's how fast it's going. Um, in the cafeteria and kitchen and the admin, they're all like, you know, plumbing work, sprinklers, um, drywall, you know, hanging and patching and finishing. And like I said, I condensed it as much as I could. And I'll show you what I'm talking
038about when you see in the pictures. Um, in wall plumbing and electrical rough ends. Can I see the next page, please? Yeah. And Kamal, before we go to the next, just maybe uh the the phases, just so everybody knows where those are. 1B is the exact opposite of what has already been turned over to us on the one end. So when you face those buildings, 1 A was on the right on the second floor. 1B is on the left on the second floor. So that should be done before kids come back. Correct. 1B. So, we'll have both ends of the building turned over to us. And then 2A is back behind the library and that section is also supposed to be done uh by the time kids. Correct. And to give you an idea, yesterday
039I had 101 guys on site. Wow. At at Condiff. I was still in Todd and it's amazing. I mean, it's it's moving like a like a rocket, which is good. Um on about December [Laughter] uh on Glen Cove, uh the same the same idea. There's no teachers, no kids, and then they're going at it like full blast. Uh phase 1 a you already guys know that we turned that in and we had no issues probably handful of punch list items that were taken care of. The 2A second floor, we're working on that. And underneath there's a cafeteria, we're working on that, too. like upstairs and downstairs that was not a a do like a thing before that we couldn't do it because the schools like was in um temp lighting the demo all over the
040place if you go in there you'll see what I'm talking about um the doas I'll show you in the pictures these are like dedicated uh outdoors air systems they're huge they put them on the roof we had to use a crane to do it um they're framing ing uh and ceiling the tiles, ceiling tiles. Uh the 3A cafeteria and the 3B kitchen. Right now, we're just doing the ceiling demo. All this like the one you see that's it's going to be gone. Retaining like today, today is Thursday, right? I did this maybe on Monday or Tuesday and today they started cold milling the asphalt in in Condiv and it's all done. Wow. So, it's amazing. It's an amazing process. On this side, if you drive by like now when you're leaving, you'll see u you
041know the contractors working in the parking lot and they're going to start doing it maybe in the next two days or so. You you'll see the difference. So, it's it's a it's an amazing uh work and it's going fast. This is at the cond. I mean, look at this. The asphelt is done. The curbing gutter. Look at the concrete on the edges. Um, uh, look at the slope that how it's seated with the the grass. You can see the grass. Uh, look at the roof. You could see the all three roofs. Like the one closer, this is the the kitchen area. The one next to it is the dining area and the corridor. And then the one that's all the way down, it's the admin. I hope that helps. But that's on the like on
042the roof. This is like a week ago. I mean, you look at look at the massive work. Really came a long way. And now, see, they started on Monday. I put that on Monday. The cold milling where they take the asphalt out. And now the whole parking lot is done. The the brick work is all around now. It's almost done. That's when they unloaded those um doas the it the HVAC systems they're set but they're not connected yet. So we'll probably be doing that next week or so. This is some electrical work like inside the hallways just to give you an idea like that's the retaining wall. It's been it started but we were waiting on some material for that. um the admin area on the on the right. Uh you could see the work.
043I mean it's it's it's an amazing work. What do you guys think? Looks awesome. Amazing. It it's going so fast. I can't explain. I can't It's um every day it changes every day. I do have one question that somebody asked me the other day. This not really related to the construction of it, but it's about the dirt. Are we going to have to get rid of dirt at Conda? Uh, yes. I've had somebody ask me. They uh said they needed about 100 to 150 loads. I'm like, I I'll give you my card and then they can contact me and we can Well, I'm going to let Yeah, I'm you or haven't called Branch or they can contact me. No, if you'll give me the card, that's great. Absolutely. We did the same thing here. One
044of the teachers wanted some dirt and he got a trailer and got a couple. Yeah, they said they had the, you know, they had the truck and would take, but I just didn't know if we needed to get rid of any or Some of it is going to go. Yes. Okay. Thank you. Thank you. That's great. Thank you. Thank you, gentlemen. Is good. Thank you. Item 3.03, discussion of minor and major capital project request. Mr. Todd Kaggles. Uh Madam Chair, members of the board. Uh so these uh projects have been uh on our minor capital request list for um many months. This was back uh before we uh you know ran into some budget issues and uh those things have since been resolved. So it's time to circle back around and take a look at
045the projects that are on that list and then uh decide how we want to move uh forward with these. Um I'm just all of these have been presented before with the exception of a few that were added uh just over the last few days. Uh so I'm just going to give a brief overview of each one and then um if you have any questions I'm prepared to answer those. Uh the first one is at Bonsack Elementary we had a request that actually came from the school to replace um the carpet in the guidance area, conference room, computer lab, resource lab, library, music uh the office complex. It's about 6,600 square f feet. Uh that was a school request and we've set a budget for that one of about uh $50,000. Uh maybe we should we
046should pause at each one and ask if there are any questions before we move to the next. My only question with those and I think I've already asked you this is these were going to be summer items. Can we still do these in the summer? Well, uh logistically, so so there's a couple of things. One is the things that we had designated as summer projects. We really would have started two months ago. We would have, you know, ordered materials. We would have already gone through procurement. We would have uh been ready to start as soon as school got out. So, so there's that. We we don't know what the availability of the contractors is at this point. And uh what the lead time is on materials. So, you know, if it takes four weeks to
047get the the carpet that we need, uh might put us up against the start of school getting it getting it done. So, the short answer is I don't know. Uh, we would certainly do everything in our power to get it done um as soon as possible, but whether we could do that before, uh, school opens or not, I I I just don't know without um, you know, without having time to get with our with our contractors. Now, the other possibility is um, you know, h how much disruption are the schools willing to put up with? if they're willing to, you know, g give us a few weeks at the beginning where we're working in the offices to to get the carpet in there, uh maybe you could still do it now. If not, you're looking
048at, you know, Christmas break or sometime when we have a long break to to get it in. I don't know what bondsite, you know, what areas they're on shirt says it over here, guys, conference rooms, whatever. But I know at Horn they're more concerned with the library and being able to vacate it in the summer and then you know take everything out and then take everything back in. That's exactly right. There's a lot of stuff to move in the library. So So Okay. So we don't have any questions on Bonsa. Uh Permanell Horn. Uh similar request. There's some worn carpet. Um been down for a long long time. Uh that would be the music room, the library. It's about 2100 square ft. It was a school request to have that done. Uh there's a $20,000
049budget set for that one. North Side High School, um they had some science classrooms, uh and now they have the family and consumer sciences and nutrition classes in those rooms. So, those are typically rooms with stoves and sinks and shelves and uh dishwashers and things of that nature that are set up for that program. And North Side is making it work with uh you know, less than ideal setup in in classrooms that were originally designed for science. Uh so uh you got a $50,000 budget on this one that would allow us to go in and remove all the the unneeded sinks, uh reconfigure the counter tops, the cabinetry, and really make it um um you know, make it ideal for the family and consumer science uh classes that are in there. Now, any questions on
050that? That was a uh that was a school request to do that on the first two, not to to go back. You say instructional impact. No. Is that is that if they were done during the summertime when originally planned? No, that's not meant to say during the construction process. That's meant to say does the carpet currently keep us from being able to uh teach class. Is it having an instructional impact on the school? Okay. So, not a day-to-day operation. No, sir. Uh let's see. Hidden Valley Middle School. Um this one is actually the only uh request that originated with us with the operations department. Um, as you know, Hidden Valley's uh getting up there in age and uh the hallways are very poorly lit. It also has um a one by one ceiling tile that
051we can't uh get or repair anymore. So now when we have issues like a leak or whatever it is, we actually have to go over and try to paint it, which just looks terrible. Uh so in order to improve uh the lighting and uh get a ceiling that we can actually repair and continue to work on. Um and then we would also go and replace the count they have sinks and um countertops that are in public spaces the way that school is laid out. And we would go in and replace all all of those. They're all very old uh in poor condition and they um they look bad. Now that's a that's a big area we're talking about. It would, I think, dramatically improve the the way that school looks when you're inside. It's $300,000
052is the is the budget for that one. And you said that was an operations request. You guys had flagged that. Yes, we we originated that request. Do you um do you think that um well, when is Hidden Valley on the list to get redone? I can't remember. It's a good 10 years out at least. Yeah. So, I looked at that as like, you know, if it was two two uh 250,000 instead of 300, which I thought it was 2,500 or $3,000 a year investment really, but the school's not going to get done in 10 years. It kind of needs to get done. I I agree. We Yeah, we we originated that one, so I agree with you. Uh North Side Middle School, we've talked about this one before. Uh they have a a room downstairs.
053It was uh an old locker room that's not really used as a locker room anymore. It has lockers uh that go right down the middle of the floor. So it makes it very difficult to use that space for anything other than a than a locker room. And those lockers are built up on concrete pedestals. So, in order for them to convert this to a wrestling room, which is what they want to do with it, we would have to go in, cut up the floors, uh, demo all the concrete, remove all the metal lockers, and then go back and, uh, patch the floors. So, that's a 50,000 $50,000 budget to, um, convert that old locker room to a wrestling room. And that was a school request. uh the elementary media centers. Uh there was a request
054from a board member to provide $2,500 to uh Mount Pleasant that would provide some minor improvements to the um library media center. Um what they do with that would be at the discretion of the staff there at the school. And again, that was a member request. So, uh do we have any questions on that one? At Fort Lewis, we um installed a new cooling tower. I think that was last summer. And the new tower was higher than the old tower. And uh if you've been out to Fort Lewis, it actually sets in the parking lot right in front of the school. And it um it doesn't look very good because uh the tower is sticking up above the uh brick walls that were originally designed to hide the tower. So, we set a $25,000 budget
055to go in there and extend those walls with uh it wouldn't be brick because there's some structural issues uh with those walls, but um we would put something around the the top, probably a drive it type material that we would frame in and extend those walls up, make it look good, and hide that cooling tower that sits right in front of the parking lot uh or right in front of the school in the in the parking lot. And that was actually a school request. Uh any questions on that? North Side High School. Uh it says renovate uh the building at the softball fields. Now, we have since uh already actually repaired the roof out there. It was leaking, so we didn't have a choice. We had to do that through uh maintenance and we did
056some paint work on the outside of that building as well. So, the only thing left is to really uh go in and and we need to do a little bit of work in the snack bar in there, but uh definitely the restrooms need to be um modernized. Their condition is poor. It's used frequently by the public. Um lots of it gets lots of rec club use. It gets lots of um school use. So, uh it currently, my opinion, it's not a very good um you know, representation of of what we, you know, like to do in Rono County. So, uh, we'd like to have a $40,000 budget to be able to go in and, uh, fix up those restrooms. The and that was a school request. Questions on that one? At William Middle School, uh,
057there was a board member request to convert the, uh, grass field uh, right behind the middle school into a softball field. That would uh, probably cost about $250,000. Uh the school doesn't have a softball field on uh campus. The high school has one, the middle school does not. They currently go down the uh down the road to the park and uh have practice down there. So uh obviously there's some safety issues whenever you can't keep your your teams on campus. So um the request is for a $250,000 budget to go in, regrade that whole area, probably put in irrigation and fencing and turn it into turn it into a softball field. Any questions on that one? Uh the next one is Kring Middle School. Uh this started as a as a school request. Uh we're
058requesting a $300,000 budget. This is another softball field. Uh the existing softball field there is in poor condition. It isn't graded properly and uh because of that they have a lot of water that drains across the infield and constantly washes out the infield, creates ruts. uh you really can't w without going in each year and uh redoing the infield, you really can't uh play uh you know can't play there safely. So uh if we want to continue to use that field, it's going to require essentially a complete reconstruction uh there. Now I will say that that the budget on this one is our best guess for right now until we have engineered plans for that uh field which obviously incurs a cost. So we couldn't proceed with those until we had the the budget to
