001One more. All in favor now that you all have agendas in your hands. I am in favor of it all. Any opposed to the agenda? Good. Um the first item was a carryover for title one schools from our earlier work session but I think that we have moved on from that. So we'll move on to item number 2.02 elementary school redistricting scenarios. All right. So uh tonight is the night during action that we are we have scheduled to take action on the elementary redistricting scenarios. Uh today's work session is really to have that last conversation around that before tonight's meeting. We also I know it's been on our slide several times to talk about the fifth grade uh fifth graders and how we're going to approach that. So that's included here to make sure that
002we have clarity around that moving forward. So uh we do have the master white with us so to present uh for our redistricing scenarios. All right. Thank you. And we're going to let him get through the they want us to get through the presentation and then we can save your questions for the end. Okay. But then you're going to have to reprimand us if we I am telling you I am going to. That was your warning. She's got a ruler. She's going to smack me. I swear to God. It's the only way. You're the rule breaker. Excuse me. Please stop and let him start. All right. So tonight we're going to review very very briefly scenario green line purple and then next steps in the process. And this all looks very familiar. Here's scenario green.
003Of course, on the left we have current boundaries. On the right you can see the changes with scenario green. That's the map. Now let's just get into the key highlights for scenario green. There's zero schools over 100% capacity when it opens. And we're going to have one school at capacity out in 2028. There are three schools slated to be above capacity in 2030 and they're slated to reach 103% uh being the highest uh utilization. Uh the schools in the outlying areas, Ferry Farm, Garrisonville, Rockill are slated to be 85% utilized or higher out in 2030. With regard to ES18, it's slated to open at 92% and remain below 100% utilized through 2030. Of course, there's seats available to accommodate Westley Development. DS18 uh with regards to its demographics, 51% reduced, 17% ELLL and sped is
004projected to be at 15%. With regard to ES19, it's slated to open slightly higher at 95% utilization. Uh it's going to relieve crowding in the northern portion of the county. Three reduced numbers very similar at uh 50% ELLL 24% spent 15%. Just want to say off the top all three scenarios have been reviewed and uh by our transportation department and has met their approval. Okay. So getting a little bit into the weeds here scenario green. This is the reassignment plan. This gives you an idea of how many students are being reassigned. So when you see the green bar with the school, that tells you the school receiving the student. Thank you. And so for example with Derek is slated to have 760 students uh of which 700 uh of which 660 656 are in boundaries.
005So they don't have to move. They're already at Barrett. You see that 113 uh they're going to be coming in from Monure. Just as a quick reminder, these numbers are rounded to the nearest whole number. So there's rounding involved. If it's off plus or minus one, it's just because of rounding. So that's how you sort of read this chart. Uh really quickly, I'll just go into ES18. Another example, ES18 is slated to have a enrollment of 980 students. And you can see the breakdown of the schools that are sending to the S18 Paul Elementary, Artwood and Ronald. Thank you. All right. So, moving along, this is scenario one. Uh, which is a derivative of scenario green minor tweak in the southern portion of the county. Uh, we have two planning units 157.2 main. So there's
006been no significant change to any demographics or capacity at any of the schools with scenario line. Uh with regard to seating spaces optimized, same thing. Zero schools over 100% when when the these schools open. Three schools slated to be above capacity. Same as before. Also, the schools out in the outlying areas, they're slated to be 82% or higher in 2030. ES18 opens at 92% utilized. ES19 opens at 91% utilized. So So there was a change in the northern end of the county too, not just the southern. Well, there was one planning unit. Yeah. So let me point that out. I'm sorry. This is So it's not just this red box. this planning unit here which was assigned to uh previously was assigned to I believe this is yes it is now back to um Brent
007so it was at Wing Creek it's now back at rent so those are the two planning unit changes u so I apologize for not having a red box on this planning unit right here can I say something else I missed the winding creek population from 19 to back that stays at Winding Creek. So if you go back to green, you'll be able to see it. Okay. Better the difference. All right. So here's Wying Creek. It's uh 598 in scenario green. Uh let's go down to scenario one. Wing Creek is 689. Well, it's there's the green plan and there's a line plan. we were talking about. No, but he just said the green to begin with. Yes. About 500 and something. Yes. So green is 598 Winding Creek inboundary students. Uh and then in lime, which
008would be on your slide number 10, it's 603. So that that's the delta between those two plans. All right. So So 589 students 589 59. It says 598 and 603. Yes. Five students. Uh 89. It's like 14. Well, this says 598. Oh, is that 598? So then yes, that's correct. Five students. Well, if you go from 689 in green for W Creek to 717 in lime. So that's uh 1128 students. No, I was just looking for Gotcha. Gotcha. Okay. Either way, it's a small number. Yeah. Okay. It's too early to get confused. My apologies. So, you have five students. You're not doing it. Okay. All right. So, let's move on to scenario purple. So, on the left we have current boundaries and you can see the changes in scenario purple which is sort of similar
009to current to current uh boundaries particularly sort of in the southern portion of the county. Um all right. So some of the key highlights scenario approprial uh it also achieves a goal of zero schools of over 100% capacity when it opens. Also in 2028 we're going to have z we're slated to have 100 uh 100% of our schools uh below capacity. Uh three schools are slated to be above capacity in 2030. That is true with the other two scenarios as well. Rocky Run is slated to be 72% full in 2030. That was one of the differences between Purple and the others. Um, uh, ES18 is slated to open at 82% utilization in scenario purple. That's another sort of differentiating factor. Seating, there's ample seating space for the uh, Westlake development. With regards to demographics, it's
010very similar. 51% reduced 18% ELLL 15% sped with regard to ES19 it's slated to open at 91% and it remains below 100% through 2030 demographics have not changed pretty much the same 51 24 and 15 as the other two scenarios so what we have here is gets deeper into the numbers on the projected capacity utilization by year. Um, and you can see what it does for scenario purple. Um, just by looking at your slide number 13. I won't go into each school. And this is the reassignment plan. We see that um the distribution of students where they're moving to and from in scenario purple. I guess um some of the key differences in purple would likely be the Conway draft village very far areas. If you look at the numbers that you'll see differences comparing
011them to the other two scenarios. All right. So that's scenario purple. And this slide number 15 it shows you the differences between current green lime and purple. So you have all you can just look across the row to see the differences between all three plans concurrent. So for example uh ES18 currently obviously it doesn't exist. So there's a not not applicable there but we see that scenario green in um it's ES18 is at 92% lime is at 92% purple is at 82%. We talked about that earlier. That was one of the key differentiators with that plan. And that's just one example. Feel free to take a look at this slide to uh determine other differentiators in your mind. Uh another thing we also have here in this slide, we look at 2028 and out in
0122030. So let's for example look at ES19. We see out in 2030 it's at 100% in green, 98% in lime, and 98% in purple. So, um, you know, all three plans really get the job done of trying to keep utilization down for all schools. Um, and if you look out to the 2030, if you sort of go down the rows, you'll see 103 as the highest utilization percentage at any given school out in 2030. All right, so I'm going to move on so that we can get to the These are really amazing. Thank you. Thank you. It's I mean that this is the work in this is it makes it all makes sense. It does. I mean, oh my gosh, thank you. I appreciate it. Thank you. So much better than the first two. So
013really, how we choose to do the redistricting could have a huge impact on title one. So for example, in the purple plan, there's only one, two, three, four, five schools that are up above 50%. So we could actually tweak that. We could tweak that threshold a bit. four in the line plan. There are six, but we're not dealing with that until this time next year. This time next year, we're going to be relooking at the whole title thing. What we do tonight has nothing to do with No, but I think that that we should consider that these will have an impact later. Which is the sixth like what's the different Barrett ES8 and run six and then found would be 48%. Okay. So I mean it's just something to consider is just you know to
014look to the future too. So I saw that the next slide was about fifth grade. Yes. So, why don't we pause and let's talk about any of the numbers or any of that before we moved on to the topic of fifth grade and kind of Okay. Rather than I just This is 2030 right here. I think this is a typo. Oh, okay. I I just want to make sure because it's 26 2830 and that last column there where you have the per number thing says 2026 by scenario. Oh, okay. What number is that? That is 16. Oh, okay. But um Got it. I'll Yeah, it's supposed to be 2030. Got it. Sure. Yeah. Yeah. No, it's I mean um so so then my question for that is this 1009 under ES955 um ES18 that's the
015projection for what for Westlake being fully developed and Heartwood like is the heart placement in effect replacement in effect at that point? No. So it's not. So we're still keeping heartway at 436 for or 504 on this. I see the differential there. But those numbers jump pretty high compared to the others. So, how what are we factoring in for that? It's got it's not Wesley is what you're saying, right? So, well, let make sure I understand what you're saying. So, in your 2030 Okay. What spot are you on? I just want right there. That one. All right. In 2030 over here on on all this wall, green and lime are 109 students and purple is 955. So, those jump up. I think I'm honestly I didn't compare them to most all the others just the
016other school systems pretty significantly comparative to the rest. So if we're assuming that Westlake is going to be assigned to Hart Hartwood Elementary. Okay. Um but we're not assuming that the replacement is built at that point then where is the number coming from? Is it coming from Weslake students? Okay. So I'm sorry. So maybe I misunderstood what I might be asking it wrong. So, you know, so I think I understand you. Oh, that's terrifying. That is terrifying. Thank you. So, here's the answer. Westlake is included in the current um projection projection. Okay. No, Heartwood Rebuild is not included. But the students when you get to n09 students in green and lime, where are those extra hundred kids coming? Are those Westlake students that would go to 18? Yeah. So that's what I think. Yeah. So
017if we look at scenario green and line, let's look at where the planning is where um so in green and line. Yes. Well, that's purple. Go back. Same. Yeah. So it's the same for all. So Westlake is here and so it's included in the theart number in the heartwood numbers, but it's not included in the correct. This is elementary school 18 numbers. Then how did they get so high? Um because I have some of that with um not Hartwood with Hampton Oaks where we have no construction in the Hampton Oaks tendon zone. It's literally Hampton Oaks and Aqua Harbor and another smaller older neighborhood. But we talk about the cyclical like families aging out, selling their homes, selling into people based on the ages of the homes. It's just considering we're not including Westlake in
018that. So, yeah. What is the status of 1100? Right. Right. Right. Yeah. No, I I just wondered where we were getting those kids from. Um I know Centerport Parkway has a good deal of development going on earlier unfortunately. And yeah, there's some larger communities in Hartwood's well formerly Hartwood's district. There's some some really high growth. The district formerly known as Hartwood. Is that Well, so this this this this area here used to be hardwood formerly. Yeah. So, this used to be Hartwood, right? And it's got reassigned to ES18. Um there are a lot of students high density. High density. Yeah. In that area. Right. Right. Yeah. Okay. As well as across the street. Yep. Open. All right. So, let me get back to Okay, let's get back to the exemption. So, but that slide back
019up and there were other questions or concerns. Is West Lake the conversation like developing or is it still in the planning? I mean, are they actually starting construction? They haven't built anything yet. I think they're they're bringing the urban services area out there right now. They are Jason and John were on site last Thursday with them. Construction is definitely but not for houses. I think for infrastructure they're bringing instruction out there. Definitely digging and Uhhuh. digging and I think they're expecting model homes up like end of the year. Okay. That's what I was curious about. We know that they can build houses quicker than they we can build schools. So absolutely they can. D. Okay. All right. So, we're at this conversation now. We are. How do we start this one without creating mayhem? I
020can start. Okay. Thank you. Uh, you know, looking at this, uh, I am recommending that we not provide fifth grade student exemptions around this, looking at this and looking about what's been what I understand has been done in the past. Um, this does this is different and that this is applying to schools across the district. we're talking about all of our elementary schools being impacted um for the most part. And so looking at that, I know we have um I also looked at, you know, this would I know they provide their transportation, you know, also thinking about well, it would be only available really to the parents that could and families could only provide that transportation. And so um that along with um considering the transition that is already taking place, um I am recommending
021that we not provide for that fifth grade exemption. We do have pieces in our transfer policy that does allow us to consider for specific medical, emotional, and adjusted needs of a student that we can still consider. Um, but I know there's been limited conversation on this. You know, we've had it in the slides, but we haven't really gotten to it. So, at least just wanted to to share that with you. Um, in terms of that, so um, I'll say that I agree it would be if the car rider lines in the garrison bill district get any longer, we're going to have big problems. We have police being called on car rider lines now without this. Um I also have concerns about fifth grade at um 18 and 19 being underenrolled and that making it hard
022to staff those schools. Um so I know that we've allowed fifth graders before, but it's been in kind of spot redistricting or lesser impact redistricting. We haven't done less countywide redistricting. Yeah, but you had like a hundred You had like a hundred seats. So the significant this shift was not as significant. It was a huge county. That was countywide. It was countywide when we did that. But you really only had 100 seats to fill versus two schools to fill. When you open a re when we re, if I'm remembering it was when we reopened Mon. This is when uh a choir got moved to correct. And I'm still angry. How many kids are in there? Hundreds. Hundreds. Yeah. And that was when kids change four times when they were in elementary school. So every year
023you get a new teacher in a new class like rip that bandage off. I I agree. But I didn't hear what you think. What's the name? Yeah. I'm I'm like no, we shouldn't. Okay. Make the exception because I think it's just creates more chaos and it also becomes an equity issue because the students whose parents can drive them are the ones that are going to be able to do it and everybody else is like, "Oh wow, too bad." But those same parents are the ones who will put in for the paperwork to I mean the equity thing is going to be an issue regardless whether it's one way or the other. But I I do know from having had kids in elementary school years ago that fifth grade is a big deal for some kids
024and it is why we started to be which is why it was done and it will of the board. I'm just my my kids moved a lot and it just they adapted. Sure. Zoe. Maya, did you want to go next? Because I feel like it went like that. Not necessarily. Do you want me to go? I would love for you to You want me to leave? Your word. I did. All right. So, I honestly I mean I again I think I've said this in the other meetings. For me, it is a matter of you know the bulk of this issue. We have to we have to do this. We have to rip the band-aid off. get this county sort of write this shift just a little bit. The difference for me and not having the
025exemptions is we are moving neighborhoods of kids and classes of kids that are going to new schools. I know there'll be extra kids there, but in some cases that might actually better prepare them for middle school because I get it. They're going to be starting a new school twice, but I think if we start looking at exemptions, we're going to get the same thing that we got for high school. And I'm just not sure that for me it's it's just I don't know the burden that that will place on our staff. I understand that if it's 504, IEP, whatever that however that is related or whatever, but I just I I don't think I could support an exemption. I think that um part of it for me is that if I tell a school you're
026going to have you need four fifth grade teachers and then people start asking for exemptions and I've got kids exempted out, then I'm going to have a school that literally could could have like 18 kids in the fifth grade because they opted to go to another school and that teacher now has 27 28 kids. So my side is the school where they staying. Like if all of Park Ridge decided they all wanted to move to Burns, but all the kids in Burns decided they didn't want to go to the new school. Do we have room at the building Burns to accommodate the kids who want to come and the kids who want to stay? If both groups, and I use Burns because they're like having a 600 kids swing. So because we've got 600 every
027kids coming in, but then 600 aqua kids moving out. But if they all want to be at Burns for fifth grade for whatever reason, do I have enough room for 1,400? And then what are the other schools that we've been demanding that we need space for? Do we have numbers from the last redistricting, which was a fairly large redistricting on how many exemptions were not exemptions, but how many, you know, wanted to stay that that were allowed to stay. I'm just curious because my recollection is we make a big deal about it, but in reality the numbers have been fairly small and it's people a lot of times it's it's people that are committed to the school and and you know whether it be the PO officers or you know people that have had a
028history and all their kids have gone there and they got one left. I mean, I I can I can live with it as long as we allow exemptions through or waiverss, whatever, through our policy, and that's clear, but I think you would be amazed. There is no way you're going to have hundreds in one school for sure. I guarantee you, because you don't have hundreds of fifth graders moving, right, you know, in in or out of a school. So, I think we're somewhat um exaggerating the potential, you know, effect. As somebody who has gone through this, you know, the the last one with Dr. Chase was the largest, but I've gone through this. I mean, I was in the first one that we did, and that's when we moved um Eastern View up to Garrisonville.