059do it. um you know so so we can't be certain of what the budget would be. I mean that's based on past projects. We we feel like that's a pretty good number but um but just so you know we need the we need the engineered plans before we can uh move forward with the definite cost. But if we're going to use that field uh it does need to be done. There is one other challenge out there. There's a utility pole right in the middle of where we would like to move the outfield. Um that could be very expensive to to move that. We haven't started examining that, but that um you know, you could regrade it right exactly where it is and just leave it alone. Uh if you could move the utility pole, you
060could get significant improvements in the amount of space that you have back behind home plate and perhaps get some uh spectator area in there as well. So, um you know, again, we'll have to look at all that through the engineering. Any questions on that? uh Kpring High School, they've requested, this was a school request. Uh they had requested risers. We just priced this right off of what we recently provided to William High School. Uh William High School, we did that as part of the renovation. Uh they did not do that during the uh renovation of uh Cave Spring High School. And um so they share with the middle school. Uh if you've ever tried to move choir risers around, they are very heavy and difficult to move. And right now they're moving those back and
061forth between the two schools. So that was a school request to provide exactly what we provided to William High School last year. Any questions on that? Uh the next one is Hidden Valley High School. This was a board member request to install steps at the tennis courts. Uh those tennis courts, uh if you're familiar with them, they they have access to a small parking lot on one side of the courts. The problem is that when that lot is full, which frequently happens because they play on the same days as the baseball team, which is on the adjacent uh property right there, uh people park in an upper parking lot and in order to get to that lot, you know, people will take the shortest route and the shortest route is to try to walk up
062this rather steep uh grass hill versus walking down and then and then walking up the paved uh you know, then back up the paved path. Uh I I understand although I've not been there during games, I understand that you have vehicles typically parked on both sides of that paved path and that um you know you have traffic on there as well. So uh the thought is that there is not a safe path to the u upper parking lot from the tennis courts. Uh so $40,000 budget would put in a set of concrete steps to connect the roadway down to the to the tennis courts. Any questions on that one? Another one at Hidden Valley High School is uh to rebuild and repave the tennis courts. Uh this was a board member request as well. We
063set the budget at at about $350,000. We based that on past projects at tennis courts and and price escalations. Um it is worth noting that about $120,000 was spent to renovate those courts in uh 2020 uh 2021 during that school year. That's when the project was started. I don't think it was finished until the following uh year, but uh that is when it was started. Uh they the I think the chief complaint there is that the uh refurbishment that was done uh didn't create a it certainly it's a less than ideal service. It's a it's a fabric overlay. Uh and then you paint the fabric. The fabric's made out of like a fiberglass type material. Uh but the fabric doesn't set perfectly flat onto the uh asphalt underneath. And so when you bounce a ball
064on it, for instance, it has to compress the fabric first and then get down to the uh asphalt before it bounces back. So it creates a lower bounce and a fast surface uh to play on. So the uh request there is $350,000 to uh completely rebuild those. That would have to be, you know, you're talking grade work, taking out all the old asphalt, uh, fixing the subbase, and then, uh, rebuilding the tennis courts. Can I expand on that, Todd? Yes, ma'am. So, um, I think you got a letter from a couple of the other coaches. The real issue is this the safety aspect, not in terms of the playability, um, but there's a structural problem. you know, I don't know what the issue the circumstances were, I should say, when they were all redone years
065years ago, five years ago. Um, so it should not be time to redo these courts. However, it was never done properly. And so the polls that hold the fencing were originally coming up. So the idea was, okay, we got to pull out the fencing, redo the courts, resurface it. The court after 18 years of being there had 2-in cracks. And so what they did was they they couldn't fill the cracks to make it playable. So they said, "We're going to put on this kind of fabric glue surface and seam it all together." But it created air pockets underneath it. And now there's the poles that they replaced are coming up. I mean, only four years later. So the job was never done properly. And I don't know what their financial circumstances were at the time
066why they decided to do this, but from the beginning, it was never done right. And it's just getting worse. So now there's rips in the fabric of the the this poly fabric that they put over and they glued on top. And so now you're getting water under the actual playing surface which is creating, you know, more issues. So I sent pictures to Todd and I'd be happy to share them with you guys. Um but it it is it's it's not good at all. I mean this this is a a big problem that that they're having. So it's about um the safety, the maintenance, and it just hasn't it was never done right. So, I don't know what the issue is, Todd. And you and I would try to get to the bottom of why it
067was done this way, but the company that did it initially should have been held accountable and they should have been brought back within one year when all these issues started to pop up up again. And at this point, the warranty is passed and I don't think they'd even even would even do anything about it. Um, but this service should never been put down on this on these tennis courts. So, any other questions? Do you think it's repairable in its current condition? No, it it need that needs a new structure like we need to have someone come in to look at it like Oh, sorry. Um the problem with any sort of repair to that surface is that it would require removing the fabric. And the issue is that the underlying uh asphalt is not completely
068flat. That's why you have the the air gaps, but that that's also not part of what was warranted because uh we didn't replace the asphalt. So, just like when we did the rubber track out at Case Spring recently, they will only warrant their surface if you also install a new subsurface. And we didn't do that on those tennis courts. We just had the cracks fixed and then had them lay that over there. And when I say we, that was all done prior to to, you know, me being here. So, I I don't know the rationale of why that was done. Uh I I don't the courts look very good when they're clean and we did clean half of them last year. We could possibly clean the other half this summer. Uh I understand obviously they
069don't they don't play as the way we would like for them to play, but they do look good. So when you go over and look at them, with the exception of some cracking around the edges, they they actually look like they're in really good condition. Um it's just a matter of how they how they play. There's dead spots all over because of what how they laid the surface. And in addition, the poles are literally coming up now. I sent into like the poles that hold the fencing have now erupted from the surface and is cracked. Yeah, it's not going to last. Question is, could we fix the fence? Yeah, we could fix the fence. I mean, we could go and take that fence down, put up a, you know, a fence that actually you can't
070pound the poles back in though, right? Can you Well, we would dig them up and we would, you know, we take it completely down and completely rebuild the the uh the fence. Now, there is a grade issue over on the side that that appears to be that hillside appears to be completely uh just built on fill. And it does appear that there may have been some settling in the back corner of one of the courts. And um there actually is a slope to it uh back there. It is not to the point where in my opinion it is unsafe or anything like that, but uh there's a definite slope to it. I mean, they're not completely not completely flat, which I understand actually may be uh the case from some of our other tennis courts
071like out bird. I've heard that there's a a slope to those courts as well. So, uh but I haven't seen that myself. So, um I don't any other questions on the Hidden Valley tennis courts. We we think we could rebuild them for $350,000 or so. Uh out at Northside High School, there's a request to um replace the stadium lights. That was uh a board member request uh but also a school request. They they went kind of through their board member but um Miss Green I believe initiated that request. And I think it is worth reminding the board that uh we replaced the stadium lights out at Bird uh through the used contingency from their construction project uh to replace the stadium lights and North Side. So, so we had well we actually conducted a lighting
072study and uh Birds was the worst and North Sides was just slightly better. They were the next worst in the county and u and only slightly better than Bird uh at the time. So, um that was never it was never asked that we replace them. So, we didn't do you know didn't proceed going on up the list. It was It was North Side, then it was Glennberg, then it was Cave Spring, and um I thought Mr. Lynon said that was a waste of money. Huh? No. Oh, you didn't say that? No. Oh, okay. I don't recall saying that. Oh, wait. Over at Bird. Well, exactly. Yeah. Was a waste over there. No, I was concerned that we were spending money that we didn't know if we were going to be able to. But now we've
073got plenty. That's okay. That's good. I'm just checking. I'm just checking. Well, there's a definite differenceion over budget. I was concerned about us using money that we still needed for that project. Sure. Sure. Sure. Now it's okay. Yeah. I'm good. I'm good. Go. And so there's a definite difference. If you go out to Bird now and look at what it, you know, what the games look like under those lights and you go out to North Side, look at what looks like under those. I'm sorry. You can actually see the end zone. Oh, yes sir. Yes, sir. And it's you have like very similar to what we had at Bird. You have that at at North Side. Uh now, so the foot candles at Bird are 50. You said 50 and at North Side I think
074it was 16. I'd have to refer back to the to the study again, but I'm pretty sure it was in the 16 range. Uh any other questions about the stadium lights at North Side? Um let's see. Also a request at North Side High School, the main and auxiliary gym floors. So, these are the gym floors that are actually in the North Side High School building, not the Pope gym or over at the middle school. Uh, $350,000 to replace the hardwood floors in both. Uh, I was able, this is a late ad, but I was able to get in touch with the fellow who maintains our hardwood floors. He refinishes them each summer and does repairs for us and that kind of thing. And he did confirm that the um auxiliary gym for sure is so
075thin. He says that you can see uh the concrete in in different uh places underneath it and that he believes the main gym he he wasn't prepared to commit to that statement, but he believes the main gym is in that is very close in that situation as well. So they're past the point where they can be sanded and uh refinish and and and made to look new again. So, the school um initiated a request to replace the the fours in in both gyms. Any questions on that one? Just to clarify, that's not the the game gym. That's the two schools at the high school like you said. That's right. Except I think the middle school uses uh the the main gym in North Side High School, not the Pope gym. I think they use it
076for their games and it's used a lot by parks and wreck uh as well. But yeah, depends what place. It is the game gym for volleyball. Volleyball. That's correct. And gyms are a absolute premium. I mean, there's just not enough for all the sports. Any questions about that? Uh, Hidden Valley High School, uh, this was a school request. They asked to uh keep their current bleachers that are in their main gym, but uh what they would actually do is remove the front row of seats and that would become an aisle. Uh and then there would be a rail that would be added to the end of the bleachers so that rather than just being able to come straight out of the bleachers and onto the floor, you would have to come down, walk across the
077aisle, and then exit out. and and their rationale for that is that uh you know they just feel it's a safety issue that people can just walk right out onto the courts uh during games and it's this would at least provide some barrier between the players and the and the fans. Uh we did price this out. We actually already have bids to do this. This is uh about $36,000 to um have the company who usually maintains our bleachers for us come in and and do those modifications. Any questions on that one? Uh, I'll just add that that sort of system is already in place at Caves High School. It's not in place anywhere else, but I didn't call the other schools and and none of the other schools wanted that. So, uh, Hidden Valley seemed
078to be the only one, you know, asking for that. Uh, and then our last one is Hidden Valley High School. Uh, this was actually a school request. Uh, it's, you know, this is fairly inexpensive in terms of our budget. is $8,000. Uh that would install a French drain between uh the softball infield and the sidewalk. So the way that one's laid out, there's a sidewalk that goes between a building and the softball field. And uh you know, here again, we have some grade issues where when it rains uh hard, the the water washes across the infield and then washes mud onto the the sidewalk. It seems like a minor thing, but you know, when you get a couple of inches of mud in that area, the sidewalks become unusable. that's where the restrooms are. Um
079it is a a significant issue that can be uh mitigated for relatively little little budget. So those total all told about $2.2 million $2,245,500. There's currently uh available in minor capital $1.62 million. Um, and so I think we've reached the point where the board has to, you know, make some decisions on on how we how we go from here. You don't start those discussions. Well, I just did the last 30 minutes. That's a handoff. He's telling you he's done. It's up to us. Yeah. Okay. So, my my math is correct and it's very generic, so I didn't tie it back in or anything. We're looking at about 736 Windsor Hills, 272 at Benton, uh District uh 840 for North Side, 324 for Cave, and Glenver comes in at a Paul 325. So just for just
080for something to go by I guess and and just for clarification one other thing I know we don't have this I don't think we have this right what's the next school North Side Middle and on the current CIP. Yeah it is I think that's some discussion that we're going to have to maybe circle back around to. And the reason I say that is because just some needs at Burlington specifically there there might be some future discussion about maybe switching those two but we haven't we haven't brought that to you as a suggestion. I'm just trying to figure out which schools are. So it's uh uh North Side Burlington or North Side Burlington Hidden Valley something like Glen Elementary is in there somewhere. Okay. Okay. Yeah. this before we have discussions further on on the minor
081capital, it might be a good idea to take a look at the major capital since Mr. Greenway is tracking uh what we're spending uh across the county. Uh so so major capital differs from minor capital because these projects uh well, and I'll explain why even though this doesn't match what I'm getting ready to say, I'll explain why. Typically, these projects are over uh $500,000. You see there's two on here that are 450,000, but because these are part of the the renovations uh that are already ongoing, that's why they they sort of fall into the major capital uh category. So, there was a uh request, a board member request to um take the soccer field at Hidden Valley High School and which is currently a cool season fescue blend uh grass field and uh put down
082artificial turfs. Hidden Valley and Cave Spring are the only two high schools that share one uh artificial turf field currently. Uh I know there were some complaints about uh the field out at Hidden Valley. I did go out and assess that myself. Uh I I I don't necessarily agree in terms of what the condition of that field is. Now, I do agree that um you know, you can't artificial turf fields once you put them down, you just play on them all day long every day in the rain. You don't paint them. There there is no doubt that you you there's a benefit to having an artificial uh turf field. But certainly for for each high school to have access to their and I don't want to say their own because I think it's important to
083note that this does not mean that Hidden Valley would not be playing football for instance in in Bogle Stadium. They certainly would still do that because uh you have a small set of bleachers at uh Hidden Valley High School, but you don't have a stadium. So So you wouldn't be able to play football there, but you could uh play all of your soccer games, all of your lacrosse games, perhaps middle school football uh would play there. there's um I think a you know there's a good use case for having an artificial turf uh field in that location. So we would set the budget uh for that project at about a million dollars. Uh I did prepare just a graphic to show how that field is used. Uh Case Ring High School has about 40 46%
084of the use on it. Case ring middle has about 21. Hidden Valley has about 26 and parks and wreck uses uses uses it about 7% of the time. Now, that's that's just taking their calendar and calculating what percentage of the dates, you know, the reservations that are on there. But, for example, parks and wreck, uh they could have one reservation, but they may have five games on a on a Saturday. So, you know, the numbers don't necessarily reflect the number of events. That's just the reservations that are on their their calendar, which was the data that I had access to. Over on the left here, uh I just prepared a list of how many open dates there were. That's a date that didn't have anything on the field by month uh at Bogle. And uh
085you can see there's not very many months uh other than June. Of course, school's out. You have the dead periods and that sort of thing that uh have any dates where there's not something uh scheduled in that stadium. So, um, and then over on the right we have, uh, just a number of that that's where the the percentages came from. Uh, I also, let's see, I also have Todd, I know the distances between the middle school and the high school there is rather large than typical. Where does Hidden Valley Middle play? Do they have their own field at the middle school? They do. They have a grass field right at the um right there on campus. Uh we actually built that field when I was uh coaching over there, you know, many years ago. Uh
086the problem with that field is it has no seating. So there's a hillside where you kind of stand back. It's pretty far off the field, but um yeah, you do have a field right there on campus where they play their games. So would they possibly trans transition to that field? I think they certainly could. I mean, that's something that would have to be discussed with the two uh schools, but I would say sizewise, it's kind of ideal for a middle school uh football game. And certainly I would think if you know you're only talking that middle school's four home games a year. So I mean I would I would guess that middle school could come over there and play their home games if that's what they wanted to do. Soccer same thing. Certainly could. I
087think like Mr. Kaggel said it would come down to do they want to do that? Uh just speaking from the as being a for principal there you know there's there's a convenience factor. Yeah. Being on your own campus but they could do it. games, not practices, obviously. Right. So, currently on the field at Hidden Valley, J do JB and varsity soccer both play on that field and are we talking about boys and girls? Like what's what's being used right now? You're talking about the existing grass soccer field at Hidden Valley High School? I just wanted to know how they use it right now. Uh JV and varsity, boys and girls soccer. Okay. and uh band in this uh in the fall. So, the band practices there every day. Yeah, but JB and Varsity are actually
088playing games on this field. They're not just practicing on this field. Is that correct? That's correct. They have all their practices there. And I'm going to say all of their games. They play an occasional game in uh the stadium at Cavespring. Uh like playoff game for instance. You know, something that might have a bigger crowd or or maybe it rained and you know, you can't play there at Hidden Valley after it's rained. So they may have relocated a few, but uh 95% of their their soccer is is on that field. And all lacrosse would be played at Bogle. All lacrosse is currently played at Bogle. I I would suppose that if the school wanted to, they would now play if you put an artificial turf field in there, they would play uh all of their
089lacrosse uh there on campus. Okay. Well, that's a lot of usage. I'm assuming that that eats the grass up. Um, yes, but it's actually in pretty good shape. Uh, in terms of the cool season grass that's there, uh, the the difference between that one and for instance the fields over at Bird, which are actually in sort of rough shape right now, uh, is that they don't have PE. You don't have high school PE playing out there all day long every day like you have on the the Bermuda fields over there at Bird. And so you really only have the soccer teams playing there for a couple of hours. And and when I said all of those teams that practice, they actually just take half the field and practice at the same time. So in terms
090of the number of hours of use that it gets, it's really in in pretty good pretty decent shape for a cool season grass field, but you still have all the Well, and I'm assuming there there is an expense there to maintain it. Oh, absolutely. Uh because you're going to have to seed it, fertilize it, water it, paint it. We actually delivered equipment over there today for Mr. weaver to go and uh air rate the whole thing and recede the whole thing and um yeah so obviously you have those those expenses. I walked that field earlier this week and that Mr. Weaver has done an incredible job between the top dressing and the air rating and the overseating that he's done. I mean it's it's in very good shape and my nephew played soccer there this
091year. I asked him to rate the five grass fields that they played on and Hidden Valley he said was the best. Bodatat second, Cave Spring third, Franklin County fourth, and Stanton River fifth in that order. So, I mean, it seems to me like it's a it is a natural grass field, but it's in it really is in good shape. Yeah, they have done a lot of work. I mean he's he's worked every spring and fall to reseed and again that's you know it is expensive to to do that but uh he he has been doing that over the last three years. So if I could just make a couple comments and maybe it'll help you out David a little bit. Um, so I should acknowledge definitely Scott Weaver because he has put in a tremendous
092amount of work uh to maintain and up and upgrade that surface because it was really in just horrible repair over after COVID. Um, but in addition to Scott uh GE Turf, who's a friend of mine's company, he dumped in free thousands of dollars worth of product, did a soil analysis, everything to get that field to where it's at. Um, you know, that said, with all those efforts and and hard work, the the challenges are still there. It it's just really difficult, if not impossible, to fully solve um issues that natural grass brings, right? The maintenance, as Brent brought up, but you know, this past soccer season, um, there were multiple players that experienced several injuries that were non-cont injuries. non-cont um that was directly related to inconsistencies in the playing surface. So you might have
093the grass or clump of grass, but there's other things underneath there to my understand I'm not a soccer player, but this is what the calls that I've I've gotten. So and it's not a reflection of poor maintenance, you know, on on my AD's behalf, but really a limitation of what the school budget can do as any school can do when maintaining grass. So when it rains, practices, you know, have no choice but to go inside. And, you know, we just had a lot of rain. And so when you're playing a a surface that requires grass and now you're indoors, it just really hurts the athletes and their preparation. Um the a turf would provide a consistent and safe surface and it can be used virtually in any weather. So all those games that got postponed
094because of the weather, they could have still played them in the rain and they couldn't and they had to get rescheduled. So um you increase increases the training, there's more game opportunities. Of course, it eases the scheduling issues that we have right now at Bogle and it provides a reliable playing surface. Just have a couple more things that somebody had sent to me. I didn't realize this when this issue was brought to me when I first was elected to the board is that Pilaski is the only division that's even close to us that has a cool grass surface. They're the only ones that have cool grass and Hidden Valley. So Bird has turf, Salem has turf, PH has turf, Fleming has turf, Christiansburg has turf, Blackburg has turf, and David, now you have turf, which
095you didn't really want initially, but we almost had to give it to you. Um, there's a few remaining schools that do have Bermuda, Cave, LB, and Franco County. And there was a discussion, should we convert this field to Bermuda, but it really doesn't look good. And it takes a while because of the playing season and how it works for it to get to where it needs to be. So the my understanding is that the grass field slows down play like early in the season the grass has to be higher. I don't know if that's right or not, Todd, but you can't cut it as much in the cooler season and it's harder to manage and that the field does improve later, which is probably what David's seeing now, but soccer season's over and um opponents
096will come to Hidden Valley and comment um on the quality of our of our of our field. I don't know about now in June, but you know, you know, months ago when we're just getting started and the overall perception of our athletic program kind of looks pretty crappy when everybody else, you know, is playing on a on a consistent, nice, high quality surface from day one and and we just we don't have that. So, um, is it Valley? I don't know. Is it Virginia United Travel Soccer Club? you know, they've expressed interest um to rent out the field if we went ahead and did this and during the winter months because there is a need in in my community and all of our communities for turf field. So, it would generate some revenue um and
097it would support not only, you know, Hidden Valley, but other athletic programs because you're you're bringing in revenue. Um from a safety and perspective campus, this is really really really nice that we don't have to transport kids over to Bogle to play. I like to keep our kids on campus. I think it's a lot safer. Um and um you know I mo most importantly it's would be a point of pride for Hidden Valley because they just don't have a home field. Um it would give our student athletes a true home field that reflects their hard work and this school's commitment to providing top quality opportunities. I I know it's a comp complex issue and um grass fields can certainly be effective, but there is a significant struggle to maintain that grass field and Scott has
098put in an incredible amount of work and um he's done everything that he can with what he's been given and he's succeeded and I'm so grateful for that. Um, but at the end of the day, you know, a high quality grass surface year round, um, that's consistently safe and playable is is not going to hold a candle to turf, which would really be more reliable and sustainable, the sustainable choice for our athletic programs here in Renault County. So, I'm going to um I'm going to ask Madame Chair if you would consider putting this on as an action item during um our next for our next regular schoolboard meeting so that we can just take a vote on it. Uh as as part of that conversation, we should finish the U major capital uh list, I
099think, just so everybody knows where we are, you know, moneywise. Um so, that leaves there's about $1.9 million. We we need about a million dollar budget to do the artificial turf over there. Same that we we had when we did North Side. And that that assumes that there hasn't been significant price escalation since then. Um so that leaves about $900,000 in uh major capital. And what I would suggest is that we uh put $450,000 in each of the elementary school uh contingency funds. If you recall, that budget was uh pretty small um from the beginning. Uhund I think about 19 if you average the two it was about $190,000 uh as as a contingency. We always knew that that was extremely small and I just wanted you to see where we are now. Uh there's
100about $30,000 uh each in the two uh contingencies. Just a reminder that we have about a year to go and this is where it's gone. Uh so far we've spent um about $31,000 on asbestous monitoring. That's not abatement. That's monitoring, third-party monitoring that we do to ensure that no asbesus is is released into the buildings. It's not required, but we did it at Bird and we're doing it at the two uh elementary schools also. It's a safety situation. You know, we have kids in the building. So, uh, and then, uh, the the basement, uh, at both schools, uh, contained they they actually have a dirt floor basement in both of those schools. And because there was work that had to take place in there, uh, MEP, mechanical, electrical, plumbing work that had to take place
101in there, there was some mold uh, in the dirt that had to be remediated. That was about 23,000. Uh, framing and covering damaged walls. Those were walls that were originally scheduled to um uh just be left in place and painted, but removing the uh asbestous that was on them. So So that the uh the chalk boards and corkboards and things like that that had been put up when the school were constructed put up with a mastic that contained asbestous. So you had to remove that and removing that damages the walls. So, you can paint over the damage and leave it, which, you know, is not what we would want to be consistent with the $30 million renovation, or you can fur it out and cover it with drywall, which is what we what we did.