029and and that and the reason we did that is because we allowed the high schoolers, you know, they traditionally stayed when we opened the school, we allowed it. So, so I I just don't want people to feel like they have no potential way to stay. If if if this is going to be, you know, per the policy, at least make that open because we have addressed the policy before and said you cannot use the waiver in the policy to stay at a school. And we've done that because so many people would do it. We're just talking about the fifth grade here. I think that makes sense because then it's kind of like what we're doing for opt-in for transportation, right? Like because if we just let everybody assume they can stay and they don't have
030to tell anyone, then how do we prepare for that? But if we're going to make them opt in through a a waiver, then we can prepare for that transfer policy, right? Should we put a deadline on it? Like so hold on. I think that's a good idea. I I but I don't understand that. So you won't be in that position with not knowing how many kids are going to be left. So, so you're talking about allowing for the exemption on a case-bycase basis or just that's how we have it now, right? On a case by case, not not the totality of exemp not a blanket but allowed to do follow the transfer. In the past, we've never been able to really use the transfer policy because all of our schools are over capacity and the
031first rule is there has to be room in the receiving school to allow for a transfer. Right. So, so what I'm saying is we're saying fifth graders move exempt and they have transportation. We're saying everybody moves. Everybody moves. Fifth graders can can have their parents can fill out a transfer policy. Okay. Whatever. And then I believe it's the principal decides that the school that they're trying to go all the way up to policy is in there. The same policy we've had. It does talk about specific medical, emotional, and adjustive needs of a student. It does ask for documentation. Um I think the other uh you know part children of division employees. So if a teach you know so those types of things. So it has that those types of pieces in there. Um that's allowed
032to be considered under the transfer. The and in terms of students with disabilities our special education students they are considered general general ed students first. So they would move. However, if there's reasons within their disability they can't have an IEP meeting to have that conversation about the most appropriate placement. So, I mean, to me, there's the potential that this could actually be more kids because it's not just going to be fifth grade. It's going to be everybody. And, you know, so if I have two kids, one who's going to be a fifth grader and one who's going to be a third grader, then I'm going to put in for both of them to stay at the school. See, that's my concern. So for me, I I would I would argue that the but they could
033put in a transfer the next year like, oh, I moved from Garrisonville to Parkridge and I don't like it as much. I want to go back, so I'm going to apply for now my third grade going into fourth grade because we'll have space. So we can't stop people from applying because that's what our policy is there for. And as long as there's space and it has to be considered per our policy, we don't have any way of stopping that until schools are full again, right? But that but but that's the burden on the staff then becomes having to muddle through all of this paperwork just for I mean then what's the point of redistricting at that point, right? And also to have to adjust class sizes in some cases because maybe they need an extra
034fifth grade teacher or they lose a fifth grade teacher. But that's why there's a there's a deadline in our policy existing because I you know I don't remember. I just know that Dr. Stmple is always like the transfer window opens on this day so reach out after this day and I'll help you with the with the transfer window. Um and then you know obviously there's a deadline but right now we're talking about when the window opens not necessarily when it closes but we have all that mapped out in policy. I I don't know that I didn't see the exact date, but we do have the dates and we have that window and and he tells them I just don't The other thing I will say to this I think this is also something that that
035we want to consider within the divisionwide transition team that's taking a look at this. I mean we've talked about looking at our transfer window for staff, right? Do we need to move that up so we're having things in line? We I think this this timeline in terms of the transfer window would need to be considered with that as well as we're opening up these three new schools. We want to make sure everything's right. We want to make sure we have staffing right. And so looking at that overall transition and what that looks like, but we could also say that it we are allowing for exemptions that is only for fifth grade. Correct. You could I'm I'm asking because because to your point this was the conversation we had with well if my high school senior
036is allowed to stay then my junior should stay and then of course my junior's my eighth grader and all that stuff and then we get into all of that and that to me will become untenable really fast. So my grandfather blaze into Anastasia school now, right? Honestly, there could be three redistricings between Yeah. But but that's my point. Is that going to be on an accelerated timeline? And that's that's an that's a lot of work. So for me it's a matter of we have we have been making the case and and begging for schools for growth and then to try and adapt and adjust and keep and I don't know how anybody would would would keep up with that. So I understand now the exemption rule I understand what you were saying but I would
037just ask that if we're going to do anything that we would say it's just for fifth graders. Well, hypothetically, if it's the policy, they should be able to apply, right? The whole K through five or just about five. Well, if if they're following the policy, it's all then they should be anyone. What we're looking at is do we want to give fifth graders any special treatment? That That's my question. And and I'm I'm okay with it because I don't think the numbers are going to be that significant. I mean, you've got the the old-timers here. We've been there, done that. It's not as bad as you think it's going to be. And even the old times the other oldtime over there doesn't agree with you. What oldtime? But I didn't do an oldtime. I'm not
038I'm just middle-aged timers. I guess I I don't have a problem with exempting fifth graders when it's at least eight years before your old counting. I'm just nervous. Yeah, we are a fragile school system. our transportation is just getting their feet underneath them strong like we've been wanting them to have for years and they're starting it and like everything we're we're just fragile. We are fragile right now. I it makes me nervous. That's why I'm not okay with it. Um because it's the entire county. If it was just like a western part or if it if we were just affecting four or five schools, but doing all of them just makes me nervous. That's all. Well, and we've also grown, you know, a considerable amount of students since 2019 as well. So, it does open
039the door. It's actually better for transportation because it means transportation will have fewer students transport. The only way they can become riders. I'm just saying we are fragile though. It just makes me nervous just the moving the moving parts. We're doing a optin. I just don't trust anything right now. So, that's why I'm nervous about Yeah. eliminating variables essentially. Yeah. Yeah. So when do we have when would we absolutely have to decide on that? I will still be here in spirit. Give us more money so we can usually I understand you decided on that as a part of the vote for me as a part of the vote. So then I mean I don't know I don't know how to I'm honestly not we got we got a year but I mean we hypothetically could
040maybe put someers out or or see. I mean, we're not we're talking about a year from now. Yeah. But you want to you want if we knew the numbers, you know, how many would potentially, you know, apply for this if they were given the opportunity and and see what that number is. If we get hundreds that come in, then we have a year that might be an easier if it's doz. The families want to prepare for what? But it's a year from now. It's not August. It's a year from now. This is we don't ever do this a year ahead, right? This is the most lead time. We've never done it this far ahead. Redistricting. It's almost like that's what makes me move this just as an elementary. No. No. No exemptions together. Yeah. Who's
041for? I mean, except for like sped and stuff, but yeah. you know, teachers, kids. I mean, if because if we're going to go down the other route, then I would Why do we why are we going to allow staff then? I mean, really, if you want to be if you're a teacher, yes, because that's the law. But yes, if you're a teacher, why should you be unless you're they're in the school teaching? If they're in the school you teach in, that's one thing. But if it's the quote or the affiliate school, like if you're at Brook Point and your kid is at 19. Is that fair? That's the all I cared about was that the teachers kids would go to the school that they're Yes. Educators, right? So like if your kid is if you
042teach at Brook Point and we now say your kids go to Stafford or 19, your child will, you know, whatever the assignment is, your child will still go where that's Yeah. That's assigned to Brook Point your kid instead of your kid going to Grafton could go to Stafford to 19. Right. Because right now I think if you're at Brook Point, your children go to Stafford. Yeah. So if we redistrict then your kids would Well, not necessarily. It's where this the employees live, not where they work. No. Where where they're assigned originally. Yeah. Yeah. But where they're assigned originally, but then they go give it to the quote nearest school if there's room. Right. Yeah. You know, talk about preferential treatment. I mean, is it is it a good thing? I'm sure it is. It is
043a benefit, but but so to go back to what Dr. was saying the recommendation from staff is no exemptions because we are adding two new elementary schools. In the past you redistricted, correct? Not to new schools. We had the existing school was in 2019 because it was opening up and had a larger foot. Right. Right. Right. But you weren't opening two brand new schools and filling those up. You weren't adding 2000. So you No, it was just rebuilding Blanc. We moved students. Nobody's nobody's nobody's denying that. But what we're saying is is that the staff is saying that the exemptions are specifically different here because there are two new elementary schools coming online. That is a lot of there's 13,000. What was the number? 13,656 kids. How many students are being moved? Mr. White, he
044can tell us how many are being moved. Then we need to somewhat divided by six to get the number of average number. Yeah. Uh I'll have to get back to you on that. Right now I just have right in front of me fifth graders but I can get back to youth. Okay. So be moved. All right. So I have in scenario green uh 704 in scenario lime 698 and in scenario purple 607. And this is based on 700. Is that what I'm hearing? Yes. Yeah. about 700. So this is based between six and seven. So this is based on current actual kids that exist today that are current third graders. In two years they'll be fifth graders. So it's just a snapshot in time. Got it. So no growth numbers in there. Correct. So we
045have seven we have 700 approximately that are being moved in scenario. Yes. In scenario green the green or the line. Yes. And 600 in the purple. Right. Yes. And is is that like an average with the other grades? You think 65 to 30? Um, I'm just Yeah, it's just going to vary a little bit. Um, no bubbles. Uh, let's see. Bubbles in fourth grade this year. I think we're coming up on a lot of bubbles. Those co babies. Yeah, that kindergarten first. So, are we gonna Well, we're going to have to make the decision out there, but Okay. So, then the significant impact that the exemptions could have, we're talking about fifth graders and due to the impact of the new elementary schools, what else is it aside from like if we can't staff, we
046can't full fill a fifth grade class, what other teacher has to leave? Well, teacher goes to where the students are. Yeah. They'll leave. We may not. That's what we had. We have no control over the numbers very far. We didn't have enough kids that you might So it could go either way. But in my head is if people don't want to go and be the first graduating class of an elementary school at 18 or 19, then we have to account for all of those students staying where they are along with people moving to the schools that are supposed to be filling the seats that they're supposed to be leaving empty because they're supposed to be an 18 and 19. So we end up with overcrowded fifth grades for a year at the schools they should
047have they should have left um because we could have double and so then at that point the superintendent would then say we have to spot redistrict. Exact I'm saying if I do this let's play it out. Right. But but the only to accommodate the two new ones, right? I mean, and they're going to have over 50% free and reduced. So, yeah. So, are we going to restrict it to fifth grade only for the transfer policies, the exemption? Just want to remind you real quick with the transfer policy is different. It's 85% for elementary school. So when the school reaches 85% capacity that's it for transfers unless your you know staff or there's some other special circumstance but 85 is sort of the cut off for elementary school. So we have quite a few schools that
048will be closed. Yes that option. Okay. Okay. Yeah. Excuse me, we haven't heard you. I feel like I feel like she doesn't want to be. I think it shouldn't be an option. And I don't think that should have really upset about that because like some people some parents might not want their kids to get on buses just because of like c circumstances where like now I have to drive my kid to two different places. Now I have to pick them up from two different places. Yeah. So, so there's some hardcore realities when you become an adult and you own a home and you come into a county. There are there's always the chance that your school's going to be redistricted. There's always a chance that there's going to be unprecedented growth. There's unfortunately there's always
049these chances, right? And you teach them. But we are, to Maya's point, Miss Guy's point, we are we are a fragile system that is bending to a point of snapping in half. And I think that that includes having to manage. So we can sit here all we want and say, "Oh, typically in the past it hasn't been that many except we've seen some of the chatter going on. So, I don't think it's fair to gamble with the fact that it might be a significant number of people because staff has to take that load on now and try and figure all of that out. So, for me, I'm I'm no exemptions to be perfectly honest with you. I'd be willing to go no exemptions if it's just fifth grade, but I can't vote yes to exemptions,
050the totality of exemptions. I don't think there should be exemptions because even then, like if we don't have exemptions, then then we'll know like where exactly we're going to be at in the at at 30. We're not going to have to be guessing or have a rough estimate on how many or if we're at max capacity. We'll already know because there's not an option. You're going to have to move us correct. That's not I agree with man. We can go home now. [Laughter] Okay. Newbies, I'm hearing this discussion end and we don't have to support it. Susan, where are you? You were at a yes or a no? No. No. Okay. Because I honestly now that I looked at it over for the 85% I'm a yes because it's not that many. But it doesn't
051matter because it's just us three. All right. Here's the thing. I I Wait a minute. But I do if I looked at I was looking at and we're like more than half the schools will be closed. That's why at that 85%. That's why I just did it. So, but it's so that makes it even less of a that almost makes it a bigger fight, right? Because we say yes to some families to others or whatever. Wait a minute though. I didn't I appreciate you for saying that because it does make me want to count this going forward to see if what we're worried about is anything. I think what Mr. is talking about your transfer policy. So, not fifth grade. I mean, if not even talking about fifth grade exemptions, we're he's talking about the
052transfer policy. So, if someone applies, let's say next year in 2026, for the transfer policy to apply, there would be only seven open schools. There will be seven open schools in green, seven open schools in lime, and eight open schools in purple. And so, in terms of the transfer policy to apply, if that makes sense. So in order for people to even consider it in terms of so basically what we're considering is whether or not we want to have an exemption to our transfer policy to allow for fifth grade transfers essentially no matter what like even if we're opening at 92% or whatever it would be like it would wave our transfer policy for fifth graders where Burns is 97 and Hampton is 98 we would still if you would right makes it different. Yeah.
053Yeah. Thank you. So the rest of the transfer policy will still apply for people who meet the criteria as you mentioned you know transf as long as schools over under 85%. that sort of thing. But we're so so I think what's also making me nervous is that not that I get that the projections are what they are, but we are building new houses every day. And so that is us, you know, Hartwood is notoriously starting. We're going to be at 525 and then by the time the doors open, they're at 550 and nobody knows where those kids came from, right? So there I just can't imagine at this stage of the game us trying to balance play a balancing act with all of that plus allowing whatever. So, hypothetically, I I mean, I know I'm
054on the losing side here, but just facts to consider. Hypothetically, if somebody transfers in, is very likely somebody's going to be transferring out. Sure. So, when you have all these new homes going up, but that's why we have an opening date and a closing date for the transfer window. They won't they won't have they wouldn't be in the school to be requesting the the transfer. That's correct. But but but if those kids are trans or those kids are requesting to stay and they're staying there, then when these houses are coming up and those kids are coming in, there's those aren't extra seats anymore. If we're dealing with fifth graders, we're talking about one year and then they're out. One year and they're done, right? Could be a very long year. What's your advocacy? Okay, besides
055from that, tell me another reason why we should let you know have them be exempted. What's What's the other reason? Well, to me the main reason is just some kids like we have we have kids who are here from the military who've already moved half a dozen times and they would just like to let their kid finish and in some cases so let's take a look at at Old Forge if we go with the lime plan. Old Forge is going to move to Rocky Run but their middle school is true. So they will be going away from everybody that they have been with for one year and then go back and so building those new relationships. So I mean I just think parents should be able to to do that if they want to do.
056I don't think it'll be many but I think I mean yeah but from like personal experience I mean I'm a junior and I've I have not stayed at a high school more than a year. I've lived in three different states and I've my freshman year was in Missouri, my sophomore year was in Idaho. I'm I'm a junior here in Virginia and I feel like it's created a lot of character development because it's had to put me through and it's not even just high school. Like I was at like four different elementary schools growing up. I went to two different middle schools. Like it's but not every but not every child is you, right? You need to be aware that there are children who have very different experiences and very different needs. And emotionally it could
057be very very hard for them. Right. I know I was I was homeless my freshman year. Like I understand that it's different for everybody. But it's had to put me into an uncomfortable position and had to help me figure out how to get uncomfortable and how to get comfortable and how to be able to navigate that at such a young age. And I feel like I get that military kids, they move around a lot, but this is going to prepare them for life. And it's not the end of the world if it's just a year if they get moved. It's not the end of the world. We're making exceptions for special needs, too. We're so if the parents come in and say, "Look, this is the situation and I don't think my kid can handle
058this." So, are we saying that we're going to change the policy for the year for fifth graders to apply even if this school is over 85% capacity? I think that there's an app isn't there an appeal to the policy because even now like all of our schools are closed but we have had some pretty extreme circumstances that have required children to be moved that we have very rare but we're also not going to be as full as we are now. So I think be if we're able to find room in schools that are over 100% capacity for extreme situations and I think that's kind of what you guys are talking about like 85% capacity we need to then we need to say something about the policy will be held differently for next year because the
059policy I I regularly hear from parents talking to me about I have been denied because of the policy. So then I would like to know how we like if we are well that's why there is no way those extraordinary exemptions from what I'm hearing are 504 IEP like extreme you know documents or or some of our other stuff like you know I know you all want to decide this tonight but we have a year before we're even talking about the school being built. Is there a way we can run this by your PTO, PTA, PTSA advisory committee? Um, run it by your parent advisory committee. I those are the people that I'm thinking of because they could be directly affected. We all know some of these schools I'm sure they are, but I will say
060we should we shouldn't govern for the 5% when we shouldn't make rules for the 100% based off of the 5%. that I was on PTO 15 straight years at three schools. I'm a PTO mom till I die. But I will say that's governing off of that small body of people for for everyone. But their advisory committees, are they not advising for the entire school? No. No, you don't think so. But I also think it's a subset of awesome amazing people, parents who do above and beyond free labor. So it is free labor. I love them. I am one of them policy. like that's this has to do with an existing schoolboard policy that's already in place all kinds of things and if we're allow if we're going to allow the exemptions for it and I
061I mean we can argue it all day long I guess and go back and forth about what's better I mean I I agree with Lily and I think you're right I think there we have phenomenal supports in place in every one of our schools so I can't imagine that anyone if we're allowing for exemptions on those particular things where we have documented like there's a documented medical need for it, then then that's great. I think at this point in the game, this we're at a point in our county's life cycle where we have to make a change and it's a pain point. It's a pressure point, but we can't make it harder on our staff. Sorry. I apologize. Sorry, I didn't hear what you said. Good. You don't want to. So, can you please explain
062to me that because I haven't done this since I've been on the board. What is the process of appealing after the principal says no? What do the parents do and who and you said it comes to the principal has no eventually he has somebody he has assigned the job to Dr. Stimple I think so Dr. Temple is the one that reviews that. Um he's not with us tonight. He's um of course he's not uh short timer. Um but yeah, so he does review those those appeals come. They have to be reviewed within 30 days and we do give that decision in terms of that and he's him and I have gone through this several times in terms of looking at open versus closed schools and how the criteria applies and then they even if they're
063closed there can be an extreme hardship and how do we look at that and and what does that look like? So it really is on a case by case basis. So everyone who applies for the So if we do no fifth grade exemptions, but you have the opportunity to follow a transfer policy if if you want to go that route is what we're saying. Yes, that's what I would recommend. But then that would be for all kids. That would not that's But that policy is so restrictive. It's not going to apply to 99% of them still. Just keeping that in mind. So you might as well just say no because they can always apply for the policy but the policy requirements are very strict for a reason. I don't disagree with the policy but it's
064it's it seems you can go back and look at the policy over the next year. Well I'm I I'm still in this triangle trust here with the three. I'm going to trust that it's not going to blow anything up. But you know we're three and they're four. Yep. Unless I can bring any one of y'all over to the dark side. No, no. The light the light side. The light side. It might got to be nice. I'm just saying I was going to say dark side. Okay. Okay. Yeah. Can I change seats? No, it's cold over there. And you make me move. I mean, do we call it I mean, can we call it for a vote so we can move on? I mean, we have to wait a minute. Don't don't vote too early. You
065might I think we've got a sense of where everybody stands right now and we have some time to ruminate over it. I I don't think that our our policy is so rigid that that if there's a true reason. Can you pull the policy up there? Because you're going to see that policy. You have to have certification wasn't reading it. But hello. We have 19 schools now and I'm just really concerned about how the logistics of that look and the impact it has on staff because staff has to deal with it and and I'm just I think honestly like we can make a decision and we will hear from the public or we won't and that'll tell us how it goes and then when you have a year we can undo it or change the policy.
066If we hear from a lot of if there's something that we haven't discussed, we can revisit it. But I think it's best to make Yes. Either way. Okay. Are we going to bring No, it's not just so we can start talking about 2.0. 03 proposed amendments to the legislative committee charter and potential dates for the 2025 legislative summit. All right. May have Miss Bo right here with us as we there's been lots of conversations. There's been lots of conversations around a new legislative committee. Uh this has been discussed in FAB C and in governance coming to you tonight to take a look at Excuse me, Miss Haley. Ladies, Miss Hilly, Miss Hall. Okay, we're actually going to pause because lunch has already been or dinner has already been set up. I like lunch. I thought
067lunch was good. It made my day. All right, let's take like a 10-minute break. Grab our plate and then finish so we can actually work when we get back to this 10 minutes. this high school year with the Koka, but maybe it's coming. So, um I think it's time to launch a more comprehensive program. I think that we're at that point. So to that end, we'll um talk briefly just about the legislative committee, um a proposed legislative activities timeline, the legislative debrief, which we're having at the end of the month, and our legislative summit. Wrong way. So the legislative committee is one of the board standing committees. Oh, let's see. I'm trying to like open this. Go ahead. Okay. All right. So, this is a standing committee that last met in 2019. So, it's been
068pretty dormant um since then. So, the um governance committee back in April reviewed this charter. And in terms of structure and form, it's it's been structured so that it matches the other standing committee um charters. So um it is on the consent agenda for review tonight. The proposed um composition does ensure that we have governance and FAB C representation with the third member being chosen at large by the board. Doesn't one of them have to be chair vice chair? I thought it should be chair or vice chair but I I mean Okay. Um and one of the big jobs of this committee will be to develop the legislative advocacy program as directed by the full board. Okay. So that is on board. It says one chair. Let me make sure I can what does it
069say? Nothing. I just skimmed it. They will have a chair like regular structure but I was skimming. Okay. So, here is a draft um legislative activities timeline and and it is in your notes, but it um does give a 12 month overview of the various legislative activities. So, I'll try to open it here for you. Okay. So, it does give a 12-month overview of the various legislative activities and um in order to continue the board's momentum, it is important to continually engage in legislative efforts throughout the year. So, the draft contains some BSBA events and deadlines, some legislative committee meetings along with their purpose, and the general assembly dates for pre-filing and for the session dates. Note that for this school year, um well, for 2026, the um general assembly session is the long session.
070So, it's 60 days. I'm trying to get back to But even that days just following the election can go by really fast. That one right there. This one. Okay. Thank you, Bissy. So, here are some of the important dates that I've just highlighted. So, you'll see some of the BSBA dates and the school board legislative summit which is scheduled for November 12th. Lisa, it might be helpful if we had a a legislative debrief on the BSBA positions even if it's a memo because every year we look at it. We send in comments, but we never really hear anything back. Okay. So, I mean, just it's almost like a report. It'd be good to know, you know, we asked for this, they did this or Yeah. I mean, I think in general with the SBA, we
071are so we aren't really involved with I mean, you have to be early early with the SBA getting. So, that's one of the things that we are looking at doing. And at the governance meeting next week, um there will be some talking points about some proposed changes to the BSCA legislative priorities. That's the first time we've done that, right? And so we do have it also scheduled for June to put it on the board's agenda so that we can have a say um in that because those additions or changes are due to BSBA by June 16th. Yes, they are. And then can you also incorporate the timeline? I know that there's a second timeline for stuff that they adopt that we don't agree with because we have to take action to disagree with anything that
072in September and we have to do that in our public meeting so that BSBA knows that we're not included in any correct. And then we send the delegate to the convention and the delegate assembly votes on the proposed positions for 2026. in the delegate assembly, you can say, you know, we I can't support this because my board, you know, typically typically they're pretty much generic things that would benefit any school in the Commonwealth. Um I don't and I think there have been things that we've disagreed with, right? But I think like electric school buses and stuff like that. I mean, yeah, I'm just saying if we're going to take the time to agree, it would be good to know right the final outcome was and that final document is pretty long, but that is a
073good idea. So, for the first time, we're having a legislative debrief scheduled for the um end of this month where Rodney Thompson Library. Is that [Music] Yeah, that shouldn't work. Why was it? Why was that? Okay, so I'm just asking. I close to my house. So, we looked at availability. We also were trying to check see everybody's schedules, looked at legislator schedules, who could attend, and what works best for everybody. No, I was wondering the location. Oh, the location. Yeah, just I'm just asking just like you going to show them off the floor and that's not working for you. probably were off limits because of graduation setup. Oh yeah. Yeah. Okay. Those are all makes sense. So, but this debrief will give the board the opportunity to review the 2025 general assembly session with our
074local delegation to hear about some of their priorities for 2026 and to possibly introduce some of your individual ideas that you have for 2026 to kind of get their read on it. So, that would be um certainly help. They all RSVP. that they're coming. We have RCPs from three of the five that they can attend and then the other two we've asked them to send representation, right? So they may send like their chief staff for and our legislative summit is scheduled for November 12th at Mountain View High School. This is after the election on November 4th. Um this still with this date still gives us time to work with the local delegation to pre-file bills. The pre-f filing session begins on November 17th and that's a great time to work out any kinks that we
075have with it to form any types of alliances. What I found in the past is that invariably you're going to have somebody who is going to object to something in a proposed bill. So if you can form an alliance with them and do some compromising, that's how we got a couple of our bills passed last year. Is that Yeah, just basically worked with some of the other organizations. And I noticed we moved it to morning. Is that was that better using an AM time versus a PM? Yeah. Okay. Just we've always done PM so I didn't know. So that that's the earliest we've ever met. I'm just going to put it out there in Stafford. That's the earliest, not am. Well, the problem is that we get 60% of our funding from the state, about
07638% of our funding from the county. So, we need to be proactive with the legislator. Yeah. I mean, and I will tell you that our local delegation have said that one of the things that they like about staffer is that we will draft our own bills. So, it makes it so much easier for them to Exactly. and they don't have to go through the legislative services to go, how do we make this happen? So, we think about that in advance and we do it for them. So, at least there's something to start with and something for them to pre-file. Agreed. Excuse me. Asking for a friend, not myself. It's not a chopper girl question. Are y'all going to serve food? There's always food. Someone asked someone asked me to ask. There's always food. And if
077I had to guess, I'm just guessing it's November 12th. It would seem like the Mountain View Killer Arts program would be my boat. Just putting that out there. Okay. French toast. I heard you, Dr. Jason. I'm hoping the chef is watching this. So, that's it. Yes, ma'am. Do we have any questions about anything? So, it was kind of short, sweet. And just for the record, we will choose membership amongst the board when we over the summer when we do FAPS and governance. Um so we'll do all three will be you know a July 1st to June 30th. So we decided our June meeting I think. So is that am I correct? The June meeting. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Then over it'll come back for action consent. Okay. All right. Thank you. Thank you Lisa. Thank you.