102Uh, that was $46,000 uh dollars to do the two uh areas that you've already heard, 1 A and uh 1B. Uh the furniture was about $249,000 uh over budget. That's that's the two schools uh uh total. And um and then there was the VCOTA camera upgrade. And if you're if you're sharp, you notice that the the numbers don't seem to add up. And the numbers don't add up because a lot of that was paid for by uh the tax savings. We we do the under direct purchase program where the subs buy the materials through us and then we don't have to pay tax on them, but that wasn't accounted for in the original budget. So we actually save about 5% of whatever materials our subs buy. So a lot of that these things were covered
103uh by by the savings that we had there. So uh my recommendation is that to protect us from unforeseen circumstances is that we put $450,000 into each school's contingency. Um, and then of course if we don't use it, uh, don't need it, it would go back into into major capital, um, about this time next year in August of next year when we finish. And you've already went through that with Miss Peterson. Yes. Yes, sir. I'm assuming. Yep. Do you think that's enough? I do. I I um we're holding to the budget. The thing that really has killed us is the um the furniture was so far over what we originally thought. Part of that is, you know, what the schools wanted. Um if you took that out, we'd actually still have some of that uh
104you know, a comfortable cushion with the original contingency. And now that that's all accounted for, um yeah, I I I do feel good about uh where we are with the with the 450. I honestly don't think we're going to use a significant portion of the 450, but uh a fiscal conservative. You got to have you you keep the cushion. If you can, you keep the cushion and if you don't use it, it comes right back. So, so that's all I have. Do we have any questions or any discussion on the minor capital projects? Anything you need anything from me? Any questions? Great job, Todd. Todd, it's a lot of work. I don't know how you do it. It'll be a lot of work if you if you approve the minor capital projects. So, I would
105ask one quick thing. Um, for like these carpet at Bonsack and I don't I don't know what they need, but you've got it in here and the carpet at Horn and that media center. It would be nice to get that done over the summer. They're very small in nature of what we've got in there. Um, I'd like to give Todd the clearance to go ahead and at least because he's going to have to procure the carpet, I assume, and work on the items. Um, how would we have to do that? Or could we? Yeah, you'll need to uh, you know, just take action on it. I mean, there's some preliminary, you know, work that you can go ahead and do as far as getting prices and so forth, but you would need to approve it,
106which you could do at your the regular meeting. So, so we could go ahead and put those if everybody's okay with it. Put them on cons. I mean, I guess we we need to really go through all this, I guess. Right. Right. I mean, all anything on the list, we'll have to get your approval or spend it out of the matter capital. So, sure. I don't know if you want to tackle the But you're asking about those particular items to go ahead. Yeah. just because they're summer items. Would anybody I mean, can we clear those out of the way real quick before we start talking? I guess I do just want to make sure they were summer items could have Well, no, they may not be a dealmaker. That's why I'm saying, but if we
107don't do it today, there's absolutely no chance then. Yeah. And probably not a great chance that they could be finished, right? They may still not be able to. Probably not unless the schools are willing to deal with disruption at the start. for the start of the school. I don't know if you ever talked to Bonsai occasionally. I mean, we've had so many of these requests that have that have been overlooked in the past or or just been brought up or we didn't have money for. I think it would be helpful if we go through this list and All right, we'll keep bonsai out. We do uh I mean do it. Let's go. I think in the past we've I think in the past we've kind of done that offline amongst each other and tried to
108come to agreements and not in an open meeting going through you know 25 different projects line by line. So that' probably be my recommendation is we take a look at it, talk amongst each other and try to figure out what's best. I mean, we're going to have to because I mean, he's got it right here. We're over what we have. So, it's not like we can just go through and say we're approving the whole list because we're over we don't have the money to do it all. So, at some point, we're going to have to come to some sort of decision. So, could we turn him loose on 22,500? Can we turn him loose for 25,000 for four? Well, 47 deals. About 300,000 deal for the for the tennis courts that were never 78. Get
109something out of 783,000. But also, while we're at it, to Mr. Greenway's point earlier, that's why I'm saying this is why we're going to go down. It may be helpful if we knew how much was spent in that Venton district last year uh or the previous couple years. You would like to go to dinner at some point today. You know, I do have a thought about that that I like to share is, you know, some schools are aging differently than others. And so I don't think you can really go and say, well, this school got X amount of dollars and this school got X. They're all Rono County schools. I brought this up in the past. And so for us to say, well, it's this dollar amount. I think that's why Todd did a good
110job of trying to prioritize them for us. And you know, the truth is, you know, there are some schools we know that are they all weren't built and maintained at the same time. They're all kind of at a different level. So, um, I wish you'd have been around about what, three or four years ago. Holy cow. Yeah, I could have used I could have used you. Yeah. Well, Lynon's trying to get No, go ahead. Let's keep going. we're able to we're able to do things as they come up and I think that's the most important thing is prioritizing. So I'm happy to come back and talk to each other independently and see what agreements we can come together as a board to do the best for Rono County so that we know that that 1.6
111million and needs to last us how long? That would be a question in November. I went through January. Okay. It gets it gets longer every year. Well, what we're creating the audit Yeah. the audit's not completed until November and then after that, you know, in terms of getting it actually in there. That's what she's talking about. But we have set ourselves up nicely with these buckets of money in terms of if anything absolutely happens and especially compared to a lot of other places. Yeah. Yeah. you want to talk about? Well, if you walk around, I mean, obviously there's a lot of things on this list, but if you walk around all of our schools in every district, I feel like every board member has done a good job at trying to keep everything looking nice
112and prioritizing education obviously first and our staff, you know, because that's a direct that's a direct reflection that the kids are going to feel. So just want to clarify that for I guess we're not getting our news that we're not getting anything done. No, we're gonna That is a good conclusion there, Mr. Green. So we were just out for the summer. This summer, I think there might be some boxing coming out from boxing gloves. Can we do it on your new turf? Do it. Oh my god. Thank you. Thank you, Todd. He's like, "Can I get out of here?" Well, just just to clarify, uh, in terms of the June 17th meeting, are any of these items going on for It doesn't sound like it. Well, I mean, I think we're going to have to
113come to some sort of feedback. I forgot I have complete. Um, what about I mean, what about the major? I mean, I think that what Miss Fashani's asking for is that we put that on as an action item. Yeah, I No, I don't have it for consent because I'm pretty sure David's going to say no. I just want to make sure that I know how to set up the I think that's a to do that. I just think this other list is obviously much larger and longer and we're over the budget and so we're going to have to do some discussion over that. I don't think that I mean am I is that a fair statement that we're not ready to make a decision because we would have to make some decisions based on the
114numbers here and I don't know that we're prepared to do that right now. So we got to do some backdoor politics. So the request to uh use the major capital um for the uh turfield and the two uh request to put the the the contingency for the elementarymentaries. We'll put that as an action item. Yes. I think that's Thank you. That's what we would have to do here. Then for the remainder out of the minor, we're going to have to come to a consensus, right? And I just don't think we can put that realistically right now. Yeah. that some as soon as we can, right? I just don't think it's realistic to to go through all these items right now. Do you need to vote on all these individual items? No. No. So, if you
115came up with something other about seven or eight does really have to be voted on if it's at a minor, right? You do you have we need to approve anything on the list that you want to do. Um, but you you could but you you don't to your question, you don't have to do it individually. say we're going to do these 10 or whatever. We just need to kind of get to that Yeah. point. I agree. All right. Are we ready to move forward? Okay. Absolutely. Item 3.04 faster fleet management Renault Countyou discussion. Mr. Todd C. Yes, ma'am. So, the full text of theou with Rono County is uploaded to board docs uh so that the board could review it if you would if you would like to do that. Uh here's the short version.
116Uh we use Faster. It's the name of the fleet management software that we use. It manages all of our parts, uh service schedules, uh the costs associated with each vehicle, things like that. Rono County uses the same software. Uh they use the online version. We use a uh local uh version. That version is not going to be supported anymore uh come August. So we really only have two choices. We can go on our own with faster and do our own contract with them or we can partner with Ron Oak County and tag uh on with them essentially and share some of the hosting services which will save us a significant amount of money. So theou just details um it just details that that scenario. So uh again two choices either way you have to upgrade
117it. One cost us more to do it ourselves. the other we can partner with Ron Oak County uh go in with them and um and save save a significant amount of money. It um the it won't require any additional funding the upgrade from the from the board that'll be uh that'll come out of the transportation budget. So um it does require board approval because there's a a board signature required on there. Any questions about the the upgrade? So does that go on consent then if we're if that's okay. Yeah, that would be a couple quick questions. I noticed on theou 50 we're splitting the cost 50%. How many vehicles do we have as compared to how many vehicles do they have? I mean when I think of we obviously have school buses and and a
118number of vehicles but they have police, fire, rescue, sheriff's vehicles, county vehicles. Is there a significant number difference? I don't know the answer to that. I don't know how many vehicles they have. So this is the first that I'm really getting into that this particular sharing of services. I will let you know that we do split 5050 the dynamics lensures and the global HR lensures. So they host those two products for us and we do split them 50/50 regardless of the number of lensures. This is the same setup. They would host it. I guess you're saying so for us to to me just from a sort of pragmatic standpoint, we have to do it and we can either do it on our own and pay more or we can partner with Rono County and pay
119less. So, uh, consents on it. Okay, thank you. There we go. Okay, thank you. Item 3.05, 05 request to surplus Williamird High School pre2020 boys soccer uniforms and appropriate funds to the school for the boys soccer program. Mr. Travis Anderson. Thank you, Madam Chair, members of the board. Dr. Nicely. I'm here because the William Bird High School um boys soccer coach request to sell um some old soccer uniforms. Also some uh warm-up um items as well as a fundraiser. Um the fundraiser would run uh obviously through the school books uh not through any booster club. Um, since these uniforms are considered property of Roner County Public Schools, it must be disposed of following policy 4.16 and admin rag 4.16 AR um, which states that those normally go to minor capital projects fund. However, we're requesting
120an exception to that policy to allow the proceeds to stay at the school for the use for the soccer uh, boys soccer program. Um, if the board agrees, uh, I request that this would be put on consent agenda for the June 17th meeting. Agree. Thank you. Maybe I should have got you to bring forward the carpet. I don't I was thinking we probably should have put him first so he didn't. I know. I told you to sit there and listen. You weren't leaving us. Sorry. Yeah, it was that. That's right. That's why we did that. Thank you, Travis. That's your last punishment. Stick around, Travis. That's your penalty for leaving. He's like, "No, I'm done." We got dinner. He was going to watch the meeting later anyway. Item 3.06, request to accept Blue Eagle donation
121appropriate funds to the McKenna Vento program. Miss Susan Peterson. Good afternoon, Madam Chair, members of the board, and I hope to be just as quick. Um, we have received $160 check from Louisville Credit Union uh through their um make a difference Monday philanthropic program. They did designate these to be used for the Mckini Vento program. As you know, anytime we have a donation or a grant that is not already budgeted to use those funds, we bring them to your attention and request your acceptance of the money and then appropriate it from uh the correct accounts and the expenditures. And so if it is your desire, we can go ahead and roll this over to uh consent at the next meeting for your approval. Works for me. Sounds good. Great. Thank you. Item 3.07 K through2
122standardsbased grading updates for 2025 2026. Mr. Ben Williams. All right. Uh, Madam Chair, members of the board, uh, as with all things good in this world, this has nothing to do with money and, uh, everything I'm about to tell you is free and good. So, um, all right. So, standardsbased grading is, uh, the focus. Let's, uh, kind of think about K2, our little bitties. And um so um we started this year um in in a uh in a pilot uh working with the first year of standardsbased grading um changes that we we had. You guys were were made aware of that uh a year or so ago. And um you know we've basically been trying to feel out teachers, find out what's working and what's not working. And so we put together a uh a
123committee of teachers based on, you know, some feedback that we had gotten and said, "Okay, well, now that you've started your process in terms of uh of standardsbased grading of making some of these changes, what needs to be tweaked?" And uh so we get together five kindergarten teachers, four first grade teachers, six second grade teachers from all over the county. um three reading coaches, all the elementary ITRTs, some folks up here, only three folks up here, and really let them loose on it in terms of, you know, what worked, what didn't work, what do we need to to change, what do we need to tweak, and um and we really need the help of this group. Um because there's something about working with uh especially K1 students that is just fundamentally different than all the
124other grades. People people sometimes have a hard time visualizing K you know those little ones because when we talk about the the K1 and and to a to an extent second we're talking about students many of whom have not fully started reading yet. So, when we talk about grading and assessing students, we're not talking about the tests that you think about. We're not talking about multiple choice tests. They can't read the multiplechoice tests. We're talking about assessments that often are informal. We're talking about assessments that are also often verbal, that are sometimes more diagnostic assessments, things that don't look and feel like the test that you think about. And because of that, we have to be very careful when we're making policy for those grades that we don't make policies that are great for the
125upper grades but don't work for those those particular kids. So the goal of the the goals for the committee were to identify appropriate assessments for the tricky indicators that we have, you know, for you know, how do I assess fluency? That's not a multiple choice test. you know, we we have to have, you know, real diagnostic instruments to do that. What's appropriate spelling for a first grader versus a second grader, you know, what what does that look like? And um we needed to improve our interrator reliability because for decades, not for a year or two, basically since the inception of Reno County, when we talk about, you know, what what does fluency look like? What does spelling look like? It's essentially made up by the teachers over the course of decades. It's not it's not
126consistent across the division and each building should be consistent. There should be what I call interrator well not I call what the world calls inator reliability across grade levels so that we have a common idea of what should be assessed how it should be assessed and what proficiency is from school to school to school. And that's what these these folks came together and worked on. And they were phenomenal. They really enjoyed this. This is one of the hardest working committees I've ever seen. Um they also wanted to put together a lot of resources for teachers to save work for them to make their lives easier so that they could create these these uh these assessments. They you know use them as common assessments throughout the county and that creates interator reliability. it uh allows for
127teachers not to have to come up with their own assessments for every single thing and um and allows for better quality. So, all of that was going on and these these folks worked for uh for a couple days straight. Um and these are some of the recommendations they they came up with. Um wanted to just make you aware of this. This isn't necessarily something that it, you know, it goes into policy or anything like that, but uh but they did uh recommend that when you're looking at the standard space report card in K2, which isn't an A to F report card, um they recommended that we call it a progress report because that's what happens in K1 and two. We're reporting progress and that progress is is sort of growth. It's not like we're saying,
128you know, this is a B, this is C work, this is D work, you know, we're saying this is where they've gotten to this point. And uh so they recommend that uh you know, that that progress report um to promote a growth mindset there. Um they updated some of the report card indicators to match the uh the new um reading standards but also um you know their own preferences and and mostly added additional ones. So that um on the report card there's more detail to parents about what they uh essentially would be u uh what they should look at which you anytime you can give more detail to parents it it gets more actionable. It's it's uh it it helps parents uh be able to figure out what is it I need to work with
129with this with the child. So on math instead of saying the student will add, subtract, multiply and divide, they break that up and say the student will add, the student will subtract, student will multiply, student will divide and then as a parent you know where the issue is. Whereas if you said the student will add, subtract, multiply and divide, you know, you don't know which which one's the problem if there's a problem. So, uh, so they broke up some of those indicators, added some additional ones, and, um, one of the other things that they did, and this makes a lot of sense, is, um, they, uh, asked to remove an averaged final grade. Um, when you do standardsbased grading, um, essentially you're you're assessing them as they go and, um, and you're growing. You know,
130these kids are growing a lot, uh, from from nine weeks to nine weeks. And does it make a lot of sense to average where you were in first nine weeks with where you ended up in the in the the fourth nine weeks? Where you ended up in the fourth nine weeks is the important information. You know, it's the growth there. And so you wouldn't necessarily it actually hurts kids to to com on a standard space report card anyway. It hurts kids when you try to average those together because in the end your final ends up being uh the the the average of of you know where you were not where you ended up. And so uh so you know it's just uh it makes more sense to uh to take that uh that final grade
131totally off because averaging a standard space report card just doesn't work. Um the other thing that they've mentioned is uh just focusing only on summitive assessments for grading indicators meaning that all that classwork that they do that's the practice work and um you know you want to give a kid the opportunity to you know struggle a little bit um you know before you get to an assessment but um in the end it's the assessment that matters not all of the the classwork the busy work all that Um, and keep in mind we're talking about the little ones. You know, this is uh you know this this is work that um um you know very often is sometimes being done independently and some of them need additional help for that. Um, in terms of the scale,
132um, they, uh, rather than than put everything on a 100 point, they recommend using, um, basically what a lot of folks refer to as a Marzano scale where, uh, we're saying it's proficient, approaching, not yet. That's the report card scale that we currently have. And what they would say is that if I'm using a diagnostic for this diagnostic, let's create a you know the the the equivalency so that this score on a diagnostic is proficient. This score is approaching this score is not yet. Um, and if I'm using a rubric that, you know, I I link it to those things rather than to a percentage out of a 100 because when you're using a percentage out of a 100 with some of the the the early diagnostics, it doesn't always work correctly. And so that's
133the kind of thing that in upper grades that doesn't that doesn't really it doesn't make sense to do. in lower grades where you might give a diagnostic that only is you know five items, seven items uh or you might be using uh you know a uh a nationally normed instrument uh for fluency. And if you're using a nationally normed instrument for fluency, it's not built to be used uh zero through 100 and uh you know might be you know built totally differently. So, um, so that your norm might be 50%. Um, so you don't want to plug in 50 and hurt a kid with a grade of 50 when in fact a 50 would be good. So, there's all of these things in terms of conversion that it's best to convert it to the report
134card standard. Uh, I know I'm getting kind of technical, but uh, but that's um, you know, there there was a lot of work uh that that went into that, a lot of discussion, hours of discussion on this alone. Um and um in terms of the practice grades I mentioned, we would enter those for parents so they could see what work the kids are doing, but they would be unweighted. Yes. Sure. So when you're talking about this progress report and you're talking about the skills, breaking them up between like your your example with math, right? Addition, subtraction. Are you saying that parents would see this number beside each of those skills? They wouldn't see the number. They'd actually see the name the the name itself. their current report card is that way already. Okay. But but
135each um for example, when they send home work, um you know, they're having to convert it to uh you they may be converting it to a a percentage out of a 100, but then they've got to put it in the report card and convert that back into this scale. There's a lot of conversion and recon conversion. And so what they'd like to do is uh you know just make this the the core conversion um onto the scale. So um so essentially if they were giving um you know any activity you it would be really consistent for parents that it would come back saying either proficient approaching not assessed but it would be based on common uh predetermined uh indicators. to be based on common predetermined bands so that um so that we knew that a
136student's work at Burlington and a student's work at Kundiff and a student's work at uh at Cave Spring would all be assessed sort of on the same level. Um, so, um, you know, the the main thing we're trying to do here is is allow teachers to use lots of different types of instruments without having to, you know, convert, reconvert, convert, reconvert, um, and, uh, do a lot of, uh, sort of silly averaging um, and and having to convert to a zero through 100 scale that then reconverts into this scale. Um, I'm just I'm trying to understand what would be on like their progress report them like what are the what are parents going to see I guess is what I'm trying to understand uh let me uh let me show you so the report the
137progress report itself really has not changed from this year and we haven't uh heard I haven't heard any negatives so far let me go to my report cards give me one sec madam chair will I speak while he's Ben do you think we're softening things up a little bit here I mean I understand what you're saying and you're trying to keep people motivated but I also feel like you know that we're kind of softening things up. I think we're doing the opposite. Um I mean, some people are going to be motivated by, you know, oh, he's doing well or she's doing well, my kid's doing well. But at some point, there's going to be a stop break, right? Like where now you have regular report card and you thought your kid was doing well because
138they're getting a toned down version of what But keep keep in mind K2 already has a report card like that. Well, I I guess that's also my I thought it was just K1. I thought two was getting grades. No. Uh this year too does not have grades. Um so that's new because that's not the way it was. It was uh it was something that we decided last year uh brought to the board. Um so yeah, that was uh and the decision was made to Sorry, I'm trying to get to the right uh right report card. Um decision was made to stop at second and go with grades at three. Here's why I think that it um it's tougher. Really, what what happens is from school to school um the the idea of proficiency can change
139from teacher to teacher to teacher. And if we set a if we set proficiency particularly in reading, we're setting it against the state standards. We're not setting we're set particularly the standards created by the new vs assessment. The new VAS assessment tells us, you know, a proficiency for a lot of the report card indicators. And if we tie it to the state, then that's tied again to this difficulty of the SOS. It's tied to the difficulty of the future tests that they're going to take. And it's not making our bar lower than than the state. And the other thing too, it's making sure that Kundiff's bar is the same as the bar in southwest county, and same as the bar in North County, etc. It's making sure all of our students have those high standards.
140Um because right now, I can't say that it's all our standards are totally random from teacher to teacher to teacher. And uh we've done a big Yeah, we've done a lot of work in improving that in the higher grades. and it's time to really try to fix some of the the inconsistencies um at the at the lower grades. And I think teaching under the standard is one of those things that um can really cause some problems uh later on for kids, but this would actually be holding kids to the standard so that they're not going to get to the the proficient level unless they um uh unless they're actually at what the state considers proficient. Now, and that's another important piece. If you if you let's say you took second grade um two or three
141years ago if you took second grade and looked at the number of A's almost everybody would have had it was like A's across the board you know whether they did well whe they didn't do well whe you know later on you end up failing the so let me let me stop you right there because I just got a question yeah because I don't want you to keep going and I'm going forget so I know we're talking about K through two correct K2 I know they're they're younger and refresh my mind because mine are older now And I don't really recall everything, but I mean, we are grading these kids on something, correct? I mean, I'm not just sitting here in the classroom teaching the kid and say, "Well, I think, you know, she gets a
142B and I think she gets an A or or proficient or not proficient." We actually have some sort of graded materials. Correct. Um, absolutely. So, what we what we've got is we've got materials that we've looked at ahead of time that we've first off we've created, made sure they're valid and reliable that we've looked at and said, "Okay, these materials um this is what proficient is. This is the band for proficient. This is how it links to the Virginia standards and all that. The the all of the um the rigor that goes with the standards, they would say this is the proficient level." And so if that's a if that's a 20 question test, we'll say it's X number out of 20. Okay? And and that's what they have to get to get proficient. Um
143and they'll there'll be another number for the uh the approaching proficiency um as the bar there. And so all of those bars are preset on these these diagnostic instruments on these tests. And so when they they take these tests or are given these tests in many cases because remember a lot of them can't read yet. Um when they're given those tests, the the teacher doesn't just sit there and just make it up. Say, "Oh, you're doing okay. You're doing great." Which frankly is some of what you know has happened in the past. They're saying, "Oh, well, according to you know our where we've set the bar on this, this is where you fell." And so it's much more objective. So then why would there be inconsistencies between different schools? If we're using graded materials to
144come up with a grade, how could we have? So right now those materials are all created by the individual teacher. There's no standard. There's no standard for that's one of the things the committee was fixing was the committee was actually working on consistent materials with consistent levels. That was the one of the biggest parts of the committee and what they came up with. Um I think that's really a powerful piece. Um you know one of the things that that I really want is uh you know I I want you know the bar to be set at a consistent level and for uh students to uh to be held to that bar. Now we do it in a very kind way of course and and you know we have to be uh you know understand that
145these you know some of these are kindergarten students but in the end we have to report to parents the truth and if we're going to report to parents the truth we have to identify what is proficient and it has to be consistent across the division and that's why this is higher because right now I can't tell you from one teacher to another where the bar is until I put these things in place and two I also um you know can't say that that we're holding them to that proficient level and that proficient level is linked to anything whereas when when we put the the the parts under this in place that's what we'll be doing and so you know if you went to a traditional A to F system and the teachers simply um you
146know created the you know created their own assessments we'd be in the same boat where you run into a situation where folks just are essentially every teacher is the arbiter of what's proficient and um and if we're going to be providing the truth to parents about where their kids are rather than just saying hey your kids got a got an A or what have you then um that's where we have to be uh for example on a standard space report card which like I said in K1 has been with us for decades or not decades well over a decade but Kate Dwit second started last year. Um you get this uh this you know proficient approaching proficiency not yet on each of the the you know the indicators here but look at how many indicators
147you have. So instead of reading A B C D you've got reading orally identifies produces manipulated sounds phonetic principles decodable tech fluency. The point of the matter is the the parent gets a lot more detailed information about what the student can and cannot do. And that information with the additional resources that this committee created will be far more consistent and it will be um yeah essentially there'll be a bar in place to ensure that it's sort of consistent with state understandings, consistent with where the standards are so that um we're able to provide the most accurate information to parents that we can. Um, like I said, that's what that's why I think, you know, we're not we're not watering down. We're giving parents more information and better information. I mean, I definitely agree with that.