078You know what? That's so You should all be thinking about committee assignments for the June meeting. And if you'd like to change, if you need to change, if you are interested in the committee, please let me or Maya know and we will compare notes and make sure everything's staffed appropriately. Is Miss Killy on a committee at all this year? Yes, she's on governance. Okay, Alyssa's out right now. Okay. So, we put Alyssa back. So, Alyssa is the slacker. Okay, she can go to legislative. Yeah, you're right. You ready for the next one? Yes. Yeah. All right. So, the next item that we have is the Commonwealth Governor School Program overview. So, Dr. Robertson is here with us and I believe Dr. Amahro. Yes. Let me see. She might be in the in the bullpen. Um,
079and so, you know, I think the last time we talked about this in a work session, we were we're kind of rushed at the end, right? We we wanted to bring it forth to you. Uh, we recommended that we come back and give you a program overview uh to get more board direct to get board direction if you'd like us to bring back uh options, pros and cons around a consolidation. Um and so the intent of this is really justformational tonight or today just to give you an overview of our Commonwealth Governor School program. Um and so Dr. Alejandro is our executive director of Commonwealth Governor School. You know Dr. Robertson our executive director. Welcome. Thank you. All right. So um we previously shared a memo kind of detailing this information but we thought it
080would be best to walk things through in the form of a presentation just in I think yeah do you want to do introductions again for Dr. I think we're good. Okay. All right. Um, so again, this is just an overview of the Commonwealth Governor School here in region three. We currently have six sites across uh four divisions, Carolina, King, George, Spsylvania, and Stafford. Um, in terms of the curriculum, um, the Governor School offers a gifted program, uh, with honors dual enrollment as well as AP coursework. Um the teachers do share in instructional planning as well as teaching. So that's the the model that um is being utilized. It is a half-day program um that also includes other key components such as instructional broadcast, field experiences, crosscurricular learning, and a 4-year culminating research project. So um
081in terms of how the the program uh developed here, Stafford High School served as the original host uh site. Um Colonial Forge and Stafford students um of course attend their base uh CGS school. They do not have to travel. A Mountain View and Brook Point um have a history of school um transfers back and forth depending upon what site they would attend. In the 23 24 school year, students were asked to transfer full-time to um a CGS site. In terms of the admissions process, it is merit-based with consideration for proximity of where students live to the site as well as site availability. Um those factors influencing admission. Our current Stafford CGS sites are Forge North and Stafford High School. And we currently have students at um that are 12th graders that are still in the
082transfer process. So they have half of day travel. Yes. They have half day at their base school as well as the half day at one of the sites. So is it just seniors? I thought it was seniors and juniors that are for next year will be seniors forward. Thank you. Oh, you want to talk about but our goal is that our students who attend to CPS will attend the school where this the site the school they'll be full-time students be full-time students we're just still agent so right now we're still transferring people but we're going to stop doing it yes okay so I can speak to the staffing models if you'd like so um King George and specifically Spennsylvania has established a matrix that we'll share with you shortly um it's a structured formula for
083the teaching assignments, seeing how uh they have an assignment to CGS as well as if they have a mix of CGS or main school classes and we'll share that with you how that structure works. King George also follows that structure. When there was uh an evaluation of the program several years ago for Stafford, it was identified that they did not have a specific staffing model for this. However, they generally follow that staffing model. And then also they assign an additional 2.0 FTEES to allow for the fact that if you are a principal and you are trying to schedule for your high school, you will lose two sections worth of a teacher for every CGS student or every CGS teacher that you you are utilizing. So that compensates for that. Um, and we do across all
084of our sites have various CGS teaching loads. So, sometimes we have a teacher teaching one section of CGS and then three to the school. Sometimes we have teachers teaching four CGS courses. It just depends by site based on um, as you can see the principal assigning the teacher complement to their schools. Are the principles also assigning at the other schools too? They are. Yes, ma'am. Are there class minimums? Possible minimums. So, so what we have is a a pupil teacher ratio for all of our courses if you think of it that way. So, we have 30 students generally admitted for each cohort at each site across all six divisions. King George actually only has 25 generally that they admit. Um, and so in most of the courses then that would be a 30 to1 student
085um pupil teacher ratio for each course that they have. However, at our math courses, that diverges for 10th, 11th, and 12th grade. And we have two offerings for math. So then that creates a pupil teacher ratio of 15 to1. Um, now that's going to be an average. So you might have 5:1 in one class and 25 to one in another class, but that's the average people ratio will be 15 to1. Um, we have looked there is no minimum staffing or minimum um enrollment number, just a ratio. Yeah, I'm just asking because it's been brought to, you know, the board's attention recently that it's created um some other classes breaking situations for some classes because we we are now strictly enforcing the 15 student minimum. So, if you don't have 15 enrolled in a class, you
086can't have a class. Well, that's for our main school. That doesn't Oh, I know. CJS is special. Is there CGS is special? We have a we actually have a staffing ratio based on CDS has always been special. But that's okay because it's CGS. But I'm just asking because they're a school within a school, but then our policy does not apply to CGS and we have and they do their best to maximize. My daughter was in one of those math classes that was like a five to one, but then that teacher was also supervising some online students who were like we had a kid come in that wasn't in the program in freshman year, so she had a completely different pathway. Um, so she took a class on egeneuity but in the same classroom as the
087five kid math class. So we do try to utilize every opportunity to maximize the number of students actually assigned to a classroom. So my child is taking an enuity class now. She sits in a library with other kids taking a variety of egeneuity. So instead of sending CGS up to the library for example um they are being monitored by a CGS faculty and my point only was you know my question was so I knew does a different policy apply to CGS and the answer is yes that's it follows our memorandum of understanding that we have through our bylaws and our joint agreements. And okay, that's when did we review that recently or in the process? Yeah, we did that. This 15 rule has probably always been in place, but it's never been strictly enforced to
088my knowledge. At least apparent not in in Yes. the the art program and the German program. We've been hearing from parents like the art this was an effort against don't respect CGS, but this is an effort for to support our principles in and staffing more efficiently based on the staffing aotment that they are given and to make sure that we meet state standards for classes like the English and our CTE OSHA requirements for those classes. Um, again, just to make sure we're we're using staffing efficiently. I think historically we've had classes run at very small numbers outside of CGS at the expense of let's say an English course where you've got 28 30 students but you're running a class of well some you know some elective and there's only like five or six kids. So,
089the um the suggested PTR, if you will, I do want to phrase it that way because there are special circumstances if we're looking at a CT completer course where we want to make sure students get their graduation requirement where we may run a class. But yes, we do work closely with Dr. Aandro, the principal student, to see if there's an opportunity if the schedules match up to merge classes where we can. And we'll talk about that a little later. Did you go through the whole thing? No. there we go. Okay, so this is an example and this uh is a the model that is utilized by Spsylvania that they developed uh as late as 2012. Um and so on the left hand side you'll see that that's the teaching assignment. So in the lefth hand
090column, the first row would be four CGS classes that a teacher would teach versus zero um to the main school. And then as you go across the row, how those uh total of eight sections that a teacher is present during the day, how they are utilized. So for CGS classes in that first row, they would have a CGS site planning period. They've got a regional planning period, some advisory periods, zero main classes. Um and then you can see the breakdown as the ratio changes for the number of teaching assignments uh that are CTS to main school. Um but still maintaining the fact that there are eight total classes or sections that a teacher can be um allocated for. Um this speaks a little to um instruction and facilities. So at each site we do offer
09123 sections of a course per CGS site. So that would include for math, I'm sorry, for English, for science, for social studies, and then we've got the um seven math and then we also have our culminating section. So um that is an annual um an annual activity that each of our teachers supports. Um and again, you can see that we have a mix of full-time and shared CGS instructors as I mentioned. Um and the goal that we have for gifted endorsement, while gifted endorsement is not required for governor's schools across the state, um it certainly is encouraged. Um, and we currently have 16% of our teachers in Stafford that are endorsed. Um, and we are looking at some budgetary incentives that we have through CGS to be able to increase that endorsement and to support
092them through professional development as well as stipens. Do we know how that 16 aligns with like Spotsy and King George and Caroline and No, but I can pull that for you if you'd like. It would be interesting to see how we are ahead of them or not or Sure. And then on the right hand side you can see uh the allocations that we have at each facility. So the number of just core classrooms at each at each site. There is a staff and student workroom at each site. Um and then uh science labs that are at each site except for they have a classroom that they teach science in. Wow. So they push into an already done science room or just push into a room and teach. You can see that we have three classrooms
093allocated at North Stafford that are solely dedicated to CGS. One of those classrooms is utilized as a science classroom. So that's why in the report it mentions that North Stafford um needed some science enhancements. Correct. So it's not a full lab. Correct. Is it a lab at all? It's a classroom. It's just a class. It has well and it has and it has lab materials. I mean, we do have they are able to do things and we actually are upgrading tables in there this year. So, we're continuing to and and let me be clear, it may not be a lab. Our students are receiving science instruction and our science instructors are are providing that to the best of their ability and the students are receiving quality instruction, right? No, we have no doubt of that
094ever. You don't have to worry about that with us, but it has a sink with just a little bit. We understand, Mrs. Stafford. We get it. We completely understand. We're thankful for the sink. And I just was curious because I I did read through all the past and reports from governor school and that was something specific to North Stafford that I had read in there that it wasn't to their loving correct. Yeah. Yeah. I think they came at a board meeting last year. I think a student came up during public comment and mentioned that as well. Yeah. Oh, sure. Okay, so this is um enrollment information on the right. So this is as of today the enrollment at our sites within Stafford County. Um we have over 600 students total who are enrolled at all
095six sites. Um you can see the very top row where it says class of 2025. Those are our graduates and we actually are doing our senior celebration on Friday night at W Stafford to celebrate those students. Um it is the smallest number the co smallest cohort across um we have seen attrition over time but also we have to remember that they applied during the fall of 2020 which was a fully virtual year. So their understanding of the program and things like that was probably a bit more challenging. There were also some other circumstances within that group that is um besides the a bigger discussion than this um about some of the attrition. So, um, but you can see our cl our nth grade class. We did lose a few students at North Stafford at the
096beginning of the year, but overall we've maintained our 30 students at each of those in nth grade. Um, we see a touch of attrition in 10th and 11th. Um, and those are our total numbers. We also, um, make sure that we're monitoring retention throughout the year. We conduct exit interviews, which we'll talk a little bit about later. the lefth hand side you can see a little bit about how we financially support um gifted programming across the region. So while you all have assigned those 2.0 FTE adjustments for each of our sites um these are students who would have been your students anyway. So these classrooms that they have been assigned and and those kinds of things are already part of the Stafford budget. Um, but you do receive we receive over $1.7 million annually to
097support gifted program across across the region and Stafford receives about half of that based on the total enrollment that we have in CGS sites. Our budget supports things like our four regional staff members, um the technology that we provide, the field trips, the dual enrollment courses that we offer, um instructional materials and supplies, significant um significant contributions to science and and English, as well as stipens that we provide for our teachers who do extra things that may not be um as part of the Stafford budget. Can we go back to that question about North Stafford, the the 11th grade class? Was that 30 to begin with? They're all 30 to begin with. 30. So, it was my experience and again like you guys know better, but I felt like the travel portion between Mountain View
098and North loss was harder on kids than the travel between Brook Point and Stafford. Like for some reason, I don't know if it was the traffic. I don't know if it was like what they were missing on either end, but as I as you know, the 11th grade cohort is my daughter's cohort. Um, she went to Rodney Thompson. She happened to go to Forge, but many of her friends were Mountain View students who then became travel students and a lot of her friends withdrew from the program because that particular leg of travel was really difficult. And um it always struck me as odd because you know to those of us who are here it seems like an easier ride between Mountain View and North than it would be to go to Stafford. But the problem
099was the bus, you know, that's what I heard from, you know, kind of my peer parents as it were that it was really that travel piece that made it the buses because they had other duties when the kids were getting there late and they were missing, you know, parts of classes every day and then get not getting lunch because they were getting back to Mountain View. was our bad transportation cuz I was going to notice that difference between 20 and 26 is when we stopped having um midday travel for CGS. Um and that's like really good. So as Dr. Ahmed mentioned um she's done a lot of work since coming to this role as it pertains to supporting students who are in the program with making the transition of course from middle to high but
100also with the level of rigor that comes um with the courses. So students with a GPA um that falls less than 2.5. They meet with the regional staff, teachers, parents. Um letters of intent are communicated as well as exit exit interviews to understand why students may choose not to return to CGS. And I think that information was detailed um in the memo that was previously sent out. And when students withdraw um they are tracked annually by school as well as the reason for um them wanting to withdraw from the program. CGS does have a dedicated um counselor um that works very closely with Dr. Amahandra to support students across all six. Oh, so but they have their counselors at the regular school, their base school. Well, they have counselors at the regular school, but then
101there's also Right. Right. But that one is that's almost like travel. Yes, that is a lot. Yeah. Yeah. Because they go to all the regions. You want to speak to the Sure. This is probably the uh most challenging to understand is our schedule. So um it is a half-day model. Obviously in Stafford it's half day within um the same school that for the most part the students are staying in now moving forward. We still have travel in our other sites. Um, in the morning, our upper classmen, our 11th and 12th graders, come to their CGS classrooms and take their four courses in the morning. And then in the afternoon, they go into their home school and they take the electives courses. Um, conversely, our underassmen go to their electives courses in the morning and then
102they come to us to CGS in the afternoon. Our classes, our schedule is set up for at least twice per week on a Monday, Thursday, and Tuesday, Friday rotation that the students will have their classes for 90 minutes. Um, Wednesday is a flexible use day. So, we do a variety of things. If we're doing our field experiences, those generally fall on a Wednesday. Um, if we've got any sort of crosscurricular um lesson, that will fall on a Wednesday. Um, we also have additional content days. So if we're not using a Wednesday, we may just have a chemistry day that day. So Wednesday becomes a flexible day, which is why I say at least two times per week. Sometimes students are with us uh three times per week for content. Um and as I mentioned, students
103attend electives at their base school. Um and then the travel is required if for those upperassmen that are still in that mode. So they go when you say it's a half day model, it's there. It's like X day, Monday, Thursday, Y date. Is it like that or is it is it is but it doesn't follow X and Y. So, for example, you would have um science and English on on a Monday and Thursday, and then you'd have math and social studies on a Tuesday and Friday. And so those that's the way they break the schedule. it will say where they're supposed to go, but when you get to your classroom, it might be, oh, it's a chemistry field trip, so you're not having your class today because maybe chemistry is the wrong one, but like
104an English, like they will be very flexible within the program based on like what the teachers are doing. Because if the teacher teaches English, they're teaching all the English. So if they have a senior class field trip, they're gone all day. They might they might not. And if you look at a student's schedule in Synergy, you're going to see that their courses are scheduled like X and Y. Okay? So if you're looking for a student, they may not be where they say they are, but we know where they are because of our schedule that we run internally. So I would if I were to look for an upper classman for two 90minute segments, they would be in governor's school always with us every day. Every day for the first two blocks of the day, the
10511th and 12th graders are with us every single day. Okay? And then in the afternoon, our ninth and tth graders with us every single day. Okay. Thank you. Right. So for the admissions process, it is portfolio based. Academic records are taken into consideration as well as up to three recommendations. Um there is an interview as well as a rubricbased evaluation. The top 90 ranked applicants across the division will receive offers. And then of course as previously mentioned site placement does take into consideration where the students live if there are siblings that are going to those schools. So we try to take all those things into account Dr. Dr. Amahandra does when we accept students. I like that was not always process. All right. So consideration for site consolidation. Again, our goal today was just to
106present the information to you all to decide or for you all to decide whether we want to continue to explore this further or if we want to maintain the sites as they currently stand. So, some of the things that have come up in conversation previously are the travel implication for students in transportation costs in terms of moving students, you know, among our five high schools and then to these uh to the three sites. Uh facilities with uneven access to science labs. You just saw that with North Staffford not having a true lab space for students to work in. Slightly uneven enrollment across uh the sites, not too much of a disparity, but you did see that in the previous uh slide with a lower enrollment there at North Stafford. Um staffing staffing implications of course
107we do provide initial 2.0 FTEES, but you know, as we just discussed, the pupil teacher ratio does become an issue and and can be a a pain point. Um but again we want to evaluate the program delivery or provide you all with information to do that for efficiency while maintaining equity and excellence. So we wanted to present the historical information as requested so that you all can make the decision as to how you all would like us to proceed in terms of exploring consolidation or leaving things as they currently stand. One other thing that I just wanted to mention I don't know if everyone knows this. So we are fortunate that Dr. Jay serves as the chair of the CGS board. Dr. Warner is the alternate and frequently attends as well in terms of that.