148I mean, I think you're giving them a lot of information on really specific skills. I do have a couple of questions. Um, one would be are are these students I know they're young, but are they being held accountable for doing the work? I mean, it sounds like we're talking about the summitive, but there is something to be said for completing the work, right? So, that's part of it. And I do and the other question I would just ask is I guess why the change for second graders. I mean like I said I know in the past we always had just K1 and second graders start got grades and then by the time they're in third grade they're doing so. So I guess my question is why the change for our second graders in terms of
149not getting grades. So f firstly this that that change was it's a year old but um the that that change was put in place because um we really wanted to go all the way to fifth at one point. Uh I think you see most of the the um most of the research in education in terms of uh assessment says that uh a report card like this that gives more information to parents uh provides uh you know really detailed information not only helps parents be a better part of the uh the process but also helps uh with a more of a goal and growth mindset with the students where they know okay well this is what I need to work on rather than just getting a random A B C D. In fact, when you start
150talking about ABC's, D's and those sort of things. Um, kids start to get an idea that I'm a C student, I'm a B student, I'm a D student, the research actually says that by the time they get into, say, middle school, their conception of what kind of student they are is so rigid that you could change the the the the um the difficulty of the work that they get. And the kid will tailor how hard they work to what they believe they are. An A student, a B student, a C student. And um and so um you know, when you break away from some of that, what you're also doing is saying it's not about you, you know, getting a grade. The grade isn't the final uh the final piece here. the the the important
151thing is the learning that you get to proficient in these things and that you know the things that you're strong in, things you're not strong in, and that we can use that information not only to uh to help you, the student, but the parent also has something that they can go off of. um that uh that puts them at least in charge of you know the learning and and not only in charge of but also in it gives them something to go on when they feel helpless when they feel like I need to work with my my child and I don't know what to work with with them on. I'm sorry. Go ahead. Well, I was just going to say and then how is how are you using all of that information then to determine
152how what you're recommending for that student going forward for the next year? How does how does that work? Yeah. So, um the you know what you're looking at if you had a um if you look at the proficient approaching proficiency not yet proficient um if you had not yet proficient in the fourth nine weeks meaning you've you you know you've you've you haven't made you know the end of year uh progress and you all of a sudden I've got a report card where I've got not yet proficient um at the end and you probably see that throughout. Um those are those are hard conversations that we have to have and the parent isn't surprised either. You know, the parent's not getting, you know, good grades and all of a sudden you're getting talked to about,
153you know, retention. The parents not surprised. They know the student's not proficient and um and they then also very early on have the uh you know, option, okay, I'm going to get my, you know, I'm going to look into additional tutoring. I'm going to talk to my teacher about this. I'm going to have better better and more conversations with the teacher um about what needs to happen for my kid. Um you know, that's really the the goal of of this sort of system. Um well, what happens if you're like not proficient in one of those categories? I mean, I'm I'm just trying to figure out how you're going to use this to then assess overall where the student goes next because they could be proficient in some of in reading maybe, but not in the
154math category. So I'm just trying to understand how you're Yeah, I think that's a that that's a fair question in terms of retention. So retention on uh you know isn't made solely on any one instrument. What we have to really look at here is we have to bring all the people. If we're looking at a potential retention situation where we're saying an elementary student needs to be held back, what we're doing is we're bringing the parent, we're bringing the teachers, we're bringing the principles, we're bringing all of these people together and we're looking not just at this data, but we're looking at our standardized testing data. We're looking at if there's so data involved, we're looking at that. And then we're going to take the prepundonderance of data and say and and not only that,
155we're also going to look at the age of the student. We're going to look at some developmental u you know their developmental progress. And when we take all of those things together, that's when as a team we decide what's best to do go, you know, whether they're going to go on to the next one, next next grade level. So I don't want to say there's it's not a situation where if you get an F, you know, you're you're held back. The current report card doesn't work like that. The current report card, the current way we do it, um, you know, deals with a, uh, a group coming together to have that conversation because again, if you go back to the research on retention, uh, after a certain point, um, you know, it's better to do
156tutoring sometimes than it is to hold them back. Essentially, you don't want a a kid in, you know, sixth grade who's driving himself to sixth grade. um you know there's uh there are uh you know there are times where we do have to uh you know decide what's what's in the best best interest of everybody but um but anyway I mean it is especially kindergarten the best if we are going to hold a student back it's usually best to hold them back around kindergarten because it gives them the extra time to develop and get the uh you know some of their basic skills done. Um, but the chances of once we start holding kids in like upper elementary, and this wouldn't be upper elementary, but once we start holding them back, then you're looking at
157um, you know, that the chances of them graduating going down tremendously. Um, well, I would also assume that you're re like you've got summer school recommended. I I would assume that that could be something that you're doing if it is you're talking about one category that is that what you would be doing to so the summer school recommended um that would be if we've got a lot of lot of areas that are um if if one we're not retaining them we're not having the discussion about retention and two it's the end of the year and we're looking at a lot of not yet proficients then yeah we would click that summer school recommended and we try to get that that kid signed up for summer school. But you know what? That box really doesn't have
158to be there because we would have already had the contact with the parent. And I'll be honest with you, I don't know if we need that box, but it is at least a good it's a good um it's a good record of what we think should have happened. So, if a parent doesn't send the student to summer school, we've got, you know, no, we we they we felt like they should have gone. Um, Madam Chair. Oh, go ahead. You got one. Honest. I'm just trying to wrap my head around this and I don't mean to be, you know, argumentative or contradictory, but and it's I don't guess that really it's that big a deal, but I mean, as a parent, I'm looking at my child's report card. They got a A, B, C. Well, obviously
159I can pick for myself where the lack of proficiency is, right? if he's got a A in math but he's got a C in reading and then he's got a C in I can't read all that but you know um phonics sounding out or what well I'm I'm gonna know what where the the lack of proficiency is. So I guess what I'm getting at is we're softening up the terminology is what we're doing because we're not giving them an ABC. We don't want the child to feel like oh I'm a C student or we don't want to upset the parent by giving them a C. I mean is that where we're at? But you're saying you would still have the categories, but you're saying it should still be grades. Um, is that So, first off,
160the they've been using they've been using this for for a little while, but the the actual terminology itself isn't made it's made to be more descriptive. It's not made to soften anything. I don't want to soften anything. That's Well, I'm not saying we're softening the the education piece. What I'm saying is is are we softening the blow to the parent that your child I mean, to me, would I rather see, you know, he's not really proficient yet or he's got an F? I think we're giving uh but I don't know how we're giving them if Yeah. So I understand what I understand what you're saying here. So So if I was trying to avoid you get to like third grade and now we got a problem because well why didn't you tell me this in
161second grade and first grade? Right. Well, if we told you they weren't yet proficient now. Then not proficient and F is pretty much similar. How now what I'll where I'll push back is this. Um, we I pulled it many years ago, but uh many years ago it would be about 70% of the kids in elementary school had A's all the way through, all the way across. There weren't 70% of kids necessarily that were at the superior level, okay? But they were getting A's. So by putting in a system like this essentially what we're doing is trying to uh one be more descriptive but also I think this corrects some of those issues and it even this this group that came together is even trying to further correct it in making sure that we have a
162solid line in Renault County for what is and isn't proficient. Um so that when we we when we give this to parents um we're not the teachers aren't making it up if they uh if if they're you know counting backward by ones which by the way is a standard I guess that's you know for future problems they may have I don't know but uh count backward by sorry we make quips about counting backwards by uh but uh but anyway if the if you know the point of the matter is in the past you know they would get an ABC for the whole nine weeks, but I wouldn't know if for that nine weeks it's counting, it's comparing or you know or comparing greatest to least. It's understanding basic fractions. I wouldn't be able to tease
163that out necessarily unless I went through all the student work which does come home in Wednesday, Tuesday folders. Uh but a lot of parents uh especially the parents who struggle aren't parents that always have time to go through all that work and uh but they can refer back to the report card and see where is it that the student needs help. I mean I would not argue that. I mean I think this is something that is very helpful for parents to be able to see these individual skills and they're obviously there for each grade level for a reason. I don't know that that's what the argument maybe is. I mean, I think all this is more information that I got when my kids were in the those younger grade levels. But I do think what
164what the argument is is about not giving them a letter grade when we know this is where they're headed at some point, right? I mean, like I said, when they get to third grade, they're going to get grades. Well, really, it was unbeknownst to me that they weren't getting them in second. I thought they were still getting them in second. Um, but in third grade is when all those things happen, right? That's when they start taking the SOS. this is kind of where the rubber meets the road. So, I mean, I felt I mean, I felt like for my own I mean, I can only speak for my own children, but in second grade, I felt like they kind of got a little dose of reality, right? Like, this is where you're starting to get
165grades and you're kind of being held accountable for this. And then third grade is when they started taking on those SOS and things like that. So, it kind of felt like a little slower transition instead of kind of dumping them in there into third grade. I mean, I guess that's my own personal take on it and and I don't want to speak for anyone else, but I just feel like I understand this piece and I think this is a good piece. I think that maybe what the point is being made is that are we I don't know if softening is the word, but I feel like I mean really what we're looking for is so is like the indicators themselves is the indicator proficient or is an indicator not yet proficient? uh understandable by the
166parent that that's the equivalent of an F essentially, right? Like I agree with some point you're converting the numbers in your head, right? Right. Like because if you if you've got five or six different standards there for reading, however that many is, you know, that's great because you are putting the responsibility to the parent saying, "Hey, this is where you need to work." Right? So the parent can't come back and say, "Well, you didn't tell me that he was having a hard time with this part of reading." Right? So I definitely agree with that. Um, what Miss Clemens is saying is is exactly what I'm saying is not putting a letter grade on it to me may confuse some parents or when you do get to third grade and that's when you might wind up
167with a problem. Um so you know I think that um you know we could certainly uh you know talk behind the scenes and um you know go you know sort of uh con confer uh offline and uh you know see what we can do about uh about making the board more comfortable there. Um so can I yeah go ahead jump. So, I do like the conversation you're having. The grade is is good, but I love the level of detail in this. I think it does give the parent a lot more information uh than traditional uh cards or you know uh quarterly assessments. Yeah. Going back to the committee. So, the committee you know already already had this in play. Let let me finish just this part and because if when you go back to the
168committee maybe answering part of what so you said uh setting the bar you talked about a lot of this being off the bar it did that committee or the committee of teachers that we just talked about are they the ones that are setting this bar? You see what I'm saying? Because you said they're going to they're going to make these determinations of proficiency off the bar. So where did the bar come from? level of proficiency and this this the level of detail we're talking about is pretty extreme because of all the different indicators but they're they have different essentially different bars for almost every indicator. Most of the time the bars like for math and social studies and all that are related to more of a traditional grading system. So if you're basically about an
16985 or above, you'd probably be at the proficient level. If you're um you know 70 to 84 uh approaching proficiency um you know below that not yet proficient it's actually a tougher bar than the 10point system is sort of kind of where they're coming from. Uh but the um but who sets but the other the other trick the the teach the basically the teacher groups themselves okay are aligning the bar either to a percentage system which is more appropriate in the math but how do we get consistency on that's what I guess I'm saying okay so they have every teacher would would get a would would get a uh and this is what they've worked on every teacher would get a document that would say these are and and it's really cool they've all put
170they put together a SharePoint site that has, let's say, a folder for um math 2, second grade math. And in the second grade math folder, I've got all the second grade math common assessments. And I've got all the second grade math, all the tests and all of the the retests, too, if they want to give retests. And on top of that, they have another document that says for every test, this is what you have to get on that test to be proficient. this is what you have to get to get to be uh uh to be approaching proficient and so that you the each of the all the teachers using those common assessments are all using the same same essential same bar. Okay. Um, and so but your and your idea to to the other's
171point, you're not going to you're not my first thought was is are you going to raise this a grade every couple years because I agree with the others that at some point reality needs to set even if we used I like the the metric of what you've got here but I think we do need to let the parent which this is a great information I think but we need to say, you know, there is a grade attached. You know, this is a B, this is a D, this is, you see what I'm saying? Yeah, we hope we're not stretching it. I guess we heard from the board last year when we made this change. Um, going, you know, going to, you know, K2. Uh, we heard from the board that um and it might have
172been, it was probably, you know, before that, probably a year before that because we're in the work, it was all in the works. We heard from the board to stop at the set at third is basically the information I got. So um so at the time it's not there's there is no plan right now to go third, fourth, fifth. Okay, that's that that's not the plan. In fact, the current plan would be to take some of the things that we've done for consistency at 6 through 12 and probably move those sort of uh move that focus down to three, four, and five so that we've got more consistency in 3, four, and five. Right now, I think we've done a lot for for um grade standardization and holding the line in terms of rigor 6
173through 12. And I think this is actually a big step towards that in K2. And then the next and last thing hopefully for the next decade that we would want to change would be consistency in three through five. So that's that's sort of the the next piece. Can I just say it is a little alarming that there was no consistency, right? I mean, if if teachers, individual teachers were making up their own, I mean, that's definitely concerning, you know, and there were pockets of common assessments, but the um but in the end, uh, Ron County, and this this is a good thing, and it's a bad thing. Ron County has allowed teachers the autonomy to teach their kids, uh, with uh, with a much more autonomy than some of the other divisions in the state.