108So has in-depth knowledge of CGS, not just here but across all of our sites. And so um happy to have their expertise as well. So we did want to bring this today. I think again last time we looked at it we were a little bit rushed in terms of looking at this. uh if it's if we have board direction to consider this further. If you want us to bring back recommendations, considerations in terms of pros and cons of of consolidation staff, we will work with staff. We'll do the work, but wanted to provide you this program overview and and get board direction from there. So, go ahead. I was I was just going to kind of kick off conversation. I was the alternate for um some time before Dr. Warner and um I was a
109CGS parent for two years and there were a couple of things that um came up and that made me think remind me what year we started CGS. 1998 and we've had 60 seats since 1998. 90 seats. Sorry. We we only had 60 for the first certain and then we King George and King George and Stafford. We took five students from King George and Stafford. That's right. They used to come their own school. My question had been we've grown a lot as a school division since we last added seats and I was curious if there was an interest, a willingness, the capacity to add. That also being said, our current eighth graders were our first class that we did the universal screener. So, we are identifying gifted learners earlier and screening much more frequently. And if
110we are identifying and this these 90 seats for our thousands of high schoolers are our only truly gifted option, do we need to expand? You mean the only option? What about all thesemies? No, they are not gifted. They're not gifted programs. CDS is the only gifted technically gifted, but some of those programs are pretty awesome. They they are. But when we talk about gifted education is not supposed to be better. It's supposed to be different. And if we are identifying students as having gifted needs that we are supplementing, you know, K through 12, do we like just mathematically should we have statistically more seats for the growth we've had in the community overall plus the growth and identification and gifted learners that we've had since we implemented the universal screeners? And I now know that
111we're doing another one in sixth grade. So that is another opportunity to catch to catch students. Um, also I know that as a kind of aside outside of any Stafford related, the city of Fredericksburg had previously expressed interest in uh, entering CPS. They like was it King George or Caroline won't have their own site. they would like to essentially buy seats from us um in shifting, growing, balancing where we have our students. That might open the opportunity to potentially invite another locality in if we so chose. But in deciding what we want to do as a locality, we can also think about an opportunity for other students to enter. That way, we're not necessarily having to fill all the seats to balance if we wanted to go to from three to two or two to
112for whatever we want to do. It does give us another kind of deck of cards to play with if that's something we wanted to do. So those are my two things. Yeah. How are seats added? So adding um well adding participating divisions is regulated under our constitution and our bylaws if we wanted to expand the number of seats. I don't know how many applicants we get. So you and we can give you that information because we have six we will have six schools next year. So it just curious programs two years. We we currently have um enough applicants um to obviously to fill our 90 seats within Stafford. Um as far as adding another division um and requesting another division to purchase seats from you all. Um that certainly is done in other governor's school
113programs that aren't um regional in this way. And so we have, for example, if you look at Appamatics Regional Governor's School or Maggie Walker Governor's School, divisions across the region purchase seats to that school. King George would be another example where Caroline purchases seats. So that would just be a discussion that the superintendents and then those boards would have. Um, but again, to add a participating division um has to be approved at the CGS governing board level and that's guided by that. So there would be a process that would have to take place. It's not something where you can just snap your fingers and make it happen, but certainly just opens the door to that conversation. If space becomes available, if we don't have space, there's no conversation. Correct. Well, that leads to my question,
114which is how many applicants, not for answering right now, but how many applicants, you know, did we have last year as opposed to, you know, the previous years when we did not have the themies and as we open moreies, there's going to be more interest in I competing. Yeah, I I was going to say I don't I I know gifted has a a definition but I would think that these othermmies you know would meet you know a lot of needs and present challenges to all students even if they may not be technically you know gifted program want to be in these programs. Yeah I can answer that question. So, uh, since we started implementing specialty centers, we've seen a slight decrease in the number of applicants, um, for CTS, but honestly, it's not, um, a
115substantive amount. I mean, we've gone from like 200 to 180 and on on average, if I were to put an average on it, I mean, and that's a rough number. So, the number of students that actually we've only done the ranked choices for govern for CGS for one year and so they're also applying to other programs. Well, that's what I So, they're not 180 exclusive to CGS. I will it's 180 apply, but they may have applied elsewhere. I I I think we only went um maybe four deep into the weight weight list. So, that tells me that it probably was their first choice. um from the original office. It did it did not take us long to fill all of the CGS slots. Well, it's an I mean it's an amazing opportunity and the credits
116that you get out of it. I mean, just think of the money you save, you know, with Well, is there an apprehension to apply though because there's so few seats available? So, it's really Well, it's a more it's a more in-depth process to apply, right? I mean, you have to it's more merit based versus fill out an application like accepted at CPS. He was accepted Not just made the process easier, but is it because there's so many seats that we're not like more kids aren't saying, "Hey, this is worth it." Right? Like to the point of adding extra seats and having more of, you know, um the odds of kind of getting accepted for putting the work in, right? If we had additional seats, would we see an increase in the applicant pool? Right. Because
117there are some kids that are like, "Well, there's only 90 seats available. It's my shot." So, I'm just saying. Yes. And also note, yes, there we might have had 180 students apply, 90 students that we accepted, but we would not necessarily have accepted all 180 applicants. There also is going to be a cut score based on what we've seen over time as for students who will be we believe will be successful in the program. I would be interested in seeing the historical I don't know cut score but like out of over the past several years how many of the students who applied qualified I guess or would have been invited just to see if that number is growing is it staying pretty stable how does it compare to the growth in the in the school
118division in general um and that process is handled at the at the county level rather than at the regional level so the I'd like to see the exit interviews, especially the ones that have have, for lack of another word, dropped out and stayed in school, you know, is it, you know, why why did they do that? Not not for now, but you know, they said they have the extra interviews, but is is there something, you know, that we can learn from that in considering when they're accepted so that we have a a smaller dropout rate because clearly we're staffing for 30, right? So, if we end up having 20 instead of 30, right, then that means that the staffing is and they do seek to fill those like it would like especially military kids that
119come in that might have been they can apply or you allow people to come in and but they can't get the whole program completed three years if they didn't start at the beginning. How could they get all the credits? Right. So, we do have um the ability for students to apply in their 9th through 10th grade year during the regular application process. This is within Stafford. I'm going use your specific example. Um and we do have several students who will be joining our Stafford sites this year as upper classmen. Our CGS program while it says that this is the course of study for each year 9th, 10th, 11th and 12th, um we do allow students to enter in 11th and 12th. If they complete 11th and 12th grade as well as the culminating experience for
12011th and 12th, they are eligible for the CGS seal. Interesting. And then sometimes we do have to make some adaptations based on the coursework that they had taken previously. So for example, many students in nth grade in the main school will take human geography as their AP course. That is our AP course in 12th grade. So we will let them take another AP social studies course during 12th grade to meet the CGS requirements. So we're flexible. We try to stick with the curriculum of the cohorted group, but we do create some flexibility so we can fill those seats for students who would be eligible and interested. So do you think we're any chance of increasing that 20 at North the 11th grade class? So we do I I'm not sure where are several students. I
121think we've got five upper classmen that applied um and are ready to be and are entering with us this year. I can't remember which sites they are because I mean I I recall over the years you teacher comments about how different the teaching schedules are for for CTS and and you know it's quite a at least to hear taught there's a there's there's a different right. Well, and and teachers who have who have had those kinds of conversations and then move into CGS often then are like, "Oh, wait. This wasn't what I thought it was going to be." So, I mean, it's often the case that that you're looking at what somebody else is doing and it's not what you're doing. And so, you have this idea. Right. But it's if your workload goes down
122by one if your number of students goes down by onethird and you still have the same staffing then it's got to be more of a luxury in teaching than if you had the full it would say they teach kids. It's not just they're not just teaching 30 kids. They're teaching say well well let's let's let's use that 20 as an example. So, so the English teacher who's teaching, you know, the the three, you know, if they've got two fully staffed ones and then they've got 20, do they fill in something else with that or is it 20 versus the 30 which is oneird less? But you also have to remember that English teacher who is teaching 9th, 10th, 11th, and 12th grade English is teaching. If you if you had that slide up, you could
123see they were teaching every single student that is at the North Stafford site. So whereas you might over during four class periods. So where you might have a teacher who is at Northstaffford in the main school teaching 24 to one in an English class, our teachers are teaching potentially 31 in those classes. So they're always going to have potentially higher numbers than a main school teacher in a classroom. And I will say it's pretty unusual in the main school to have four different preps to teach four different so so I mean but it's not uncommon to have three but I did that. Yeah. Yeah. But you have more planning. I I'm not debating the difference. But there is a difference and and maybe there is maybe maybe it's a lack of of um understanding or
124all the information for the other teachers and maybe it would be helpful to at least make the information available at some point so it's not just oh there's CGS they they get they have Wednesday for field trips and then they only have to do this or that you know just a general understanding. So does it just bothers me that we've got such a dropout rate. Yeah, I agree. You know that that's something isn't so moving forward. I would actually like to see um options. Um in my head it makes sense to consolidate, but that might be a horrible thing. So I would like to see um what the recommendations are. Okay, that's what I was going to say for the for the county pulling the board on bringing back that resource. My my attitude is
125I I think that I would prefer to keep the three sites because it gives us more flexibility and then I'm just concerned about moving 82 kids from from North Stafford into say Colonial Forge because you couldn't move them down to I I mean that you'd have to rearrange all of it. Now you've suddenly overloaded those teachers. So instead of having a 1 to30 ratio, now they the teachers would move with them. The teachers would move with the students. I mean, we're not going to be just like when we do our Well, I think this is why we win this. Ask staff to bring back what it would look like. I would like to see what it looks like. Move 15 students. You can't move 15 students. That's not an option for consolidation because if you
126moved them, then you would actually have to have two you'd have them 45 students. You'd have to have two classes of 22 for English instead of one of you couldn't do one of 45. Gotcha. Yes. So the consolidation options would be, you know, putting all three three sites together or a 6030 or looking at expansion. Um I do know we've had discussions about really making sure that you all know as a board um that we do have 90 students who are depending on and interested in participating in CGS each year. So having that 30 3030 is however you divide it up is critical. And then the other thing, and um I'm going to say this because I'm the CGS director and not officially sta officially I'm a staffer deployed, but um I do know that
127these discussions come up often and it's hard for our staff and it's hard for our students and we have when we have conversations like this and we've got students who are applying to a program and there's this question about where's going to be, are we going to change, you know, when the when this process continues over the course of these next months as you all have so thoughtfully um laid out. I would ask that you know you really make the decision that is going to be a long-term decision for the health of the long-term health of the program for our students sake, for our staff's sake, for you all from a facilities perspective, from a budget perspective. Um, I'm willing to support whatever I need to do to make sure that we can provide this
128instruction to our students and for our staff because I think it's really important. So, I'm here to help. Um, but I ask that you all as a board make a decision to look forward to the long-term health of the program. That's where I end in the money position here. Can I just ask probably having the least amount of knowledge of this and what is the what is the potential for expansion if we were to keep it in three different schools? Do we have that opportunity or no? Not really. You have to expand in groups of 30 or components of 30 where some of them are ours and if we were to invite like say an like city of Frederickburg, right? If they wanted to come in, we could be like, "Okay, you get five seats,
129we get 25, you get 10, we get 20." Like, we could do that, which isues, right? Right. Got 100%. The other opportunity for expansion is internal. So taking a look at the fact that we do have some attrition and that we have some things that we could do to in in to eliminate some of the retention and there are some things where we can look at maybe enticing students to come in midstream in a nth and tth grade year. So that also would help you all from a an efficiency standpoint. So it's not an actual expansion. It's just making sure that we're reaching as many of the right kids that we can um throughout the four-year opportunity that they have to be part of the program. I like that you guys are doing something to
130try to expand um getting more gifted teachers in the program because it is a solely gifted program. I appreciate that the kids have a gifted teacher that does pull out sessions with them in elementary school, in every elementary school and in every middle school. And in high school, while they do have a gifted teacher at the school, they don't have the necessary one-on-one. So, if they're choosing a gifted program, I would prefer there to be more gifted teachers involved in their education. Um, I I can appreciate, you know, the work of any teacher that teaches. I had gifted kids, too, but I just think that it's really nice if we're going to keep labeling this a gifted program that we provide them with educators that are equipped to handle some of the little quirky things.
131I also think that helps with retention and understanding these kinds of learners because it is just a little bit different sometimes. We have 30 minutes before our next meeting starts. I appreciate it. Do I hear do I hear that people are interested in seeing what it might look like? Yes. Okay. So, just from a timeline perspective, we did put this on here. We'll come back in August. We would need action in September so that we can plan the program of studies for October. And so, just there's it's a domino effect in terms of decisions that are made. And so we would ask that I would ask that any consolidation option does include a continuity for the students that are in the program. Now I think I just know how I'm just really concerned. Take that
132into consideration. Some of the attrition we've seen is because we have a cohort of students that started the program in CO and stuff. So just 100% done. Thank you so much. Thank you guys. If you could please ride for the national colors and the pledge of allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for it stands one nation. under God, indivisible with liberty and justice for all. like to thank the Colonial Forge High School Army JOTC with cadetses Depali Stall, Kylie Savard, Ruby Moore, Ethan Hoben, Lillian Hos, and their uh adults here with them today are Colonel Strong, and Sergeant Major Woreram. Thank you. Miss Hall, could you please take the role? Yes, madam chair. Dr. Chase here. Miss Een, Miss Guy, Miss Hollstead here. Miss Hilly here. Miss
133Irish. Miss Randall here. Miss Sigman here. And Dr. Warner here. Madam Chair, you have a quorum. Okay. Could I have a motion and a second on the agenda, please? Motion to approve the agenda. Second. Thank you. If you please cast your votes. Go. That motion passes unanimously. I have a motion and second on consent. Please. Motion to approve the consent agenda. Second. If you cast your votes on that. Okay, that also passes unanimously. Uh Dr. Smith, do we have any administrative personnel appointments today? We do. Thank you. Um I am excited to share that we have two administrative appointments uh tonight that you just approved. First, I'd like to announce Dr. Dr. Amanda Schutz who will serve as our new uh chief of staff. Uh this was formerly titled as the chief of schools. Welcome
134Dr. Schutz. A little just let me give you a little bit of information about Dr. Schutz. Uh she is will provide high level leadership and oversight to advance strategic initiatives while fostering strong relationships across multiple stakeholders. She joined Stafford schools in 2021 as our first data and research scientist and currently serves as our director of research, evaluation, and strategic improvement. Dr. Schutz brings a sharp research lens to lead our operational analysis and evaluation of major programs, including support for the implementation and monitoring of our division strategic plan. Prior to her time with Stafford Schools, Dr. Dr. Schutz was on the research faculty of the Washington University School of Medicine where she oversaw research teams supporting five university health systems, managed competitive grants to support research initiatives and led studies that resulted in peer-reviewed publications and
135presentations. Dr. Schutz also served as an adjunct faculty member at the University of Maryland over for over a decade teaching undergraduate and graduate courses in research methodology, organizational theory, and program management. Dr. Dr. Schutz earned her bachelor of arts degree from College of William and Mary and her mers in public administration with a concentration in management and policy from the University of Delaware. Her doctorate is in public health with a concentration in bioatistics and management from St. Louis University. Congratulations, Dr. Schutz. Thank you, Dr. Smith and members of the board. I stand before you deeply honored in the confidence that you've given me to continue the important work that we have together. When I my husband and I chose to come to Stafford 15 years ago, it was the strength of the schools that drew
136us here. And as I've been a member of the community and that as a parent and now joining the staff, I remain deeply impressed by the the confidence and the the trust that we have with the staff um the students and I think together we can really accomplish a lot of goals. Thank you so much for the confidence that you placed in me and I'm deeply honored in the faith that you've given me. Thank you. I am also pleased to announce Dr. Sharon Schubbridge as our new chief technology officer. Dr. Schubbridge would join Stafford school's team as our chief technology officer serving as the strategic and operational leader of our technology services. Dr. Schub has over 24 years in public public education as a teacher, building administrator, and central office administrator. She is currently serving
137as the director of instructional technology in Virginia Beach City Public Schools. In this position, she's participated in planning meetings to develop new strategic plan initiatives and has partnered with the Virginia Department of Education to integrate computer science standards into math, science, and history curricula. Dr. Schub has received numerous recognitions and awards and has presented at professional conferences on various technology topics, including generative AI and leveraging technology for innovation to build future ready learners. Dr. Schubri also served as an adjuct professor at Longwood University and George Washington University. She earned her bachelor of arts from the University of Massachusetts Dartmouth, her master of arts and and doctorate in curriculum instruction from Virginia Tech and an administrative endorsement from Old Dominion University. Congratulations Dr. Schub. Thank you. I don't think I will be as eloquent. Um, but
138I do want to thank you very much for this opportunity and I'm very much looking forward to joining the Stafford community and learning as much as I can to support our students and our teachers here in Stafford. So, thank you so much, Miss Sigman. That concludes our administrative appointments. Thank you. We have a couple of presentations tonight. We will first start with the annual report and recommendations of the school board's diversity, equity, and inclusion advisory committee. Good afternoon, good evening. I'm Tamisha Barnes and I am the committee chair for the diversity, equity, and inclusion advisory committee. It gives me a great honor to share on today um the work of the committee as well as our effort and provide some recommendations today as well. Um as we were looking at the work of the committee,
139our focus continued to be on the area of meeting the needs of all students through a datadriven approach. I'm highlighting two essential um areas for consideration. the importance of effective data collection and use um that enables the district to evaluate the effectiveness of programs and interventions improving student outcomes. The second piece is the importance of collecting and using data and professional development as it yields um improved teaching effectiveness. And when we're looking at um professional development for educational leaders, we consider that to be teachers, pair of professionals, and other designated staff. So, as we actually really looked at the recommendations, um this recommendation, the two recommendations that you see before you actually builds upon the April 2025, um annual report that was provided. Um really looking at the continuation of the continuation of leveraging existing
140data systems to collect and maintain comprehensive student performance data, empowering educational leaders to use this data to address um students instructional needs. And when we're looking at students instructional needs, we're not just looking at students that may have um some areas of weakness or gaps that we're looking to strengthen, but also those students that have that level of acceleration and advancement. How are we using data to meet the needs of all student, whether it is closing the gap or accelerating and really looking at that rigor and relevance for the students that need a little bit more. When we look at the recommendation two, um really to continue examining the outcomes of the district's professional learning program to identify if the learning results in changed behaviors and yields intended outcomes. And so when you look at
141your professional development programming and the u resources you're putting within your teachers and your staff, um is that learning actually driving actionable change within the school? is the learning that you see within that professional development being implemented within um the classroom or within the school environment, whether it's an administrator who learned a new walkthrough tool versus um literacy instruction that a teacher K5 um teacher that may be using um with elementary students. And when we look at yield the intended outcomes, that really goes beyond just the fact of how someone interacts with the training, but also looking at how that professional development plan and effort aligns to the strategic outcomes identified in the strategic plan. So when we looked at the efforts and we really looked at this um strategic plan, when we look at
142supporting high expectations um for academic performance and expanding opportunities for every student, using a datadriven approach achieves just that and enables the district to really make sure that you're meeting the needs of all students where they are um and actually expanding opportunities for every student because it gives you the light to see what those opportunities are for students. So when we look at actually a student outcomes and evaluating program data, we want to definitely recognize and acknowledge all of the effort of Stafford County Public Schools and leveraging data and using data to d drive decision- making. But as we're looking at that model, we do ask that the district ensures the model includes the use of district level data collection and analysis at the central level. really looking at how data is used at that
143central headquarters level to drive um student progress in accordance with the strategic plan. By looking at that data at the um headquarters level that enables um really strengthening how resources are allocated. Um it also involves and may impact policy decisions as well as looking at the needs of individual schools and leaders as well. For the second subcomponent recommendation, um really looking at monitoring of programs and interventions to determine if the solution results in measurable um student progress. And when we really look at that, um recommendation is really the key question there is is it working for students? Um does the intervention really meet the intended target that we're intending the service to provide? But when you look at if the intervention or the solution is meeting the needs of the student, the actual third um
144subcomponent of this recommendation is also key analysis to ensure the delivery of intervention with fidelity and automaticity. Um one of the big things about interventions and any type of solution is that it only works if you work it the way it's supposed to work. And so you have to make sure that when you're looking at the intervention, is the actual intervention occurring the way that it's mandated to occur? And then you get that automaticity which is when you become real comfortable with it so that the actual teaching and the instruction and how you're using that intervention becomes a generalizable skill that's being done every day um with simple practice as well. The other component we looked at is really collecting and using data and professional development and within that recommendation still acknowledging the great efforts
145of Stafford County Public Schools but we're really asking for the examination of changes in participant behavior based on the learning. And when we're talking about changing in behaviors, that really looks at um examining if the professional development really focuses on the use and application of the learning in the classroom. Oftentimes when we look at professional learning and we evaluate professional learning, we look at the reaction and we look at the learning. And so when we think about reaction, we focus on did the participants like the session? Were they engaged in the session? Was it relevant? Um when you look at the learning, they're actually revealing their knowledge and skills. But oftent times some sometimes there's a disconnect between that level of evaluation and really looking at the behavior piece which takes that evaluation up a
146level and it examines if that learning and the application is really taking place within the classroom and within the school. The other piece of that is the analysis of data that measures how the comprehensive training program contributes to the district outcomes and that's looking at the results. And results is something that I can say can be tricky because it's not necessarily how the student performs on results. Um because sometimes it's difficult to make that onetoone correlation, but really looking at that data to determine if the professional development that we're providing to teachers is yielding the outcomes that we identify within the strategic plan. And so really taking that time and doing that deep d deep dive um analysis. It can be some student data but also walkthrough data. And really it's like almost putting together
147a comprehensive research proposal or research um project that really digs deep into identifying if the learning is meeting the outcomes. And that goes back to the return of the investment. Are we getting the bang for our buck with this professional development that we're implementing? If not, maybe there's a better course of action that we can do. And I think the third one is key is the delivery of professional development for all teachers based on the needs of students served. As we look at the complexity of students and each student is really unique, all teachers really have to have that professional development that they need to really deliver what we consider rigor rigorous and relevant education that is really designed to grow students um and make sure that they're achieving um that level of gains. With
148that being said, there's a lot of different models that's utilized um even the teacher well train, you know, train the teacher, that kind of thing. But we also really understand that some of those efforts may not be as effective depending on the teacher that is being um the teacher that's receiving that training. So we do ask for a deep dive and really looking at that train the trader model to really see if that's effective and really looking at ways of modifying the different models so that all teachers are able to receive training um in some capacity and really looking at how the training that they receive is focused on academic and functional skills but also looking at other solutions that can meet the needs of really the entire teaching population pair of professionals and leaders
149as well. And so I will actually pause for any questions from the board regarding the recommendations or the efforts of the committee. I forget whose committee who serves on this committee. Dr. Chase, I'll start with you. Yeah, I I don't really have any questions other than, you know, I I do think it's really important to be uh using the data to make sure that we're getting the best outcomes for for all of our students. And um thank you, Dr. Warner. I just want to thank you for the work. I I think that the key is that all of our students enter our system at a different place in their educational journey and it's really difficult for teachers to integrate that kind of diversity in the classroom in their teaching style and I think that the
150the the using the data and the trying to make sure that we're training teachers to accommodate all those different needs I think is is really critical. Thank you. Miss. Okay. You used You're right. You used to be. So, when did we switch? I apologize, but I do work three separate jobs and I have not been able to to make the meetings. But I do know um when I was a parent and we had Dr. Kisner here, he sent me to a training um it was a professional development thing. Obviously, I was just a parent, but he sent me um probably to shut me up, but he definitely it's like, you know, you'll be very helpful to us if you go and understand because you can help advocate for us. And one of the main things
151they talked about when you're dealing with meeting every student where they are, it has to be data driven and but you have to tie that into professional development. And I hadn't heard since I've been on the board of us bringing that piece in. And so I'm very very thankful that we're connecting those dots and that you guys brought that in. And I absolutely support you guys in doing a deeper dive so that way we can um differentiate what we have to do for different educators because we we want them to always differentiate for the student but we should actually do that for our employees as well. Thank you Miss Randall. So I miss Holston. I always have this weird relationship with data anyway because the metrics are so for me so often they're apples to
152oranges or whatever. But I think it's so important to keep the focus on if we're teaching the teachers the right things that the teachers know to teach the kids and how to teach them because our population is there are so many different needs and we want to meet all the kids at every level but that's overwhelming for a teacher as well. So I think to recognize the fact that there is some duty on on the behalf of the system to really track the data at all levels, not just at the student level with testing or whatever, but to really empower everyone, the teachers included, to say if we're not giving you the right education that you need once you're in this classroom, then we should be doing that. And I think it's presentations like this
153that help us really continue to justify building that core. I did data for years and years and years. I think that's why I'm always so overly critical of it, but I absolutely also love it at the same level. So, I definitely appreciate building a granularity into the system to really get to the heart of if what we're doing isn't right, then what do we need to do to get it right? And I think this hits that. So, thank you. Thank you, Miss Haley. Well, I appreciate you keeping it simple. Yes. Thank you. But that's that's so important because there's so much involved and it is very very complicated but you've just narrowed it down. So I particularly in these days when we have limited funding, we have a lot of you know goals and responsibilities.
154But I I I I agree with um with Miss Sky, you know, putting the the emphasis on training the trainers and and giving those resources is is is really something we need to be thinking about because with our funding, the more we can um can utilize that for the the best bang for the buck that, you know, the better off we're going to be. And I appreciate the the emphasis on on all the students because we have such a um range of needs in in our students and and it's it's not going down, it's only it's only going up. So, thank you very much for for taking a broad picture and just simple lighting for me. Thank you again for presenting tonight. I think for me, um, I would also I have a son who's
155a teacher. I'm a former teacher, but I think that when I hear stories from the classroom and they're like, and just, you know, a couple years ago, it was such a different experience and every year they're like, and this is so different than last year. So I think that anytime that we can of course meet the students where they are, of course use the data to know where they are, I mean it almost becomes uh a customized education for every child um in doing that. But that's a really big task on our teachers to ask. But I think also in some of the schools where I visited and they're like I feel overwhelmed. It just kind of really begs the question of okay what tools do we need to give you in your tool belt
156because you know every you don't need a hammer for every problem. Sometimes you need to learn how to use other things but that's really hard when you change when things change from year to year. So I think making sure like you say the professional development keeps up with the needs of our students so that our teachers are given the the correct and proper tools to help them help our students succeed. So thank you for that. I really appreciate it. Thank you. I agree. I agree. Thank you. Thank you. Oh yes. If you are part of the diversity, equity, and inclusion committee, would you please stand so we can thank you? Thank you very much. Um, the moment we've all been waiting for, third quarter financial update. Yay. And year-end financial projections for FY25. All right.
157Good evening. Chris Ful former, uh, deputy superintendent and chief operating officer. I'm going to going to try to keep this uh quick and and brief because as much as I would love to think that everybody is here uh for this financial update, I assume they are here for the next rewards and presentations. So follow me. Uh so uh really quick just a quick enrollment update. Um our September 30th projected enrollment was um just shy of 31,800. At September 30th um we were at 31,436. But as you can see already at April 30th we had grown to 31,625. So have grown about 200 students since the beginning of the school year at our official measurement date uh in the um kind of March and April is when we actually submit again to uh the state in
158the month month of April but it's for March 31 data and that's where we got our average daily membership. Um and our updated ADM number is 31228. So we're actually not that far off from our budgeted ADM. So enrollment and EDM are always going to differ for various reasons. But what that means is that um when we did our projections for state revenue last year and built it into the budget, the number that we used for enrollment was pretty close. Uh usually I I jump over this, but uh just a quick explanation to kind of where our funds come in our operating funds. So about 52% from uh basic aid at the state level, 9% from sales tax, and then our county transfer makes up the next largest, which is at about 37%. A very
159small amount in our unrestricted federal funds that that actually roll through our operating fund. Uh so where where are we at with state revenue for FY25? And a reminder that we're looking at this current fiscal year that'll end on June 30th. I know we've already had lots of budget discussion about next year's budget. Uh but we're coming back to this fiscal year. Uh good news on the state level, a little bit different than the past few years where we were projecting losses at the state level. Actually projecting an an increase for this fiscal year over the budget. Uh we have additional basic aid of about a million dollars and an additional sales tax of about a half million. So, a total state funding increase of about a million and a half that was finalized after
160um the governor's action on May 2nd. Um also included in FY25, which we talked about earlier today, is the state has um funded an SOQ bonus. The bonus was $1,000 for SOQ positions, but we have the flexibility uh to spread that out amongst all of our employees and requires no local match. So, right now projecting about $700 uh for full-time employees and we'll prrate that based on our part-time employees contracts. Um our other uh revenue lines um are are pretty close to budget. So, not projecting any major um overages or shortfalls uh really on our federal side just because of uncertainty with impact aid and we don't know the timing that it'll come in because we collect impact aid over multiple fiscal years. uh currently are kind of being conservative and think that we might
161fall $300,000 short there. Uh but that could eventually um come in in time to recognize it for this year, but probably not before June 30th when we'd be able to uh spend it. Um for expenditures, uh we're about 85% compensation and benefits. Uh so most of our budget expenditures and our projections um really come down to us projecting our payroll. Uh so uh as you can see we have about 76% of our budget expended right now for component benefits. Our area that we expend the most at that third quarter uh point is our purchase services. The rest of them are right around three quarters um other than our capital LA. These are smaller amounts. A lot of our a lot of the time when we roll over to the new fiscal year a lot of
162our spend is actually in the summer. Uh so that July August time frame and then it'll kind of slow for the rest of the year. looking at projected expenditures in some areas. Uh wanting to highlight some of our increases where we know we're expected to be over budget or already over budget right now about $350,000 over our our bus maintenance um charges and our legal fees. This is uh close to the same number we were over at our midyear point. Luckily, it's slowed down. We knew we were spending um heavily on the legal side with some land acquisition and some other uh really all all around land and some of that was all settled as we've acquired the land. So uh we we didn't see those increases continue over the rest of the year. Um
163on good news, fuel prices are down this year compared to a couple years ago and I'm going to give you a comparison in just a moment but actually projecting about $1.2 $2 million in in fuel savings, which is really significant because our total fuel budget is about two and a half million utilities. Um really all following on the electrical uh electricity savings of about 500,000. Uh and we just cut off kind of non-emergency, non-essential spend uh just over the last week or so. So, we're starting to um kind of collect and review all of the department's budgets and we'll start to sweep the funds that are are not needed. So we'll have we expect additional department savings. Um but uh something that's not in our departments is our comp and benefit line. So we manage
164that centrally. Uh if you remember at about midyear point we had about $2 million in savings. We actually um went ahead at that point and transferred an extra million dollars into our health benefits fund because of our health insurance increases that we were seeing. Um happy to say that we're still actually after even transferring that million dollars, we're still sitting at about $2 million in savings. So, we've incurred some additional savings. Um, I'll say this, um, I said it at mid year, I'll say it at the third quarter update, and I'll say it on, you know, June 15th. The closer we get to the end of the year, obviously, the easier it is to project. And since that's 85% of our budget, it it just becomes a lot easier and cleaner projections. Um, after we
165do our June 1st payroll, we don't see as much movement obviously as school is out. Uh, and we still have a July 1st and an August 1 payroll that are acred back to this fiscal year because our 10-month employees are paid out over 12 months. So those paychecks actually come back and are charged to FY25 budget. But once June 1st hits, we don't see a lot of change in those. So we can then project our payroll for the rest of the year very accurately. But overall, um, and our known expenditure savings sitting at about a $2.8 million surplus. I want to touch on and I have this for um diesel on the next slide but on gasoline the orange line is 2023 what we were paying each month for price per gallon and green is
1662024 and the the blue line is 2025. So you can see uh if you recall back in uh the end 2023 we had to add about a million dollars plus into our fuel line because of the the rising prices and we haven't reduced that. We had proposed at the beginning of this school year reducing at 150 or not the beginning of the school year, the beginning of the budget for next year and the superintendent and the school board's budget included $150,000 in savings. With our revised budget tonight, we're reducing another $300,000. So it'll take us down to right about $2 million in fuel budget. Even with that, as you saw, we had $1.2 million in savings. Um maybe closer to about a million dollars. And so it still leaves us about a $500,000 from where
167we're at this year to what the budget that we'll have for next year. So, I still feel comfortable with the budget that we'll have in FY26. I want to point out the same chart and the same colors apply to our de diesel fuel prices. Uh, and if you recall also, we started transitioning and diversifying our fleet. And we have a lot more gas buses that we purchased over the last two and three years uh than than prior to that. We really had predominantly all diesel buses. So, if you look at that diesel consumption over the years, you'll see that it's gone down. I'm going to flip back to our gas consumption really quickly and you can see that it increased each year. So that's a direct correlation really all comes down to our fleet makeup
168of having more gasoline buses than diesel buses. Uh so uh back at the midyear update we talked pretty extensively about um health expenditures um and our health and benefit claims. You'll you'll see with with this projection we are still projecting pretty high. We were hoping that it would was going to start to level off in the early part of this calendar year as we hit the second half of the fiscal year. Uh we saw maybe a couple months where it dipped and then we've really skyrocketed. I don't want to say skyrocketed, but we've leveled back off at that higher end again. Uh to the point where we're really spending about a million dollars a week on health and dental claims for all of our employees. So, uh now we have a lot of employees. Uh
169so that's spread out, but it is um pretty expensive. We've still been talking with our health insurance provider and they look at I know many many years and their actuaries look at it uh and uh they think you know if if trend holds true we we see a year or two where we have a blip and then it levels back off again. So, historically, we've been in the 3 to 5% increases each year. And this is an off year where we're we're sitting at 22 23% of an increase, which honestly isn't that far off from industry um trend in average. So, in the years that we were at three or 5% really the industry trend was closer to um 15 to 20%. So overall for our operating fund currently projecting a little over a million
170dollars in revenue savings and on the expenditure side um you know anywhere in that three to4 million dollars range as we still really start to to tie down our expenditures. Um so what does that mean? The last few years we haven't had year-end funds to expend on some of our three projects and some other safety projects. Um I do predict that we'll have some funds available. So, uh, going back three years ago, probably, uh, we came to the board with a list and, um, you pre-approved a list of approved, um, expenditures that as we got closer to the end of the year, staff could go ahead and execute as long as we were comfortable that we had the savings, uh, available. So, we we do think we'll have adequate savings to achieve some of those
171items on the list, and we're working with departments now. Uh, Mr. Dr. Towry and his team are are accumulating a list and looking at our 3R list of what can actually be accomplished over this summer and and reaching out to other departments of items that we could add to that list. We'll bring that back to the FABC in June and to the full board at our June meeting to go ahead and have that pre-approval done. Want to touch on our other funds at a at a very high level. uh nutrition, you'll see they currently have a deficit and it's a a deficit expected for the entire year of about 2.3 million. That was a planned surplus because they've had savings uh and a fund balance that they've carried over and the state actually requires that
172we spend that fund balance down. So, currently working on spending those on on capital items that are come from a um an approved list from the state. our fleet services fund currently projecting a surplus of about 400,000 um right now at that third quarter point, but it'll be about 300 by the end of the year. Um you'll see the health benefits, I already talked about that a little bit. Uh this kind of projected surplus and deficit already takes into account some of the additional money that we've put into that health benefits fund. Still have a deficit of about $4.4 million. that will pretty much wipe away our um contingency that we have in that fund. Workers comp, we went fully insured uh last year. This is our second year of that. So, uh you'll see
173that um the the revenue line, you can um don't pay too much of attention to that. We haven't transferred any funds in there. That's something that we do at the end of the year. Uh but for the entire year projected to pretty much be break even. So that is my quick update on third quarter and like looking ahead at the year end. But in summary, I'll be back in June with a more firm update and then we'll talk about a year-end list. Does anyone have any questions or comments today? I just I just have one just a quick one. The you were just talking about for the health benefits the trending across like 15 to 20% is the industry norm. I'm assuming that's across the country norm is what we're looking at when we talk
174about that. Yes. So, what is what are the odds that when we start to trend down, are we going to go down to this 8% or this 3% again, or are we going to have to continue to plan for a 15 to 18%? Yeah, great projection. Great question. So, according to our reps, they believe that we're going to start to level off. Now, we're I don't think we're going to see 15% decreases, but what we'll see is next year, maybe we don't have an a 15 20% increase. Maybe we're back to a five or eight percent increase, which is a little bit more manageable, obviously. Uh, but our expenditures have already grown pretty significantly. So now that 5% is a lot greater than it was three or four years ago. Miss Randall, did you see?
175Okay. Does anyone else have anything? I just like to we have we have a lot of people here today and I just thought I would point out that um while we get very little money from the federal government, it's important money. So all of the nutrition services fund comes from the federal government and then our um Head Start program and title one programs come from the federal government. So hopefully we don't lose um that money. All right, that's it. And and those funds that you mentioned run through our grants fund, which I don't recap because they're tied directly to restricted expenditures. Uh, so what I touch on in the operating fund is our um unrestricted federal dollars, but you are correct. Over $30 million in federal funds in total. Okay. Anyone else? Thank you very
176much, Mr. Fulmer. Thank you. Uh, now we're moving forward with our awards and recognitions. Good evening, board members and Dr. Smith. This evening, we'll recognize students and staff that epitomize our values of students, integrity, respect, community, opportunity, and excellence. We'll begin the night highlighting schoolwide excellence and division level accomplishments, honoring those who go above and beyond in leadership and dedication. Will our brand new divisionwide teacher of the year, Miss Tracy Wat Colonial Forge High School, please join us at the podium. This evening, we're honoring the exceptional dedication, hard work, and passion of our educators. As we celebrate our teacher of the year, let's also take a moment to acknowledge that every teacher plays a vital role in shaping the future. Each day, teachers inspire, challenge, and empower students making a difference in ways both big
177and small. Today we present to one individual, but we recognize that all teachers deserve our deepest gratitude for their unwavering commitment to education. In recognition of their lasting impact, the Stafford County School Board proclaims May 5th through 9th, 2025 as teacher appreciation week, honoring the essential role educators play in shaping the future. Congratulations, This evening, in recognition of mental health awareness month, the board is proud to honor a dedicated professional who makes a lasting impact every day at Stafford High School. Will Miss Kathy Tobin please join us at the podium? Each year since 1949, the month of May has been observed as mental health awareness month, a time to shine a light on the importance of mental well-being as a vital part of our overall health. Today, that message is more important than ever. Raising
178awareness helps to encourage understanding and fosters a supportive community. School counselors like Miss Tobin play a crucial role in shaping the emotional, academic, and social well-being of their students. They are often the first line of support, helping students navigate challenges, build resilience, and achieve their goals. Their guidance doesn't just change outcomes, it changes lives. [Applause] Nutrition Services recently held its third annual Culinary Cup, a spirited and creative competition between the culinary arts departments at our three high schools. Will Chef Raven and his students Cheyenne Slatterie, Zoe Embry, and Gabriella Irish? We also welcome Shelf Delore and her students Andrew Carr and Kimberly Gonzalez to join us at the podium. This friendly event gives students a chance to showcase their culinary skills by preparing two dishes, one vegetarian and one non-vegetarian entree. Participants were challenged to
179craft meals that not only taste great but also meet federal school nutrition standards. including reduced calories, sodium, saturated fat, and the inclusion of whole grains. The winning dishes will be featured on the district's lunch menu for the 2025 2026 school year. And the schools with the top dishes will take home the coveted Culinary Cup trophy. We're going to present those trophies right now in the non-vegetarian category. Stafford High School, Chef Raven, and team for their soy ginger pork tacos. And in the vegetarian category, the Brookpoint High School team, Chef Del Core, for their reffried bean enchiladas. And there you go. Congratulations. Next, we turn our spotlight to the fine arts where creativity, expression, and imagination thrive. This year we recognize Khloe Gabrielson from North Stafford High School who earned best in show at the 30th
180annual Johnny P. Johnson Teen Art Show. Chloe, will you please join us at the [Applause] podium? She did great. I will now recognize our student musicians for excellence in their craft. Will you please come up to the podium when I call your name. Audience, we kindly ask that you hold your applause until the end of each section. The following students were selected to perform in the prestigious All Virginia band. from Mountain View High School. Ruby Nudson, Nathaniel Brown, Lucas Crawl, Jacob Lubinski, Gavin Kelly, Brooke Shimakuru, Ashner Pineck, Aiden Laseren from North Stafford High School. Matthew Carter, Cara McTrich, Dean Williamson from Stafford High School, Sophie C. Elijah Oule and Wright Stokes. And from Colonial Forge High School, Charles Lim Williams and Rex Humadio. Congratulations to our all Virginia band students. Next, we'll recognize our students
181selected for the All Virginia Chorus from North Stafford High School. Victor Vurro from Stafford High School. Sophie Stler, Rory Irish, Isabelle McGanna, Caroline Washington, Kelvin Eiveller, Nathan Yuri from Colonial Forge High School. Ariana Santiago, Natalyia Martinez, Charles Kurtgate, Brody Connelly, Abigail Diasin, Sadie Connelly, and from Mountain View High School, Aaron Mottz, and Alejandro Rios. We like each other. Next, we recognize our middle school students selected for the music the middle school American Coral Directors Association Honors Chorus from Rodney Thompson Middle School, Reinie Lewis and Bridget Farley. from Gale Middle School. Espironza Hinos, Melena Hopkins, Emmanuela Johnson, Isabella Long, Rosalie Hos, Wania Hassan, and Raina Secer from Drew Middle School, Mia Lee. And finally from Dixon Smith Middle School, Jackson Hall, Olivia Wallace, Chastity Garrett, Eva Han, Leila Garwood, and Rebecca Young. Congratulations. Our next group
182of honores participated in the American Coral Directors Association National or Honors Choir from Stafford High School. Sophie Stler, Calvin Eiveller, Silas Ian, Ella Pucket, Jaden Hillyard from Dixon Smith Middle School, Jackson Hall, Leila Garwood, and from Gale Middle School, Espirana Espironza Hino. [Applause] Now we'll recognize our youngest vocal performers in the organization of American Kadali Educators National Children's Choir from Hartwood Elementary School, Caroline Rasca, Amelia Fish, and Ryan Christensen. [Applause] Next, we'll recognize our participants in the All Virginia Elementary Chorus from Hampton Oaks Elementary School. Abigail Fatten, Abigail Ferguson, Rosa Haynes, Ariel Jeb, Camila Rodriguez, and Annabelle Vid Dolls. [Applause] And now we recognize the schoolwide achievement. Edwardy Drew Middle School has been named a blue ribbon school for excellence in music education. Representing the school tonight are Logan Felenstein, Rachel Gallalahan, and Steve Patterson.