174If you go to a division next door, they will tell you what to teach at this time of the day and say this, say that. It's that rigid and they lose the there's creativity lost in that. So somewhere in the middle sounds and I think that's where we're trying to make sure we end up we want to end up in that happy medium, but I think we probably have had too much autonomy for too long. Um we have to have some consistency. Well, that's why the bar question because and then a combination of what we're talking about because I think the beauty of a great educator is the one that you remember, right? And the way they got the information to you, processed out of you to to get that grade. So, I I liken
175it almost to a to a NASCAR race. I give you this car, I give you this engine, now you make it you make it what it can be, right? Mhm. And so I think that that kid is is similar. You know, let's give him the, you know, he's the, you know, the tool or the the car and let's give him the tools that he needs to get the most we can get out of that student. So, you know, I like the idea. I just, you know, I think we I I guess to their point, I don't want to see us get away too much from the grades because I think you need that at the end of the day to to have an idea where we're at and where we're going. But I do like
176the level of detail. That's really nice. So, can I The detail is fantastic. I agree. But the autonomy if it starts in third grade are the third grade teachers being consistent with across the board this is an A that's a B this is a C and then I would say I can't I would say there are common assessments in particularly math and reading and you know in terms of how they grade those how they approach those um they've got quite a bit of flexibility how they use those common assessments they've got a lot of flexibility um so Um you know so right now is there a uh you know can I say that the line is solid you know from one school to the next to the next? There is some variation from teacher to
177teacher to teacher and um and that is an area where we have pretty definite plans to come to you again and work on some additional uh additional changes there to improve that. Uh that's something we wanted to work on this summer. I would say that the consistency is tons better than when you and I were at that age in school, right? That's why you got straight A. Well, that is not true. Wow. That is not true. Um, however, that's also a reason why I mean, frankly, we have so tests these days, right? Because I mean, that is across Virginia in most states, right? I mean that is the ultimate measure of okay you know is there these huge differences between how kids are being taught and what standards are being held to. So that is
178the value of having these standardized so tests even though we you don't always appreciate them but I mean that that does provide the consistency that did not exist you before. So I think we're in a much better place before. Do we know of any other districts in the area that have gone through K to K5 with this progress report? Um quite a few on the eastern side of the state. Most of the large divisions in Virginia go Fairfax K. Most of the large ones uh your Virginia Beach not have that discussion. Yeah. I'm not sure why you asked that question. I'm just curious. Arlington Yeah, in terms of of Southwest, uh, you know, I I can't pull out, you know, off the top of my head who has. I would say most have not in
179Southwest and some that have gone like Virginia Beach, they brought it back down. Like they started, I think, doing it full load K through five and have said, "Okay, this is too much. We're going to we're going to go down." So, I just have a couple thoughts that I wouldn't mind. you know, you know, um I think you probably remember when this was brought forth through the whole K through five shebang, I u was very hesitant and and pushed back. I am all about rigor. I think we need to have rigor, accountability, set expectations. I'm not saying this model doesn't do that, but it does concern me. I'm very comfortable with K through one. am not comfortable with two um only because I know we are getting towards those higher learning intensive years like third
180grade is a major year for learning for a lot of kids with the SOS and so it concerns me uh I think we need to continue to set expectations high and have our students meet those expectations when we lower expectations my concern is could this possibly be lowering expectations now you say no but um and I love how it's outlined I think it's it's Great. I think it gives lots of information and I think that's that's what we need. So if there's a way to find a middle and then my only you you said that you know some kids or students rather at some point then get this idea this self-fulfilling prophecy that oh I'm I'm a C student. Well the same argument could be made oh I'm a three student right or I'm I'm
181an NP or you know or you know I'm an S. Um, so I don't think you can find put a system in place where that's not going to be something that that h that happens. You're not going to get around the feelings part of grades because there's feelings in everything and we're humans and that's what makes us wonderful and special. So um anyway, I just I just wanted to insert that. And um I I've really appreciate all your work on this and I think the committee I'm sure they did a lot and it looks like we're getting somewhere, but I don't want to get somewhere too fast and then have to go backwards. Yeah. And I do like the consistency piece. We've had this discussion before on all grade levels. We've talked about the consistency
182piece. I don't I know we've just spent a lot of time on this. The only other question I had was just is this progress report or report card or whatever we're calling it. Um is it just K through two like three through five? Yeah, five right now is traditional as can be. Okay. I mean, and I'm not even saying that. I guess I'm just thinking that this is still a lot of information for parents. And I mean, I think you could still do this for grades three through five. I still want grades. But I'm just saying like I still feel like those are really formative years, right? We're talking about really young people all the way through fifth grade. So, I still think you could use this and parents are still getting a lot of
183information, but I still think you could attach a grade to it. I mean that's kind of my thought and I could not agree more with you on that because the information is useful. The more information you have the better. This is some information change when they get to fourth grade. I feel like at a parent teacher conference these are things that would be discussed and you know we don't have 100% participation at parent teacher conferences but if your child comes forth and they have a C in their science and the teacher then pulls out a whole another rubric if you will on the breakdown. Well, here here's why this is these are the concepts that they're really struggling in and how is that going to translate to their learning later and how can we help
184them now and meet them where they're at. Right? And you're seeing it not at every nine weeks like you're not just seeing this at the end of the year when it it's you're kind of beyond that point, right? So it's still I think all of that information is super important and you would be seeing it at every nine weeks and parents would get that information. Um and and the students themselves can see that information too, right? I mean as they get a little bit older they can look at this and see what that means. you know, it's synergy. Um, there's, yeah, there's probably some really technical pros and cons that I don't know if this is the right time to get in into that. For sure. Yeah, I mean, it's everything is more complex than
185it sounds, but uh, uh, but yeah. Uh, so, um, let me just kind of, yeah, let me just report on what the committee did and, uh, and then we can go to some policy stuff, some of which you may or may not want to do. Um none of that's going to be actionable today certainly. Um all right. So in terms of gradebook recommendations, they basically uh we've been through that. Um they've created new resources for teachers. Whatever we decide to do, these new resources exist and they're good. And um so the other thing too is these teachers work their tails off. You got to remember a high school teacher might teach for, you know, you know, plan for 95 minutes at a time, 90 minutes at a time. Sometimes it's over and over. Sometimes they've
186got different preps. But these teachers are planning for an entire day every day. They like the resources. They like having a repository of resources that they can draw on so they can focus on the instruction and not making tests. Um so in terms of you know we were just trying to do some housekeeping on the policy itself. So that could be you know certainly something we uh talk about between now and the next meeting. Um but uh but we wanted to make sure the grade bands were accurate to what was going on here. Um so uh the other thing is that the report card descriptions um didn't really match current research. The report card descriptions were basically uh norm based rather than criterionbased. Norm based would be like you know C is average. You know
187you're you're doing an average you know average for the group. You know when you're saying things like average you're comparing kids to other kids but in grading you're not supposed to compare kids to other kids in the class. For example, you're you have proficiency. This is where the bar is. And we actually want all the kids to get to that bar. They're not all going to get to that bar, but we want all the kids to get to that bar. So, we don't grade a kid. So, we don't say, "Well, you all got to that bar, but you know, average is average. So, you have to get So, you know, some kids have to get a C, some kids have to get an F because you're the last kid in the class, you get an
188F." That's kind of the way the wording was on the old system. So, we just wanted to update the wording. So it was based on we call it criterionbased meaning based on the standard itself. Are you meeting the standard or are you not meeting the standard? To what degree are you meeting the standard? So um so that would be what we're trying to update there with the the AR. And the other thing, and this this we could we could spend uh four or five hours on this if you'd like, but uh rounding, we were asking folks to first off, if you don't round, you're a jerk. But uh I just want to throw that out. But in terms of rounding, um in terms of rounding, we have strong opinions across the division on rounding. But
189what was happening here is that synergy doesn't play well with all the rounding we want to do like rounding at each nine weeks and things. And we were running into situations where rounding at each nine weeks was actually hurting kids because if you're at a point 4 point4 point 4 oh yeah and you round down to down to down you're actually taking points away from kids. That's true. And so we've decided the cleanest, most mathematical, fairest way is to when we deal with rounding is to round at the final course grade. And this would be for A to F courses. Uh if you round at the final course grade, that's the only one that goes in the transcript. The the final those those four nine weeks like especially for Holl High School, that doesn't go
190to colleges. Only the final grade goes to a college. So it's the cleanest thing. The fairest thing is to round 0.5 and above for your at the end. And that way we don't hurt kids. Yeah. That way it it it mathematically is correct. Our math teachers will do dances and be happy and because they're the ones who who run into who catch it. Um but uh but that's uh we've been hearing from teachers for a while that that's uh that's what they'd like. So we were hoping to make that change as well. So, um, with that, uh, any questions? I think we've asked plenty of questions. I I will be happy to have some conversations, you know, offline as well because these things are, uh, sometimes require lots of different documents and, you know, being
191able to kind of walk through a situation. But, uh, thank you for listening to me. Thank you. Thank you. Can we take a break for just a moment? How quickly can I would like to take a break? Dr. Consult us get through the policies. I know. Especially if you're going to read everything. My You have a list of policies for you guys. Do you have any [Music] Hey. Hey. [Music] Heat. Hey. Hey. Hey. Heat. [Music] Heat. Heat. Heat. [Music] You can take me. You can take me. All my legs are so tight. Item 3.08 202526 federal title grants. Miss Kim Bradshaw and Mr. Mike Riley. Madame Chair and board members, Dr. Nicely. Mr. Riley and I are bringing forward to you the federal grants for the 2526 school year. I oversee title one and title
192three. So I'll be giving you the um overview of those two grants and Mr. Riley will share with you title two and title four. Title one is our largest grant. Um this coming year we will get a little over 1.7 million. Um, this is an additional funding source of two roughly $236,000 more than this current year. Um, one of the things that you will see that's different with this coming year is we're adding in a middle school, North Side Middle School. So, they are being rolled into our title one grant as a title one school and they will have two teachers and one IA. This does not impact our other elementary schools. We currently have eight elementary schools who are our title one schools. So they will continue staffing as normal and we're just rolling
193in North Side Middle. Title three will be a total of $60,8563 and title three covers the language instruction for English learners and immigrant children and youth and that will continue as we have done in the past as well. Do you have any questions about title one or title three? Okay, thank you. Thank you. All right. and I cover title two and title four. Title two really covers our teacher professional development. We use that um when we provide like several of you were at the administrative retreat. We use some title two funds to help pay for the folks that came in and did some of the AI work with our teachers. Um we use title two to work uh through our opportunity ready stuff. So we do that. We also use title two funds to send
194teachers off to AP institutes so that we have teachers that can teach AP classes. will use the funds to help teachers get uh dually certified. You have to have 18 credit hours beyond a bachelor's degree in that area to teach at the college level to be able to teach a dual- enrolled class for Western here in our building. So, we will pay teachers often to take classes, things like that. So, that's wrapped up wrapped up in that grant. And then title four is fairly new. It's been around for about five or six years. Um, it wraps around safe and healthy students, well-rounded students, and then the use of technology. We use our safe and healthy funds in that for our PBIS initiative. Dr. McClung spends a lot of that money for me um in making
195sure that we've got our matrices in place and that we're making sure that students understands our expectations. We do coaching and then something I'm really proud of is we use that for our rounded uh funds and you guys know this to pay dual enrollment fees and AP test fees for our free reduced lunch students so that they can take those courses without any charge to them. So we use the grant for that and we're looking this next year to do some professional development around AI. Um I don't know if you've heard of AI but that's kind of a big thing that's coming down the pike now. So, we're wanting to make sure that our staff and students are prepared for that. Um, and we have a small amount of funding that we started a strings
196program this past year at Burlington Elementary School to allow those students to experience some things, some extracurriculars they normally wouldn't. So, are there any questions on those? All right. Thank you. Thank you. That will and those grants will go on the consent agenda because they do need to be approved by you guys and signed by the chair at the regular meeting in a couple weeks. Thank you. Thank you. Item 3.09, annual policy updates. Dr. Jamie Sulttus, Madame Chair, members of the board, Dr. Nicely. I will be brief, I promise. So, I gave you guys two sheets. I didn't realize that Edy must have ran off of the other one. But if you'll look at the the short uh small sheet first, it says minor revisions of review in board docs are three versions of every
197policy where you have the edited, the final, and a summary page. But I just was had some cliff notes here. The only ones on this page I want to talk on this group is 2.13 electronic participation in meetings for remote locations. That is one that is required to be approved and adopted every year for you guys to be able to vote to decide if you're going to let somebody participate remotely. And then on uh this is that's pretty much it on this one. The rest of them are just review dates changes or we decided not to make any changes or it was like regular schedule for review um for those. And then Miss Peterson did an amazing job of trying to make all her policies consistent. She likes to have the cross references in order
198which is good. It's a good thing. All right. So now on the bigger one, I'll just go through most of the new ones. These they're not new necessarily. They could have been modified. These are due to generally speaking uh amendments to to um Virginia code. So like the first one, Ronup Countyy's ahead of this in a lot lot of ways because it says opioid antagonist. They put that into law, but at in the reality of that, we've been doing that with the nlloxxalone. I think I said that right. Nlloxxalone um for years. We have more than one one employee uh trained to administer it. That's just saying you have to. Um there is a little bit of new things. School crisis and emergency response plan. On the next one, pretty much it's the legal references
199and cross references, but there were five main revisions. They're granting Ken the uh authority to meet on school grounds with the chief law enforcement officer. We've been doing that forever. I didn't have that before apparently. Yeah. It's good you got all these to review the safety plans. Uh they are making everybody add to their crisis plans and Tammyy's working on this already. Uh what would what would we do if we were closed again for a public health emergency? So I know that Tammyy's already contacted Rhonda looking at what some of the things are we did before. And basically it's going to have to be you know you got to transition quickly to online, provide transportation, provide food, that kind of stuff. Um, in that one also though, it says you have to have bleeding control