183Will you please join us at the [Applause] podium? We'd also like to take a moment to recognize and sincerely thank the dedicated teachers who support, guide, and inspire students every day. Your commitment to nurturing their growth and excellence is truly commendable and we deeply appreciate the passion and care you bring to your [Applause] work. We'll now honor the fall and winter season state level champions and runners up in athletics. These individuals and teams have not only competed at the highest level, but also brought distinction and pride to their schools and the county. Please join us at the podium as your name is called. Audience, please hold your applause until the end of each section. Tonight, we'll begin with Stafford High School's cheerleading team who delivered an incredible season of skill, strength, and spirit. They were
184crowned the region 6B champions and earned the title of state runnerup in class 6 year. Please come forward as you hear your name call. McKenzie Barham, Anukica Bonich, Anna Capable, Addison Cooper, Nathaniel Cox, Madison Katic, Dalton Galahan, Lauren Harris, Malia Johnson, Jada Jones, Ava Langel, Eva Mason, Lilia Palmer, Kelly Peterson, Ella Fufu, Pufubu, Riley Proudfoot, Addison Shank, Shaniah Smith, Olivia Stanley, Kinsley Updike, Riley Today, let us not forget to thank and appreciate their incredible coaching staff. Janet Barham, Christy Proudfoot, Ashley Bolinski, Alyssa Woodward, and Taylor [Applause] Rossi. That's right. I love a good cheer group. From Stafford High School's winter track team. Please join me at the podium when your name is called. Roderick Atkins, a state champion in the long jump. Brian Harris, state champion in triple jump and runner up in the long
185jump and 4x200 meter relay. Matthew Fiser, a state runner up in the 55 meter dash and 4x200 meter relay. Katherine Loger, a state runnerup in the 1600 meter and state champion in cross country. Owen Charlotte, state runner up in the boys 4x200 meter relay, and Malik Dark, state runner up in the boys 4x200 relay. Congratulations in swimming. Please join me at the podium. Robert Dykeman, the state champion in the 100 meter [Applause] butterfly in wrestling. John Hre Fiser, state champion at 150 pounds. Isaiah Van Hovind, state champion at 157 pounds. Tyler Traves, state champion at pounds. Dustin Khan, state runnerup at pounds. Sarissa Tucker, state champion at 107 pounds. and Danica Castrahan, the state runner up at 120 pounds. [Applause] In track and field, will Julia Lucas join us at the podium? Julia was the
186state champion in the women's high jump. [Applause] And in gymnastics, Miss Abigail Green, the state champion on floor exercise. We'd also like to take a moment to recognize the incredible coaches, directors, and mentors who stand behind each of these achievements. Your leadership, tireless dedication, and unwavering belief in your students make these accomplishments possible. From early morning practices to late night rehearsals, you consistently go above and beyond to help students grow, not only as athletes, but as leaders, teammates, and individuals. Thank you for all that you do this evening. We're also proud to recognize an exceptional group of students who have earned the opportunity to compete on a national stage at the National Anatomage Tournament at the University of Nevada Las Vegas this May. With the following students, please join us at the podium. Audience, be
187please hold your applause until the end. Beginning with third place from Northstaffford High School, team Mortal Physique. The team is comprised of Emma Ingram, Jaden Galas, Kaden Merkerson, Muhammad Basher Norzad. Also from North Stafford High School. In fifth place is team Boneheads. The team is comprised of Alexander Abramitz, Michael Chrisman, Allison Hogan, Michaela Taylor Bell. The adviserss for both teams are Amanda Colette and Kylie Moss. In fourth place from Colonial 4 High School was team Nervous Ninjas. The team is comprised of Parwin Jamal, Caroline Bass, Austin Key, and Ramon Deleó Cases. Their adviserss are Stephanie Clinger and Lisa Davis. And in sixth place from Stafford High School, team Biohackers. The team is comprised of Sydney Catrell, Scarlett Miller, Kate Dunn, and Madison Cross. Their adviserss are Donna Kerna, and Jason Austin. This prestigious competition brings
188together top high school teams from across the country to test their knowledge of human anatomy using anatomage tables, state-of-the-art digital cadaavvers used by leading medical institutions. These talented students will represent Stafford in a series of intense anatomy identification rounds covering all major body systems, including skeletal, muscular, cardiovascular, and nervous systems. The competition is not only a test of knowledge, but also of speed, accuracy, and collaboration. We commend your passion, determination, and teamwork and wish you the very best as you represent Stafford County and our community on this remarkable journey. And we all know we're going to have a win. Make a couple of rows. Come in a little more. Congratulations to our animatage team. [Applause] Next, we'll recognize an exceptional academic achievement at the National History Day competition. Mercy Adi, Michelle Deborah, and Miss Lindseay
189Sleka, please join us at the podium. National History Day's core program is its competition in which students in grades K 6 through 12 choose a topic and dive deeply into the past by conducting extensive research in libraries, archives, and museums. Students present their conclusion and evidence through papers, exhibits, performances, documentaries, or websites and move through a series of con contest levels where they're evaluated by professional historians and educators. Through this process, students develop skills in communication, project management, and historical thinking. The achievement reflects deep scholarship, original thinking, and a strong command of historical analysis. Congratulations both of you. Miss Lindsay, as the guiding educator behind this achievement, your dedication, mentorship, and support were instrumental in your students success. On behalf of Stafford County Public Schools, we congratulate all of you on this remarkable accomplishment and
190your commitment to academic excellence and historical education. [Applause] And finally this evening, we're proud to recognize Miss Aristine Chestn and Nam Nuin of Brookpoint High School for their selection to represent Virginia in the 2025 Young People's Continental Congress in Philadelphia. Mrs. Sheston and Nam William Wyn, please join us at the podium. Thank you. This prestigious national program hosted by the National History Day and Carpenters Hall bring together 27 student teacher teams from across the United States and its territories to explore the founding era of American democracy. Delegates will engage in online learning on key historical topics culminating in a week of immersive experience at historic sites such as Carpenters Hall, Independence National Historic Park, and the Museum of the American Revolution. The program will conclude with a student created declaration of aspirations for American democracy
191echoing the spirit of the 1774 Continental Congress. Congratulations on this extraordinary achievement and for representing Stafford County on a national stage. [Applause] This concludes our awards and recognitions for the evening. Okay, the next item on our agenda is our student representative report. Miss Irish. Good evening, members of the board, administrators, and community members. This month, Lillian and I have continued to stay engaged in the work happening across the district, attending events like the Gold Star Gala and the Fine Arts Festival. Go check out our Insta for a couple reels from that. Both were incredible opportunities to recognize and celebrate the talents, achievements, and hard work of our students, staff, and teachers. These events reminded us just how much goes on behind the scenes to make our school strong, supportive communities within our schools. We've kept
192up consistent conversations with students and staff. Whether it's through informal conversations or day-to-day interactions, we've been listening to what's working and what could be better. This kind of open communication really helps make sure student voices are not just heard, but valued in the decisions being made. One exciting opportunity for Lily and I this month was serving on the naming commitment for High School 6. Being part of a group that's helping shape the identity of a future school, something that generations of students will be a part of, was a really meaningful experience. and we're excited to see what comes from it. It's a reminder that the community's input matters, not just in the present, but for the future of our county. Before I wrap up, Lily and I wanted to take a moment to congratulate the
193class of 25. Graduation season is such a big moment, and it's honestly exciting to see. Whether you're going to college, joining the military, starting a job, or figuring things out as you go, everything you've put into the past four years have led up to this, and we're really excited to see what happens next. As always, Lilian and I remain committed to staying involved, staying accessible, and keeping our community at the center of everything we do. We are looking forward to what the next school year brings. Thank you. Thank you. Uh item number eight on our agenda are citizen comments. Three minutes are allotted to each speaker or group. Citizens shall identify themselves by name and organizational affiliation if the spokesperson represents an organization. Speaker shall also announce the purpose or topic of their comments. Citizen
194comment which is profane, abusive, or which threatens imminent physical harm shall be ruled out of order by the chair. Miss Hall, Madam Chair, 10 citizens have signed up. The first three are McCracken, followed by Dover, followed by Kerr. Move on. The next three are Erin or Urin, sorry, Erin, Connors, and then Felton. Thank you. Good evening. My name is Katrina Uran and I am in the George Washington district. I'm here this evening to speak about the potential Commonwealth Governor School consolidation being studied. I have three kids, all current or previous Stafford students. My oldest completed four years of the CGS program and is currently in college. My middle child is currently in high school and decided not to apply to CGS while my youngest child is in middle school. I have several questions and impacts
195related to this potential consolidation that I ask you to thoughtfully consider. My first question is whether or not this is really a problem that needs to be solved. There's a lot going on in our schools, particularly related to transportation, and consolidation will add to even more students being busted from one end of the county to the other. I understand there's some concern about facilities, but most of the CGS space is classroom space that would be needed regardless of where the program is housed. CGS doesn't require specialized plumbing or trades or healthcare equipment or engine even engineering labs like other specialized programs. On to transportation. While consolidation won't have much of an impact on space, it will have an impact on students who would now have to travel long distances to attend to this program. In
196addition to homework and rigorous study required to be successful in CGS, many students are involved in extracurricular activities and adding additional time to their daily bus ride adds an unnecessary layer of stress. Think about the students that are at the far ends of the county getting on the bus at well before 6:00 a.m. after a previous long day of activities and studying. Another concern with transportation is students who cannot ride the bus because they stay after school for sports or other activity. This adds an extra travel burden on parents, many of whom are returning to work with long commutes and very fixed schedules. My second question is what is the transition plan? What happens to those students currently in the program? CGS has specialized schedules within their two blocks that don't always match the XY
197days. If you start transitioning to consolidated approach one year at a time. How are the remaining students impacted? The current classroom space isn't easily reutilized due the unique schedule and how would you use the teachers elsewhere? Would they teach a partial CGS block and other classes as well? And how does that work with the CGS schedule that doesn't match the school's XY schedule? And speaking of the teachers, how would they be impacted? Many CGS teachers are exceptional and some have gained very specific certifications for working with gifted students. Would those teachers transfer to another school? And if not, how would new teachers be recruited to meet the specialized needs of the program? And finally, how would this consolidation impact students who are not in the CTS program? Would 90 high achieving, high test scoring students
198all be transferred to one high school? How would this impact the class rank of the students at that one school? How would the opportunity other students at that one school to compete for scholarships or other recognition? There are a lot of really smart, hardworking kids who are not in CGS. But the CGS schedule generally includes more advanced or weighted classes as well as other opportunities that non-CGS students don't receive. Does it put those non-CGS students at that one high school at a disadvantage? I appreciate this study as an opportunity to look at the CGS program. I certainly hope it may be an opportunity to add more seats as the county grows and adds another high school, but I do think that consolidating the program at one school introduces more disadvantages than advantages. Thank you. Thank
199you. Hey everybody, it's your favorite person. Shamgar Connor's Heartwood district offic um I'm here to talk about policy and that I love here in Stafford because I'm on my quest to be the most diverse person in the world. I'm here to show my true identity. I'm a transgender female Olympic swimmer and I've competed in over 9,000 swim meets. Now, just like my idol, Leah Thomas, many would ask why I'm here to reveal my true gender identity. Well, that's simple. I'm here to say thank you to the Stafford school board for supporting trans rights in Stafford schools. Remember, trans rights are human rights. If everyone remembers a few months ago that pesky turboche passed an executive order which ordered schools not to allow men in female spaces. We in the transgender community are very pleased to
200know that Stafford has completely ignored these executive orders and the policy on the Stafford website still allows boys to use the female restrooms and spaces if they feel like it. Now we are glad that you listen to our demands because that's all that matters. All those silly bigots out there like the several parents that have made posts on Facebook and other places social media about their daughters in elementary schools having boys come into their bathrooms with them complaining about it got shut down. Haha, you lose bigots. Whatever. We go to whatever bathroom we want in Stafford County. Thank you for that one principal calling out the mother upset that a transgender boy was using her daughter's bathroom and she posted about it online and talked about it last year and let him letting the mother
201know too bad the rights of the trans student outweigh the rights of a non-trans student as they should. Now, sure, there's a big huge scandal from Lowden County where, if you all remember, our superintendent was working when it all happened, but he wasn't involved, thank God. But sure, a transgender boy was wearing a skirt and sexually assaulted a girl there and the Lon County superintendent tried to cover it up. But who cares? That was just one time, and nobody should worry about it ever happening ever again. Okay. Now, one would probably think after our superintendent was working in Loun County when the whole scandal took place that now that he's here, he'd probably immediately ban men from being able to use women's bathrooms. But we're proud to know that he has not. And he clearly
202must be a huge supporter of trans rights. Very cool. Okay, here's the deal everyone. Sure, the majority of children that grow up as trans usually don't have a longer lifespan of 30-ish years old and the hormones they take, you know, can put give them cancers and also their health issues. But if a parent wants to speedrun their child's life to the permanent gay screen, what business of anyone else, even with all the gender affirming care in the world, the suicide rate of trans community is 52%. Well, we blame that on the anti-trans bigots out there. Okay, just remember the rights of our children to choose whatever bathroom they want outweigh the rights of your non-trans students trying to choose to be in the same bathroom with people of the same chromosomes only. We hope to
203see more trans students coming out in Stafford and using whatever bathroom they want because it Stafford supports it. Yay. Also, shout out to all the trans teachers in Stafford that demand the use of mix zezer, bug, fairy, airplane, and other neoponouns. Last year, uh, there was a report, there's a couple reports of trans teachers asking students and forcing students to use these pronouns or get one of them, I think, kid got written up for that because they use the wrong pronoun. Well, how about parents, stop teaching your children to be such bigots. Okay, just thinking about that gives me so much gender for dysphoria. Re, I need to take some hormone blockers. I got to be here. Thank you guys. Thank you. diversity, Belton. The next speakers will be Morris, Harmon, Denim, and Rivas. Good
204evening, ladies and gentlemen of the school board. My name is Karen Felton, and I'm a resident of Stafford, Virginia in the Garrisonville district. I'm a proud member of Delta Sigma Theta Sorority Incorporated, Fredericksburg Area Alumni Chapter, and our organization places a strong emphasis on education. And that's why I'm here. Um, viewing it as a fundamental cornerstone of our mission and the work we do in our community and throughout the world. Uh, I'm a product of educators. I've stood here before and I've said that and I'll say it again. and books were my were my portal through different lives, past, present, present, and future. I'm here today to share an excerpt from a children's book by Jackal and Woodson entitled The Other Side about two girls, Clover and Annie, growing up in a time when their
205lives were divided by fences. I'm starting in the front of the book, which I think is appropriate because it's a rainy day for them, just like it is for us today. It rained a lot that summer. On rainy days, that girl sat on the fence in a raincoat. She let herself get all wet and acted like she didn't even care. Sometimes I saw her dancing around in puddles, splashing and laughing. And on the opposite page is a picture of this cute young girl splashing in a yellow raincoat. "Mama wouldn't let me go out in the rain. That's why I brought you rainy day toys." Mama said, "You stay inside here where it's warm, safe, and dry. But every time it rained, I looked for that girl. And I always found her somewhere near the fence."
206This is a picture on the facing page of her appearing out of the window. The next page. Someplace in the middle of summer, the rain stopped. When I walked outside, the grass was damp and the sun was already high up in the sky. And I stood there with my hands up in the air. I felt brave that day. I felt free. And it's a beautiful picture of a young girl enjoying the sun as it beams down on her in her yard. One last page. I can get it to turn. I got close to the fence and that girl asked me my name. Clover, I said. My name's Annie, she said. Annie Paul. I live over yonder. She said by where you see the laundry. That's my house hanging on the line. She smiled. and she
207had a pretty smile. I just wanted you to know um that in this difficult time, this book was written to express what children were experiencing, not to promote anything, but to share our history, to share what happened uh to these young girls. And I wanted you to hear the words. I wanted you to understand the context. And I wanted you to capture and picture yourself near a fence peering out through the world through the lens of the adults and the society around them playing in the rain. Thank you for your attention. Good evening. I was not going to speak to you guys today, but I was in the previous meeting. So, and then I just found out some additional information regarding redistricting. Um, looking at the numbers, I am here to advocate for Rapahanic Glenning
208to stay with Conway and that option is purple. Um, not only does purple meet your demands of less of zero capacity or over capacity for the next two to three years. Um, not only does purple um minimize how many schools are going to be over the capacity, it's pretty much all three scenarios have three schools over capacity by 2030. But before that, it's just purple that gives you that option where you are not over that 100% capacity. So just by that alone, your option should be obvious in choosing purple. But not only am I here to advocate for reprehanding, but I just also find out that if Conway is not in the purple scenario, they could lose their title one funding. That is a big problem for Conway knowing that we have a lot of
209uh Pearl professionals that help our students reach that academic goal that you guys strive especially for third, fourth and fifth graders taking their SOS. That is something that will be taken away from Conway if not chosen the purple scenario. Um another thing that has helped us parents from Conway is having the ability to meet with the teachers um in an event called parent university where they teach us parents what they are teaching our kids and how we can help in home by taking the title one from Conway where does that put us as parents where does that put the the students and not being able to meet their goals academic goals um so that for I am advocating for scenario purple thank you thank Thank you, Morris and Harmon and Denim. Good evening, Molly Denim,
210Hartwood District. Today I am here simply to say thank you. I want to thank the committee member who presented today. These committees are comprised of people who volunteer their valuable time to work on projects, problems, and concerns within Stafford County Schools. These committees take on priorities given to them by the superintendent and work tirelessly for the continual improvement of our schools. If two heads are better than one, then you can imagine the value these committees provide. I would also like to thank the school board and their courage in listening to members of the public when we asked you to take the leap and draft an initial budget that was realistic to our school's need and not skewed to what may have been more palatable to the board of supervisors. I'm a firm believer in asking
211for what you need and being honest and forthright in any shortcomings. The request made by this board spurred conversation throughout the community, united professional groups and parents to advocate for our schools, and sent the message that you truly are listening. While you weren't able to fund everything our school needs, I believe we did make great strides this year. My heart was so happy to see the advocacy displayed by so many of our school professionals and parents during this year's budget cycle. It's not easy to show up to all of these meetings because we really do have lives, too. It is not easy getting up and talking in front of a room full of people. And it's not easy to have to seem like you are begging just to get paid a living wage. I also
212want to remind everyone that we're not done yet and encourage everyone to attend the 20 May board of supervisor meeting when the meals tax increase will be voted on and to make our voice heard once again to remind the supervisors of their commitment that these revenues should go towards teacher raises. I thank all of the school board members and the board of supervisors who attended the joint public event hosted last month, especially chairman Diggs, Vice Chairman Allen, Chairwoman Sigman, and Vice Chairwoman Guy for answering every question that was asked. It was a great event and I look forward to seeing the continued momentum between both boards. I also encourage the public to attend future meetings and make your voice heard. Nothing will change if nothing is voiced. I would like to thank the board of
213supervisors for their commitment to the schools during this year's budget. I appreciate specifically that they took a great interest in our CIP and our very long list of backlog 3R projects. As the chair for the CIP advisory committee, we have been working tirelessly for the past three years to capture their attention and focus on properly funding three projects. And it was so wonderful to see this work finally start to move in the right direction. And finally, I want to give a special shout out and thank you to every single person at Hartwood Elementary. I didn't think this would be that one hard. My daughter's entering her last week as a H Heartwood Hornet and will start her middle school journey next year. Though I have no doubt that every elementary school is wonderful, I wish
214to give a special tribute to a very special school. The amazing professionals at Hartwood are the living embodiment of the idea that it takes a village to raise a child. And I thank all of Hartwood Elementary for being that village for my child and setting her on a pathway to success. Thank you. Good evening. Um, my name is Natalie Harmon. I have been a longtime resident of the area for the last 38 years, 40 years of my life. Um, I've lived in Stafford for the last 10 years. Well, 10 plus years, I guess, but 10 years in Hickory Ridge. So, I'm here to advocate for scenario. I'm sorry. I'm not I'm I'm anyone that knows me knows that I speak emotionally. So, um I'm here to advocate for green or lime and to hopefully show
215a different side of the community. Um we did not even know that purple was a possibility. Um especially all of us in Hickory Ridge, we were not expecting it. It wasn't on the board. And then we got an email on the 22nd that said we would be moved out if purple became an option. Conway is our home. It's our family. Um, our children have felt safe and stable there for the last our my family um the last almost 10 years. But Hickory Ridge has really built Conway and I think they've they get a little bit forgotten about. Um they were the original Leland station. Um, our families have not really had a voice in this because it came up kind of last minute and we were all very shocked. There are still families that didn't
216even know that Conway was that this was happening and I've tried to spread the word. Um, I feel like what it, you know, the statistics are very important. Um, I think we can all see what the stat statistics are already, but we have poured into the community. We have made Conway a huge part of what Conway is today. And to be ripped from it and our children ripped from it, they will be crushed. Um, the amount of volunteering we've put into the school, PTA events, we have poured our heart into this school and we would greatly appreciate staying And that's all. Thank you. Thank you, Miss Morris. Sabrina Morris chair, that concludes the list. All right. Thank you everyone. Moving on to this evening's action items. We have item 9.01, adoption of an elementary school
217redistricting plan. Is there a motion to begin discussion? Motion to approve. What are we motioning? Now you have to approve. You have to pick a color. Oh, all right. So, I I give up. What did you just say? I give up. I think I'll make a motion to um to approve the line. Is there a second? Second. We'll second it. I have a question. Can we separate the the um question about exemptions? It looks like it's all part of it. I would like to have two separate votes on that. Yes. Right now, as the motion is just to approve scenario one, but the the presentation on here is it's all part of the same thing. Yes. Okay. So, right now there's a motion and a second on the floor to consider the approval of scenario
218lime. Is there discussion on this? I I would just like to for the purpose of discussion I would also like to make a motion to uh a substitute motion for uh scenario purple. I'll second it for discussion purposes. Absolutely. All right. Dr. Warner, did you want to start the discussion on purple? My concern um with the way that Conway will be redistricted is that um the students at Old Forge have um it's it's a challenging community. Um those students will be moved, but they will also now fall outside of the um the uh feeder patterns that they normally would have had. So, not only they're being moved to a new elementary school, but they are now no longer going to be part of Drew Middle School and uh that feeder pattern. But I'm also concerned
219that we're pushing um Rocky Run to greater than 50% um free and reduced lunch and we're maybe putting extra burdens on them without necessarily being able to provide all the resources um that they might need given that we have financial constraints. Um, I think that uh there are some populations of students that we have that that that have uh special circumstances and I don't think that keeping those Old Forge group and um Rapahhanic Landing at Conway severely limits uh transportation. Anyone else? Um, so I mean this is tough for me because I have constituents in Hickory Ridge that would like to stay at Conway and I have constituents in um Clear Clear View Heights who would like to stay at Falmouth. And so one plan affects one group and the other plan affects the other
220group. Um I I am also very concerned about um you know when we ask people to move um Hickory Ridge and Clear View have not had to move in gosh 15 20 years. Old Forge got moved last time. Um and uh Belmont and Engleside got moved in the last big redistricting, but we're letting one group stay and we're not letting the other group stay. Um and that's concerning to me. Um, I I'm concerned that Rocky Run with the lime plan will go from 16% ELLL to 26% ELELLL and that Conway has the resources in place already to handle 26% English language learners. So, so I'm concerned about that. Um, I also have been very impressed that Conway has an absenteeism rate of 8%, the lowest in the county for elementary school. And I worry about
221Rocky Run having to recreate that in with a new community and how difficult that will be. Um won't be impossible, but but it will be difficult and it will impact the students who currently attend Rocky Run. Um having that change in population. So those are are some of my concerns. Um does anyone else wish to weigh in on this? Okay. Um, I would just like to put out there as a living in a neighborhood, though not ones that we've discussed, that is always in the minority moving to the next school. It's it has its pluses and minuses. We are one of those, you know, the very single-digit percentages that go from our elementary school to our middle and then the minority of students that go from our middle school to our high school. Um, and
222granted, I don't know any different, but there are, you know, there have been welcoming environments that regardless of what school you go to. Um, and I do know that with the very exciting rebuild of Drew, we are going to revisit those in a couple of years as well. So, we are in a constant state of motion, which I've so grateful to be in because we never thought we'd get here. Um, so I just wanted to put that out there, Miss Haley. Sure. As you're aware, this isn't my first This is my first of many redistricting. And my first redistricting was about 25 years ago, almost 24. And my child was redistricted. And she was in tears. She couldn't believe she had to go to another school. And once she got to that school, you know,
223there was there was a lot of sunshine. But over the years, I've seen, you know, some transitions go better than others. And I think we've developed into a good um procedure that we have and we are a lot better today than we were 25 years ago in terms of transitioning with the staffs. um making sure that the new schools know, you know, the the families know the kids. Um that they're they're good placements because there's um there's a there's a lot that you learn having a child in in your school. I'm I'm not saying this is going to be easy because it's never easy. But I just have confidence that our superintendent is going to make sure that we will facilitate this, you know, to benefit, you know, all of the students and the staff
224and and and I I understand what you're saying, Dr. Warner, about the the change in population, but that's why we have, you know, the the the transitions and that's why we actually move a lot of staff. You know, people go, "Oh, great. We're going to have a much smaller school." and you know there's going to be more room, but don't think there's going to be the same amount of of staff because staff are going to be moving with the you know with the students for the for the most part. Um but I've always preferred that we keep the students closer to the schools than farther away. And that was one of the hard things when when Rapahhanic Landing was moved down to Conway. was a significantly longer ride, but Conway was where we had the
225space. And I I know they've thrived at Conway and and I thank Conway for everything they've done. And I I know um you know, the predecessor principal is going to be right down the street and I'm sure we'll have uh some you know some some assistance uh or or ideas to blend there. So, so I think it is important that we keep in mind this transition is not just about transferring the kids. It's it's making sure that the new school, you know, knows, you know, who's coming, what their needs are, and and and the good fit. So, that that's what I'm I would like to see. I'm going to be supporting the um the line because I've you know, I I felt strongly that that that works. Um although there's no perfect there's no perfect
226redistricting. So let me just say that just to speak to that point in particular which is it in and the same went for kind of the high school thing right and and to Dr. TE's point, this is this is a balancing act because one neighborhood is going to be happy, one neighborhood is going to be unhappy and yet the decisions still have to be made. But we are a growing county and we are a county that is was in desperate need of these two schools and now we're going to be filling these schools. And I feel like it's really important to say that and I've only done one little small one when I first got on board and it wasn't even really mine. So I'm not doing this from any kind of like anything other
227than sort of the inside person looking out, right? which is every single one of these principles has in I think at the ele at all of our levels, but particularly at the elementary schools has an environment that is so incredibly welcoming and and they and we are sending two of our best principles over to our new schools to kind of help make that transition happy and this new open space environment where community is being reestablished altogether. So, I just think it's really important to remember that no matter what the outcome, the fact of the matter is is that there are strong systems in place across the board to support all of our families no matter what school that they they come into and that we do retain, you know, to the to to your point.
228Uh, Mr. Rabold is going to be not 10 counties away, he's going to be 10 minutes away. And I'm sure we'll give extra support to the Conway family if they need it still being here. Same with Miss Bingham. So, so that should just go across the board. Nobody's walking away from their old school. And where we're getting new people in, I think we're just building a bigger and better community because I think the staff that we have in place currently is really strong and that shouldn't be that should not be diminished at any level. Miss Randall, so as a former Stafford County student, I was also redistricted in Aqua Harbor. We went from Monur to Stafford Elementary um when I was there. Um and it isn't easy. I definitely felt um you know just at
229the time I was at Monk here, we didn't even have kindergarten in Stafford County Schools at that time. Yes, I'm that old. But um one of the things that impressed me um I struggled a lot when I was watching the 2019 redistricting. But then oftent times I find myself being with Fairy Farm Elementary School in Rising Star as my only schools. I find myself on the balcony often looking at the red small redistricings that we've done and even the high school redistricting. Um but this time I get to be a part of it although again an outlying part of it. Um but again I also have to say that what impressed me the most was how we have a mentor 360 that supports our teachers but we have a mentor 360 that also um supports
230our principles. And one of the things that I was very impressed with was how much the principles turned themselves upside down, inside out to welcome these populations of kids that were new to their schools. Not just the kids, but also the families. Um so much so that some of them had heartburn when we said, "You're going back to your old school." And they were like, "What?" Uh, so I just feel like I'm I'm almost, you know, I I don't like disappointing anybody. However, I also like that we hear everything you're saying and we get to make ourselves better as a county, as a district, as a school. um when we make these moves that may make you uncomfortable for a little while but really um when if you want to settle in uh turn out
231to be some pretty rewarding experiences. I also will be supporting line. Thank you. Does anyone else have anything they'd like to add? Okay, so we are voting on the substitute motion first. That is motion for the approval of scenario purple. Please cast your votes. That motion fails five to two with doctors Warner and Chase uh approving the motion and the remainder denying. We will return to the primary motion which is the approval of scenario lime. Is there any further discussion on this scenario? Yes. With no discussion, we'll cast our votes on scenario line. That motion carries unanimously. I anticipate someone has a motion regarding fifth grade. Um, I move that we allow fifth grade students to um stay at their uh have the option to stay at their school um if they can provide transportation.
232I'll second that u motion. And can we say that we will have a date that the superintendent will um put forth uh that that application has to be in by just so we can um you know plan adequately. Yes. Thank you. discussion. I'm still nervous about it, but I will support it because um I'm trusting the wiser, more seasoned uh school board members that it will, okay, the older ones that it it won't impact as much as I'm fearful that will impact. Um so, but I still don't think we have the votes, so it's okay. Does anyone else have discussion? Um, I have concerns about allowing fifth graders to stay even with their own transportation. Um, I'm in the Garrisonville district. It's really small. It's in the middle and all of our schools are close
233together. I cannot afford for car rider lines to get longer in my district. Um, they are already considerably long. I also have concerns because several of my schools have very large populations that are moving in a group of very large populations. And if those any significant number of those groups decide to both stay and go, I could be very well over capacity in in our schools. Uh understanding it's only a year and the whole point of this process kind of eliminate that across the board. Um, and so that brings me a lot of stress. So I will not be supporting this motion. So I won't be supporting it either for all the reasons that we talked about in the work session. But I do think it's also important to note that we're we're opening up
234two new schools. And that in of itself is an administrative burden um that we're placing on our staff. And so I just I think to ask them then to have to even I mean even if it's a small amount and to the extent that we're looking at a growing community, I don't I don't feel it's fair to ask our staff to to to place that burden on top of them. If it's 10, if it's 20, it's still in the middle of opening new schools. And I don't think that it's fair to ask. And I think that we were given sort of enough substantiation that there's a place around there is a workaround in the extreme circumstance that would be necessary. So I'm not going to be supporting it either. Dr. Warner, I will not be
235supporting this. I just think that um we have 19 elementary schools and I think that moving even if it's just a small number that could create quite a burden in a school that maybe now is has too many fifth graders or a school that doesn't have enough and is it impedes their ability to offer programs to those students. I also think does put a burden on staff. So, I won't be supporting it. I think that um you know my kids changed elementary schools four times because we moved and every year they had a new teacher and every year they had a new class and that's just the way it was. Um, I think we have all we have really great schools and I think that um there's an equity issue too because only the parents
236would be able to drive their students would be the ones that would be able to take advantage of us. Thank you. Any further discussion? I also will not be supporting um I feel that some of what I've said before in the back has already been set up here um in the way that um I'm just worried about and I know it was done in 2019. I feel uncomfortable just because I don't know how many kids we're going to be potentially moving or moving themselves. Um I just don't want to overburden one school that we've worked really hard to unbburden. So um I won't be supporting this. Miss Hilly, my comments before were just a clarification. I'm going to be supporting this because I think this is something that we can do for our families, for
237our community. We're talking about fifth graders who potentially is their their last year at their school. And just because of all the things we've said about how, you know, our schools are our families and how much they're engaged in the schools, I I feel that they deserve the opportunity to finish their, you know, the first phase of their educational careers in that school that they started in. And I don't think that's going to be any significant burden on staff in terms of processing because if they're all going to be approved, then they're basically just going to be counting them and it's going to reduce the burden on transportation. So the reason I'm supporting this is I think it's something that we can give back as a board to the community to mitigate to, you know,
238a a a small extent, but you know, to help out the families and give those kids that opportunity to stay there. Only for the fifth graders. I, you know, I'm not that nice. I'm not going to say siblings because that's where I think, you know, that that can starts rolling down the down the road. But um I've I've seen this done, you know, on several occasions. It's never created a burden. And we had a fairly large redistricting in, you know, 2019. So, um you know, it it sounds like it's going to not go forward, but you know, we come in with the recommendation, don't do it. We don't have any suggested numbers on how many could potentially, you know, would this happen. Um, we didn't see Mr. White's magic with the, you know, the etch
239a sketch with, you know, how many numbers because nobody asked you to, I'm sure. But here we are making a decision with with a, you know, hypothetical. Oh my gosh, it could be horrible. You know, the sky could fall in, but we don't really we don't really know. So that's that's why that's why I'm But with all respect, that's how we have to make half of our decisions around here. We don't even know how many fifth graders we have. So, do we So, um I like like uh Mrs. Healey have have been through this. It's not my first rodeo. Um and I do know that it has worked in the past and I find it interesting that that there was no question about allowing seniors to stay at their high school, but um fifth graders
240staying at their elementary school is somehow different. and um I I think it has has worked in the past and so I will be supporting it which is why I made the motion. Thanks. As a point of clarification, like didn't did we maybe I'm miss misremembering the numbers we talked about 600 to 700 fifth graders that could move. So it's not all our 600 700, but those are the number that would be reassigned to a new school. So we're talking about the possibility of 700 students. Am I like Okay. Any any other discussion? Okay. So, did you want to restate the motion for like because there was some addition? Okay. Well, she had her No, just that there there has to be a a deadline that the application would be in by so that the
241staff could plan on the staffing in those schools. Also, I would since I have this opportunity like to point out that if you look at that policy, you're not going to get approved unless you have, you know, pretty significant, you know, professional documentation that this is going to be, you know, necessary. Okay? So, you know, our policy, don't don't give the excuse you can do it with the policy because you're not going to be able to. Please cast your votes on this motion, please. A motion fails four to three uh with Warner, Sigman, Hollstead, and Randall denying the motion. Action item 9.03, approval of the purchase of student Chromebooks and classroom computers. Oh no. Oh. Hold on. Yeah, that's what I was reading. Approval of the purchase 9 point. It is okay. Okay, we rearranged
242it. I was going on the computer is 9.02. approval of the purchase of student Chromebooks and classroom computers using FY24 carryover funds, which are one-time funds totaling 3.1 million. Motion to approve the purchase of the computers. Second. Any discussion? So, discussion more. So from this morning um and the three days ago at this point but um but from this morning's discussion if for those in the public you know if you don't take take a look at the presentation that was given to us I think that's important but um I have you know strong feelings about this as well just in terms because there's a lot up in the air about what how we're going to move forward and things we haven't rolled out yet but with the assurance that the discussions will continue for particularly
243for and you know again for those of you listening if you look at this slide doesn't have a number on it hold on 15 um managing the cost for Chromebooks I mean there are a lot of things that we've presented as being next step follow-ups for the justification of all this um and so whereas I have some very um high stress about you know brand new Chromebooks for middle school without like a really solid plan around responsibility for that technology. Um from the cost perspective, um I recognize that we we can't keep going the way we're going without um a plan forward and it's we can't necessarily go back and make this happen better to begin with. So, I have said from the very beginning that I I don't want to support moving all this
244money forward, but I need to know that we're going to have this followup with these. And I appreciate the work that was done to present to us today options for ensuring that we're going to have some more um processes in place to either justify the expense, manage the expense, and minimize the expense moving forward. Miss Healey, this is a follow up on Miss Hallstead's comment. I would ask for a report from the superintendent at the next meeting since we're not going to meet in July about what we're going to do um when we hand out these $2.2 million worth of Chromebooks to the middle schools because we talked at our work session about having an acknowledgement from, you know, the parent about the responsibility for, you know, this the the uh Chromebooks that we're handing
245out. Um and and I want I think this is the the good time to start something like that since every single middle school student will be getting a new Chromebook and this is a significant expense and we are you know prioritizing this over many many needs of the school district um to spend this money on. So I want to make sure that we are going to do something different now you know as we discussed and not just hand them out and here you go and in terms also responsibility for maintaining them um and and that make clear that they're going to be using the same book for the whole you know term of their career in the middle school. Mrs. Randall, um I will also be supporting this, but I also want to piggyback I
246and not only every single middle school kid, but every freshman as well. Um, so I just want to make sure that we have a process and procedure in place that they're aware of their tech responsibility, but also um I would als I still would like a tiered approach in the middle school versus every sixth grader gets one to take home. I again we've as a board I think we've really um and one of our reasons high reasons before even the governor came out with his was screen time and so belltobell was something we decided before we were told and I feel this giving these kids in middle school sixth grade when they've just come from put your computer in the cart to now you get to take it home uh let's just get them into
247the lockers first. Um, so I'm not a total proponent of that and so I'm interested to hear how this is going to be rolled out. Um, because as Miss Healey said, you know, this amount of money is really really helpful to for our three list or to get some of the wants and needs of the elementary, middle school, and high school principles that nothing on their list was given to them this year. So that's how I feel about this. Thank you, Dr. Warner. I will be supporting this, but I too um share the concerns of my board members. Um I would really like a plan for how we use the computers instructionally at all grade levels. I would really like um we've we've tried respect the tech and these other things, but there really needs
248to be some plans in place and some determination so that students know that they are responsible for that tech. Those are these are an expensive item and we have 32,000 students and I think that it's really critical that we have a much stronger sense of in place of of what the responsibilities are and how we take care of it. When I hear that we're spending 12,000 hours in labor repairing computers, when I hear that um 50% of the computers that are damaged in middle school are are the the reduction is 50% if we put them on carts. I I think that we have a critical issue that we have to address and how we use the computers and how we're using them instructionally are all part of that. Did you have something Dr. Yeah. So,
249um, this board knows where I am on on sort of screens and and all of that. Um, I will say that it's my understanding that the school division has moved in a direction where we don't have as many textbooks. So, it's not like we're going to save money by not buying Chromebooks because then we will just have to buy textbooks. So, I don't think there's any savings to be had um much as I would like there to be savings. Um but but um I I will continue to very much I'm I'm happy to see that only 0.2 million of this is for elementary school which is why I will support it. But if it was more, I would not be supporting it because I really feel that elementary school um students are developing mental models
250and schemas and all kinds of things and memory and attention and it really worries me and and you know I I certainly don't think the majority of our teachers do this, but some teachers do use an electronic babysitter and that was one of my concerns with cell phones is you let students listen to music on the cell phone in the class and it devolves into they're using their cell phone for something else. And I worry that similar kinds of things can happen with Chromebooks. Um and so um but I will will support this. Thank you. Do you have something? Can I say one more thing? Let uh Dr. Smith go back to you. Well, I just piggyback off of uh what Dr. Chase said about how we've gone away from textbooks, therefore need the Chromebooks.