200kits in each school. We do. Uh, but this is actually contingent on general assembly funding to provide for those blood um bleed out kits. So, they have to be with you at every drill now if they have the funding to provide it for all schools. But, we'll practice having it at every drill now. Um, so that was the next one. We also have to now at least practice once a year sudden cardiac arrest drills. Um facilities development. We we didn't have this policy, but Todd and I talk. Is Todd still here? And our practice basically follows this anyway. It just puts in the policy that we will follow Virginia code to ensure that all new facilities that are remodeled or built new uh are designed to best implement the educational program. And it does have
201in there about uh all the HVAC systems and testing the air. That's in there as well, but Todd says we're already on that, but we put it in policy. Um you guys now have the ability to um hire some potential um people who've been convicted of crimes if they meet certain standards and then not if they've hit if they've done certain things. So, they kind of restricted that. Trying to go as fast as I can. Um 5.01 01 is basically they've now allowed you to do a long-term sub for 180 days instead of just 90 days. But if you do a long-term sub for 180 days, you have to uh have a PD plan for that person that in includes coaching and mentoring and a time scale to try to get the lensure. So that
202gives us a little flexibility that does expire in 2027, but for now it gives us gives us some flexibility if we can't find a certified sub for certain areas. Um, this is a funny one. Staff weapons. Um, they added that or staff cannot have a a weapon at school sponsored activities as well. I guess somebody must have brought a gun to prom or something somewhere along the line. Something I don't know what happened. Um, so then because of the new opioid requirement 5.38 employee change in and assignment that was updated to basically say it's kind of like the good Samaritan law. if a school employee is trying to administer u the opioid antagonist nlloxxalone or whatever that they would not be held liable. Um and also if if somebody is found but if somebody is
203put on probation it's now treated as if it was a conviction and a finding of guilt. Um already talked about the child abuse and neglect not being able to hire certain people. professional development. Um, basically they're they're putting in limitations on what kinds of trainings we can do and how often. And the Department of Education is supposed to establish and maintain an index of required trainings and it's got to be posted on their web page by November 1st. We'll cross reference it with what we do to make sure we're covering all those, which I'm sure we are. Um, and then the other thing is there's new PD that that you may offer as a board, which we already do according to Beth. uh for kids that work with autism on how to communicate and interact
204with students with autism, but the board of education is supposed to provide guidance on what that PD should entail. Um moving on through, trying to get to the other stuff. Um so the programs for students with disabilities, there's a new uh parental notification of dual enrollment rights and obligations. Beth says, "We'll just work that into part of the IEP process, but the Department of Education is supposed to provide guidance on what that u message is supposed to be." So, a lot of this is contingent on them doing things. Um, so now for one that we we talked about that we adopted earlier in August, student use of personal mobile devices. Uh, the policy we're putting forward is that it be updated for elementary school students regarding student personal mobile devices. Elementary school students will be
205allowed to possess one on school property provided that it's off and I I'll get to this in a second, but the way it's currently written or an airplane mode and kept out of sight during the school day, school activities and on school buses. So, it wasn't currently restricted for school buses. So, that's an addition. Um, I did want to say though, I got a I heard the principles talking yesterday and got an email from them today. This is high school. Uh so everything was going to remain the same for high school and middle school, but the high schools would like to uh principles would like to say that we changed the wording to require all cell phones to be out of sight and not on one's person for each of these grade levels. Uh they
206just said that when it's on them and they feel it vibrating in their pocket, we're all guilty of this. We want to see what it is and it ratcheted up the So the language would be not on your person. Yeah, it would just say not on your person, meaning like stored in a book bag or personal bag. Let let me say I know we're going to get out of here, but that is it's not we can say that that's happening. It's it's not being administered. Well, the feedback I get is it depends on on your teacher. That's what the SEC was telling. And that's something Ken or sorry, Dr. Nicely stressed at the retreat is this is a non-negotiable. This has to be Well, that's that's what I think we have to Yes. Because it's
207like laws are written for people that are going to follow them, right? So we have to address it when they're not. Moving on forward, Jeff Terry, uh, school service providers use of students personal information. You know, there's always a big stress on personally identified information. And this is just we added language Jeff did. We had to clarify whether it was a schoolisssued device or a school technology provider. the added language that prohibits school technology providers from using or selling students personal information, which I think we already were making sure they didn't do that, but just to put it in policy. Uh, and it allow put in language to allow us to monitor school issued devices. I think that's great. Yeah, that it's in policy now. Yeah. Um, very smart. Student records, which I laugh with
208Shawn because we have literally updated this every time I've done a policy update this year because they keep changing the rules. Uh but the main revisions this time is there's a program called the address confidential confidentiality program that parents can sign up for and if the parent signs up for it they they can let us know and that's where the students address or route number would not be part of their educational record if they don't notify us and they're not part of that program it is. Uh and then also when requested in writing by a foster parent, the they can ask that we redact the address of a student's foster parent prior to providing the records to that student's parent, which I get. Um and then we updated the AR to make sure it matched
209those changes in policy administering medications to students. So, the school health advisory board looked at this uh with with Charlene leading it and they decided not to allow students to self-care seizure medication since students uh may not be able to self-administer it. It would be harder to find the medication than if we had it on ourselves or we had it the nurse had it in storage. So, we kept ours. Um so, that's something we can look at in the future. Uh, I think Mike told me one time he was in charge of seizure medication for for a young person. I'm not going there, buddy. I was stopping there. I was stopping there. I learned a lot about seizure medication. Let's leave it at that. So So I'm just Can you just clarify for for our
210viewers? Um, SHAB has decided to not allow students to self-care. Yes. They don't want them to self- carry because they feel like that the majority of the time if a kid's in a seizure, they can't self-administer. This is what the board said. So therefore, finding that medication is harder than if the person has it themselves because I know like my kid has an EpiPen, right? He don't ever have it on him, right? even though you could dumb to go overboard on it. Wouldn't it would it just does not allow I mean maybe they would be required to provide instead it would not allow because what if there is a kid who wants to have it on their person and so their friend might know okay this kid's allergic to let's say you use peanuts right
211and then they go to his pocket and they can pull it out rather than having to travel down to the nurses station and pep I'm just wondering if that language so you can allow but maybe you're you're required to provide the nurse and you can also carry I I just well they are they are required to provide aren't they I mean so they they would provide the the seizure medication right now if you have a diagnosed seizure disorder that with her why wouldn't you allow somebody to carry a life-saving medication well their argument is because but I think I would say you should have be able to have both right so I because if somebody could put their hand in your pocket and pull it out It's like if drug but I do think you
212want the nurse to have access to those things so that you do know where it That's the one thing that I just cuz I had a child who was allergic to peanuts and nuts and everything under the sun and if they had it on them then someone could pull it out and his friends oh it's in his pocket you know or it's in his bag and then so so what I'll ask I'm curious what the people who children with seizures what how they would feel about that did they get information back from our epileptics in the I couldn't answer that question that would just be my only question if you don't mind finding out I'll follow up I'm sure there's more than one epileptic. Oh, I'm sure. Um, so the other thing they did do
213with administering medications to student is the student health advisory board decided to limit over-the-counter medications that high school students can self-care to ibuprofen, acetaminophen. So basically, Advil, Tylenol, Tums, or lactade. Um, so they kind of restricted what students are allowed to carry. So if y'all want to read over that one at the same time that I'm going to follow back up with the other, that's fine. Does it literally say lactate? Well, that's it's lactase enzyme and she put lactate as the example. Say that they can't carry it. No, that those are ones they can carry. Limit it to those. That's not good, sir. Oh, yes. Versus other. Oh, you're limiting it to that. Okay, I got you. Substance abuse program. This is really no change to the to the policy at all other than this
214little blurb that was recommended that the primary responsibility for helping students are involved with substance abuse lies with the students and their parents. Nevertheless, Ron County School Board strives to provide a supportive school environment for students involved with substance use or abuse. The school board supports substance abuse programs which vary according to individual needs included among these programs for persons who desire more information and for those who need help with intervention activities and programs. You support the efforts to help students during the school day as well as to reinforce programs provided by other sources. To that end, individual school substance abuse programs may provide group experiences, individual counseling, and other programs. So that's where that came from. [Applause] I'm trying, Mr. Greenway. Threat assessment teams. Uh, so basically there's just a new provision in the
215law that says the superintendent or the superintendent's designate, which would be the principal, immediately attempts to notify the student's parent or legal guardian and shall provide either uh in such initial attempt to notify through a separate communication that a kid is at high like is a high risk of threat to himself or others. So Sean and I have talked and Tammy have talked. Um the board of education is supposed to develop guidelines for materials that we are to provide those parents. So once we get those um we we'll um make sure that we incorporate them into a protocol within the policy. Does that make sense? We didn't we always notify anyway, but it's now codified. um teaching about drugs and alcohol. Now it includes opioid overdose prevention reversal information. Um so really nothing changed with
216the administration of nlloxxalone. I was just putting that on there to show you guys. We changed the cross reference since there's now uh a state code that requires it. Request for public record. So Tammy has to go through training at least once every two years. And only thing they did here was no longer does it have to be through the FOYA council. It can be through an approved program via the FOYA council. Like the FOYA council could have approved a separate program. And then if you guys ever had your schoolboard legal counsel be your FOYA officer, they would have to go through the FOYA training, too. All right. Mikey um and Kim might be able to speak on this better than I can, but there's an advanced or accelerated mathematics. And this is a new
217policy. I like putting Mike on the spot. So the new policy basically says it's a state requirement for students in grades 5 through 8 be notified annually about information regarding advanced math courses and they're automatically enrolled that's the key in advanced math if they score in the top quartile in the state on their math so now there are other options for parents to put the kid in advanced math but there's also an object uh an option for parents to opt their kid out of advanced math if they didn't want to do it that this is a little bit tough. It's It's a great idea, but in scheduling and and staffing should be okay because it's still the same number of kids and you might have to change course loads. But as far as um it's
218late in the game before we get those tests and the scores back to be able to then we've already built schedules. The dynamic is we'll get those we'll get those scores back. We know what the kids scored, but we don't always know what the top quarter cile is going to be in the state until all the scores come in, right? July at the earliest. So you can imagine trying to change schedules in July. So yeah, it's not and I'm glad you said that because it's not just us, it's across the state, the top quartile. So you're gonna have to use your guess best your guesstimate. I think or what could happen quite honestly is you you go to tell a parent, we're going to put your kid in advanced math class, but here's the ch
219that's going to require and they may say no, we don't want to do that because they have the ability to be opted out of it. And and I think at least in my experience as being a building level principal, our schools do a pretty good job of trying to challenge those kids to go into Florida. I don't either. I don't either. All right. Student athlete extreme heat and safety protection. This is a brand new policy that was created by code. And so basically this policy you have to have developed guidelines for modifying and cancelling sporting events and practices based on eat indexes. We actually already had some of this. We what's it called? the bulb, the heat. It's just like this whole matrix that's in the policy that shows you if it's so hot and
220it's this humid, you're limited to x number of practice hours outside. Those kinds of things. Um, Chuck updated communication because it was in the review cycle. I'm trying to move on down. Oh, one thing that that we're doing on 6.42 A, internet safety and digital citizenship. I give kudos to the technology department because they're being proactive. Uh so desire to have a response plan I should say plan I don't know what polling means polling for or plan for cyber security incidents so Jeff and them are already working on uh an incident response plan because having worked with all these other divisions that have been attacked we want to know what we need to do and who's responsible for what instead of scrambling once that's happened. So kudos to Jeff and his team. That's smart. Yeah.
221Um, staff leaves and absences. Mr. Bradshaw put in or somebody put in. Was it you or Bradshaw, Susan? Was it Bradshaw put in the bereavement part of the policy? Okay. Sorry, Mr. Bradshaw. And then you got several that Susan is reviewing policies uh as we go along. And I don't know if she wants to summarize it, but basically we're deleting an activity fan fund manual and a grant procedures manual and incorporating that information. So, it's a one-stop shop, am I right? Into the financial accounting and reporting manual, which is Yep. She's working on that. All right. Uh, do you want to talk about this the small purchasing changes you made or do you want me to do it? So, basically, if the agg you made sure uh you updated the language to agree with the
222changes, but however, you made sure the thresholds agreed with the county's adopted spending levels. And then that's [Applause] it. I tried to do it as quick as I could. I'm sweating. You want to give a report? Oh, there was one other policy. Thank you. There was one other policy uh an admin rag that we've been reviewing and and you know, we we put out the survey for policy 3.16 bullying and harassment and 3.16 AR. And basically from the survey analysis, there were four main themes that emerged from the feedback. They are accountability and consequences, communication, enforcement, and counseling. Additionally, many respondents uh emphasize the need for parental involvement in monitoring cell phones and social media. Furthermore, respondents emphasize the need for clear and consistent consequences for bullying behavior, uh communication with parents, consistent enforcement of
223current policies, and increased access to counseling for both the victim and the offender. Um, so after reviewing the policy, the current policy we have and the admin rag, we believe the current policy and the admin rag are strong and they do not need to be updated. And in reviewing with our staff, administrators, and counselors, we've determined the implementation of the policy is also strong. However, we're going to continue to keep this in the forefront so to make sure that we remain vigilant. So, I just wanted to fill you guys in. That's good. Cell phones are an issue, I believe. All right. They are. Is that everything? Yes, ma'am. And I would just recommend to move all these to consent except maybe the school health advisory board one that Yeah, I don't see the downside. I
224just kind of curious maybe they know something that I and I'll get clarification. Okay. Let you all know that. Okay. Is there anything else? All right. Are you guys good moving this consent? Yes. And you're good with me modifying the cell phone policy? Yes. Thank you. Yes. All right. All right. Meeting adjourned. [Music]