251I would also like to say there's somewhat of an unfunded mandate because of the requirement of testing at all levels in multiple tests that were required to do on these devices. So I would just like to point out it's an unfunded mandate. Dr. Smith. No, I just wanted to say I appreciate the comments. I appreciate the conversation earlier today around this. I think um you could see we took a deep dive into this and looking at our Chromebook usage, how it has replaced many of our textbooks and our tools has become embedded into our our classrooms. But I think they're all valid points and uh we know that we've got I shared some things today that we are working on already in terms of respect the tech. We're talking about giving parents more access in
252terms of the the sites their kids are visiting, looking at screen time, looking at the the the breakage and how we can improve there. And so, um, we are starting that work and happy to keep you updated as we move along. I'm always also happy to come back and share what that acknowledgement looks like with parents. We need to work with our our tech team to to see how do we do that in in a manageable way, but um, agreed that that's a step we're going to take. And so, happy to keep you updated along the way, Miss Guy. So, I'm told that 2.2 2 million is still a lot of money. Um, and it's high for purchasing all the middle school Chromebooks. And so what is that breakdown like is that like 7,000 Chromebooks
253or something? Because we don't have that in the presentation. Like how how many are we buying the number? I could get that for I don't have that off the top of my head right now. I can see if I could look it up. I'm just, you know, curious to I mean, we have when we looked at this, I will say we broke it down, we had it broken down by school. How many do we need per school? Um, it did total I looked at the figures. It did total each one of those schools and did total 2.2 million. And in order to get there, um, I don't know that I have that right in front of me, though. I would like to. Okay. Because I was doing the math and I got 7,300, but then
254again, I don't do math well. So, um, it might be we have eight middle schools and about 1,000 to,100 each. I mean, not including Drew. So, plus the only reason why I would like to know is because, um, not that I don't trust you guys, that's not the issue, but the people who are saying it that it's too much. I'd love to be able to say this is how many and this is the cost per and then they could do their math and see that it's 2.2 million. Happy to share that. Isn't that more largely dependent on how what's the cost per than the number of students? It's the same thing. We have Well, yeah. No, I know that. But what I'm saying is is that you're But to the point of the um presentation
255today, I can buy a $100 Chromebook that breaks every 10 minutes and I have to fix it or I can buy a $300 Chromebook and I can get a little more life out of it. So, I think that maybe that I mean, I get that it's broken down first by like on a per student basis, but I think it also does depend on what we're looking at. It's like I can buy a t-shirt at Walmart or at Macy's, I can save a hundred bucks or I can buy the same t-shirt every four weeks because the one from Walmart keeps ripping, right? So, am I really saving money in the long run? No. And I get that. Yeah, I get that and I understand that. But I think if the public does ask, hey, I'd like
256to know how much they cost or I'd like to know how many, then, you know, they obviously could have asked in a nicer, better way, but we can give them that information. So, I just wanted to kind of remind people of where we were maybe two years ago. I have an eighth grader when she started uh middle school. She was given a Chromebook. She was allowed to email anyone in the school division. She had group projects. She could email her peers. And then one day, probably about March or April, her access to email inside the to other students was shut down without notice, without warning. Literally, she tried to send an email to a class group and it got returned. and we didn't know what was going on. Um because middle schoolers don't have a
257lot of impulse control and some very poor decisions were made and we had to shut off middle school email basically without warning because they just they just don't have the skill set and the maturity to make those decisions. We banned cell phones in middle school before we did it in the rest of the division. It be it became a really great pilot for the rest of the division, but we did that for a reason. Um so I agree I would love to see a phased approach. I think moving from fifth to sixth um is a huge growth um expectation for kids in their maturity and their responsibility. Um I don't know the best way to do that. I just remind people that it wasn't that long ago that we had to do some major tech
258crackdowns on the same kids that are still in middle school. Um, so I know we're not necessarily going backwards in what they're allowed to do, but we're not we're also not necessarily exhibiting a plan to get them off the machines in general or to reduce their reliance on the machines in general. And I would love to see that plan. I would love to see it phased in because I know once they get to high school, they go from not being able to email anyone to basically emailing everyone because high schoolers can email both inside the school division and anyone out in public. Um, so again, that increased level of responsibility doesn't exist. To go from being able to email teachers only to the entire world with no middle step is kind of it's a big
259one. So that's my comments on that. Doc, Dr. Just one more note on this. So um I did get a figure it's about 8,900 total units. Um this included the elementary ones. So we said there was just a was it point we said 4% um point. Yeah. So in terms of that are the exact numbers from today. Um but yeah 8,900 is the is the total numbers that we're purchasing. Okay. And I want to I'm really excited us bringing a new chief technology officer on that has got experience with this and so she is ready to jump in and really jump in and be a part of this work. So looking forward to work with Dr. Shubbridge. Okay. If is there any other discussion on this item? I'm going to cast your votes on approving
260the purchase. The motion passes unanimously. Um item 9.03, approval of retention bonuses funded by the state that require no local match. Motion to approve the bonuses. Second bonus. Is there any discussion on this item? just to say thank you to the state for giving us money and for allowing us to um prorrate it and not have to ask the county to come up with matching money because that would have been a big lift. I I just have a question. I'm looking at the resolution and it has um source state funds and it says available nutrition funds and available fleet funds. So, the available nutrition funds and the available fleet funds, are they going to be are they part of the money coming from the state for the bonuses or this I'm I'm just going to
261support this, but I'm just trying to be clear on this money because the way the resolution reads, it's the state um funding, but the nutrition would not be state funding and the the fleet wouldn't necessarily be either. Uh yes, ma'am. I actually jumped up because I wanted to clarify a couple things on the resolution. Uh that was one of them. Uh because I probably failed to mention that earlier today when we were talking about the bonuses is because the state money didn't cover all the SOQ positions. That was our way because there's fund balance in those funds available. We're using the the funds out of there for those smaller amounts to cover those employees and that allowed us to get the minimum bonus up to $700 because we were below that. So um by using
262the the fleet um and nutrition funds to cover that. Yeah, I have no problem with that. But what was that resolution? I mean, what was the the motion again? Just to make the wording. Maybe Miss Hall can tell us what that language was. I just want to make sure that we're not just from the state funds, but what what did the what was the the motion? I apologize. I was reading a text from someone. What was the question? What was the motion that was just made? I'm just trying to get the the wording to make sure that it's to approve the retention bonuses funded by the state and the amount of So funded. It did say funded by the state. So we probably need to adjust that that motion to say that we're requesting the
263appropriation of the money from the state, you know, for bonuses. It's but we're not we're actually going to do bonuses with some money that is not from the state. So we we just have to be careful with that. Do we need to get the appropriation of the fleet and the nutrition services money from the um Yes, it'll all go Yes, ma'am. It'll all go to the county in the same appropriation. Right. But shouldn't that should that not be part of the motion? Yes, if you approve or you can approve the resolution as it's written. The other thing I wanted to point out is we did amend the resolution from what was posted last week. We amended it after we talked today and added a language in there that gives us flexibility to increase it above
264that 700 if the available funds um after the final signed contracts are returned on June 15. Let's see that. Okay. So, so that's changed since this morning. Maybe I would need to I was I was looking at the fun. Let me just look at that word. It's in the resolution. Whereas nutrition services and fleet services as self-sustaining departments will also provide monies from their funds to provide a onetime retention. Yeah, I get it. It's in the resolution, but that's not what the motion was. So, we need to need to have the motion to approve the resolution. Yes. Thank you. The resolution itself says the request for the appropriation of state funding. So, are you saying add in that's not state funding? Yes. State funding and other I'm just going to amend the resolution to request
265the appropriation of the state funding for the bonuses except those that which will be covered by nutrition and police service. But those have to be appropriated as well. So, so be appropriated through the we the resolution should be to request the appropriation of funding for bonuses as stated you know in in uh state because that will cover everything. All right. So Missy, do you have that? I will have to capture it from the tape. Okay. So, we're going to amend the resolution to request the appropriation as as designated in the resolution and the person at no cost to the county. I mean, that's that doesn't have to be on there, but that's that is the main point to make that we're asking for for money that is not, you know, coming from the county. Correct.
266Can we also put on the record that this is money that is specifically coming to from the state to the schools for this particular purpose and we are having to double back and I mentioned it this morning and I'm sorry to mention it again but I will because last year it was for some reason it wasn't appropriated out twice right when we asked for it. I get that we asked for it on an emerent basis but this was money coming from the states for the schools. So, we need to make sure that people really understand the layers that we have to peel back. Like, we are coming here to approve this, to bring it there, to have them approve it, which there's no reason why they shouldn't approve it, but there wasn't any reason last
267year. And so, so I just want to make it clear that this is this is school-based money specifically for bonuses and that it should be immediately appropriated so we can get it to our staff. It's not a question. It's just a comment for the record. And I think we should take a moment to just reflect on this extra layer. Mr. Fulmer, if you could take a look at that now, therefore, and see if we need to address the other funds as well. It just talks about the state fund bonus funding. But if we need the nutrition and the fleet services funds appropriated, then it should be in there. Now, therefore, what we're requesting because it did it didn't get added. um in there. Okay. It's the accurate um state funds, but it's not it doesn't
268have anything in that last sentence about nutrition and fleet in their funds. Um it says it's available. Do we have a Yeah. So we have adequate appropriation in those two funds but we have we haven't spent all the the appropriation that are in those two funds and we expect that we'll have so it's already appropriated correct how convenient you don't have to double back on that part of it. Please let's cast your votes to support these Unanimous approval. Thank you. Item 9.04, approval of a resolution requesting appropriation to close out the VPSA interest accounts and place funds in a school's capital reserve fund. Motion to approve. Second. Mr. Fulmer, could you give us the cliff notes on this for the record? I will. also um had the privilege of presenting this to the FAB C
269last week but for the full board give an overview. Uh so as we borrow money um through our VPSA pulled borrows uh that money goes and it sits in account and we spend it down while it's sitting in that account it earns interest uh and and that's legal it's allowable uh and but that interest is not appropriated to us. So right now it's actually so this goes back to I think 2018 predominantly 2018 2021 several borrows that we had for projects back then. Uh those funds accumulated a pretty large amount of interest that we're sitting on now. It's time to close out those accounts and we've come to the board before and and closed out accounts like this. Uh and um we're in a little bit of a a funny situation where we can't um
270even give the money back to the county because it's not appropriated to us yet. So we have to get the county to appropriate us. Um and then so we I presented two options uh with the FABY. So right now we do not have any emergency reserve funds on the like on the county's side for us to use next year. And so presented that we could either um appropriate those funds with the or request the appropriation of those funds to be placed in our reserve account. Uh that would give us access to them next year if an emergency repair uh comes up. or we could go ahead and apply them to a a threeR project right now or request that. Uh so either way, um either one of those two options requires the board of supervisors
271to appropriate those funds. Uh the FAB C recommendation was that we request that the funds be placed in our capital place, you know, replacement reserve that's held on the on the county's books. I agree. Any discussion on this? Okay, please cast your votes. That passes unanimously. The last item on our action uh of our action items tonight is the adoption of the FY26 budget. Are you clarifying the positions? Thank you. I don't want any more paper. Can we have a motion? Motion to approve the uh adoption of our FY26 budget. Second. Okay. Now that we have these Madam Chair, can I ask a question? Sure. So, the $15 million shortfall from our budget to this schoolboard budget um to this, is that all compensation or would that have all been compensation? Yes. Does anyone else
272have questions? Are there Mr. Fulmer? Could you give us a brief overview on the changes on this one you just handed to us compared to what we discussed earlier? Just Yes. The only change on this from earlier is um right underneath the red non-discretionary requirements and our school-based positions. It says impact of existing staffing standards um and SOQ compliance for FY26. Before it said 111 FTEES, it's 106.4 FTEES. Uh and that was um primarily just I had double counted our five bus attendants that we were adding that at no cost um in that line and in in a later line but they were already included later. So I just wanted to update that to you. The total number of FTEEs that were adding in this after the changes we discussed today. So no changes since
273earlier is 122 23.9 123. You don't want to hear my comment. All right, it's late. But isn't it the impact of the staffing standards on the enrollment? Or this has the impact of the enrollment on the staffing standards. The enrollment doesn't have an impact on the staffing standards. The staffing standards impact No, the enrollment drives the staffing standards. The impact of the But the staffing standards aren't going to change the staffing standards. Are they fluid? The implementation of the staffing standards. The right impact of enrollment on the implementation of the technically um we can make an impact on the staffing standards when we make an adjustment to them. But the enrollment I know it's late but I'm still awake. Yeah. All right. So I'm not I don't know. Are you done? Oh yeah. Okay. I'm
274off the clock. So like we we did have a robust discussion this morning. So, it's I mean, not to beat the dead horse or whatever, but I I really feel like it's important. We've we've for folks that have questions about the difference between what we were talking about. So, to Miss Randall's point, we approved 503. We managed to do this budget reconciliation here to get the 488, you know, to get our zero solution here, but we are in a $15 million shortfall. We're actually even $2 million less than the superintendent's required budget if I remember your initial your requested budget or recommended budget to us. So, so I applaud everyone for all of our work and diligence to put these numbers together on paper, but the amount of red in here is disturbing to me
275and I think it's a focal point that we should all start looking into. I just want a little histo history for folks. When I first got on this board, we put together a five-year budget. We presented that budget that was as transparent as we could get. This is based on growth. This is what we're looking at. So there were never any hidden traps, you know, whatever. There was nobody hiding around the corner waiting to jump out at you. And so, so from a budget perspective, although I get that we're we're looking at these things, I I really would just like to address the the 800 pound gorilla in the room that we cannot continue to run a school system of this size every year fighting the way we fought with the way we have to
276fight to justify the dollars. When you take a look at the amount of red on this document and the number of things that we've had to go through to cut down and I get it every we all go through our we have to do it at our houses too every once in a while. We got to tighten the belt strap and do a few things to make sure we can move forward. But what's not here is the list of $ 48 million I think it was left in unmet needs that we had at the school system. Right? that access to things or things that our kids should have access to that have been removed from the budget. And so whereas this seems I mean I I mean Dr. Smith, Chris, you guys kudos because there
277was so much going on in this that I'm not even sure how I didn't drown in the sea of your numbers by the way with all the you know with the meetings and coming. I appreciate all the work that you've done on it, but I do think it bears repeating to the public and to our speaker's point tonight, Miss Denm, thank you for that, the the need to continue the advocacy throughout the year, not just at budget season, but to really shore up the importance of every dollar that's invested into this school system, which is in our people. $15 million in personnel costs were cut out from people. So, so it's not we ordered extra staplers and we are throwing a pizza party for kindergarteners, which we should do anyway, but but that's not what
278we're doing here. We're talking about investing in the people. And so, to go back to the five-year budget, we had a scale with steps. We fought for phases. That didn't work out this year. So, I I encourage everyone if you have questions about what you're looking at or what you're seeing or what we're approving or why step didn't take place. I mean, don't ask me because I'm still confused over it, but Chris is definitely here for all of your your questions, but and Carter, yeah, we're Yeah, her too. Um, but anyway, ask because I know it causes a lot of angst every year when we see these things and we have these discussions and there's some confusion between our original discussion in advocacy and fighting and then the endgame product. So, so don't sit with
279it. ask the question, what happened to this? What happened to that? And unfortunately, it's sitting on the cutting room floor in $15 million. So, I have a question, Miss Guy. My question Well, I agree there's too much red, but it is what it is and it's it's frustrating. Um, but I just have a question about the compensation for school board salary increase. Says 30,573. So, that's divided by seven, correct? Yes. I know that. I know. Um, and so what would that bring each schoolboard member's salary up to annually? I believe it's $20,000 a year. My math ain't math because I get 15. Because it's only covering so it's from January to June 30th. Well, why didn't you tell me that when I asked you? Okay. We were trying to figure it out and we couldn't
280figure it out and Okay, so then that makes sense. I approved this budget because um people should get paid a fair wage and this ain't fair. But it's getting us closer to I think it'll take about 20 more years for us to catch up to where we should be. But um I'm hoping that this brings us diverse candidates who would have norm not normally stepped up in the past because they can't afford to make $10,000 a year. Um, real quick, Miss Sigman, if you don't mind, I just want to clarify as I had a second to digest Miss Randall's um, question about how we closed the gap. So, I don't want to say it was all salaries because in order to um, actually to get to the full salaries that we wanted to at the
2812.7% we did the the red that you're mentioning is the kind of non-s salary lines where we had to make cuts as well. So, I just wanted to clarify that we actually had to go above, you know, to get to that 2.7, we had to cut above some of the salaries, which is why we cut into our um kind of department expenditures and some of the positions as well. Oh, wait. But, we also took away position a position I get it wasn't staffed already, but that really in the school system, the school system is begging for it. if it was one position or if that money could have been taken and chopped up into two or three different positions, we took that money out and that was for technology support within our systems. And so
282that only hurts us. It doesn't help us. Can um I would imagine this is a Dr. Smith question, but can you remind me if we did anything about class sizes in balancing this budget? So, we did take a look at that and uh because we thought worst case scenario, we looked at that, but under this budget that we have before you tonight, there's no impacts to class sizes. And I kind of wanted to build on what Miss Hollstead spoke about um in raising awareness to the things that we are talking about here. Like we are literally trying to balance a budget by adding children to classes while we're not even able to meet the staffing stand not staffing standards the you know the salary changes we've proposed five years ago or four years ago um
283because they're just we are underresourced and we are chronically underresourced and not just in the years on the operation side but on the capital side as well. um the hole we're digging out of there. Um, and I wish I knew a better way to have the public be aware of that because at the same time I especially this time of year, um, I get asked all the time, well, why don't we just pay to rent out the Patriot Center for graduation so we have unlimited seats and why are we limiting and you know the cost of that alone would probably put some of these like eliminate a red line, right, for one day for or even if we had to go to two days of rental for to cover all of our high schools to
284be able to use that space, what we could do to make every day in our schools better. Um, it just shows for me like it's a it's a fair question, right? These are things that we would love to have, but it's also from where I sit, what we are cutting from our budget. The idea of being able to rent a space to accommodate all of our graduates families seems so far out of reach. It's it's sad. It's really sad. Um, so please like talk to your friends and neighbors. Talk about like yes, we didn't go as far as I would have liked personally in this budget. I think we made the absolute best out of every cent we are allocated. And I am very glad that in addition to um, you know doing what we
285could on salaries, we are not also increasing class sizes on top of that. Um and I'm really really grateful for the work everybody has put into this from you know staff of course from the feedback from the community from our committees you know both CIP and budget um and all the advisory committees that come in and present to um on their thoughts from their kind of subject areas to inform us on our budget just not just for this year but for moving forward. Um, I'm really grateful uh for the way that that we've worked together to get to where we are and, you know, to the county for, you know, recognizing that we were trying to align percentage increases with all county staff and all school staff as, you know, one set of employees um
286to get to the right number or to get at least get to the same number. I um I do appreciate that the board of supervisors has um approved is going to have the hearing for the uh food tax increase that is May 20th that will give us the additional funds we need to be able to meet the salaries that we are attempting to put together. It was not the salaries that we had hoped we'd be offering this year. It's not the salaries for our licensed staff, for our paras, for our support staff, but um we have a that $15 million hole is is it we just couldn't we just couldn't do it. Um but there's so many other things that we do without. We would like to have additional sightbased support for schools that have
287high needs. We would like to make sure that we aren't increasing class sizes so that teachers have more time to spend with students individually. Um we are competing with the schools north of us who are offering a a 6 and a half% increase. We can't do that. We just can't. We just don't have the money. Um and that kills me. Um, yeah, but we are doing the best we can and I think that this board came together and really did create and our staff did help us manage the numbers that we had because the math just wasn't mathing and there was no more pennies left in the couch cushions because we looked um we have tried to build a five-year budget so that this county could could anticipate, but they didn't have the money either
288because there's a $22 million hole in their budget because of of the way um some of the tax abatements are funded. This is a state problem. It's a state mandate and it's unfunded and it causes there it rolls downhill and unfortunately this is where it landed. So thank you. Yes. So I mean my concern always is that we have a qualified teacher in the classroom and I am very worried that 2.7% increase is going to result in attrition. Right? It's going to result in people going north to Prince William or going north to Fairfax. And so um I hope that that teachers do stay. Um but I think um this idea of one Stafford and that we uh argue for the same increase that folks across the street are getting when they did a huge
289market correction in one year and they told us to make the market correction in five and then we dropped the ball in year four. Um is not really um getting the job done. And so I am I I quite frankly am am very worried. I hope my worries are unwarranted, but um Prince Williams 7% this year and six and a half next is uh pretty darn big. And um we we need to think about think about that for next year when we're opening three schools and have to hire a lot more people for those positions. Um, so, um, I will of course support this, but it's nowhere near what I would like us to be able to do for the teachers in our county. Thank you, Rand. Um, thank you for answering my c my
290question, Chris, but I would also like to thank you and Carter and your staff, Dr. um, Smith, coming on late and but jumping right in with both feet. I really appreciate that. I also know that at the elementary school, at the middle school, and the high school, the principles got together and put a list of their top five uh things that they need for their schools, and none of them even came to us in a proposal. So, I mean, and they're the ones that are working with the educators who have the hands-on with our kids. Um, so I'm that's disappointing. get. Of course, not being able to keep up with our salary adjustments, that's disappointing. Um, you know, the fact that we were really trying for the one Stafford and theirs is 2.75 and ours
291is 2.0. Um, that's frustrating. So, am I wrong? 2.7 for us, but they're 2.75, but they start midyear, so they're really Well, some do. not the um anniversary ones, but um I still just um those are those bum me out. But at the same time, I look around at how many staff members came, community members came, our committees came. I mean, those are volunteers. We've said that before. They're volunteers, but they come and they speak um to the supervisors. Even us sitting in and um Miss Hall, Miss um Sigman, I know she's like, "What the heck?" But I know it happens all the time. She's sitting in the meeting until like 1:30 and I'm watching it and I texted her at like 1 and said, "Is it done?" And she said, "No, they're coming back."
292I'm like, "I got to get up." So, I stayed on the I stayed on watching all night. But she was actually there in person. And we really appreciate you putting all that time and extra effort in there. But again, for all of us ladies up here, uh, kind of menopausing, I just really appreciate that we've all worked together. Do not share my private medical diagnosises. Sorry, I'm having a moment. So, anyways, I just think that it's um, you know, I think we've done our our due diligence, too, and so I just really appreciate um that as well. So, I will be supporting. Thank you. Okay. Okay, after Miss Randall finished that statement, I'd like to call for the question. Yes. Please, please cast your votes to approve are not our budget. Please don't say not.
293Motion passes unanimously. That was good. Dr. Smith. Oh my god. Uh good evening. I got several things that I'd like to share in terms of good news. I'd like to begin um my remarks uh this evening. Just want to talk a little bit about addressing a topic that is on all of our minds is this is mental health awareness month. And I think uh you know that this is mental health awareness month for the month of May. And just that just as more that we can bring this to focus and uh bring it out for everyone um I think it's the better. So, we know the end of the year can be particularly challenging and we do want to make sure that everyone understands that they have access to the supports and resources should they
294need assistance. Um, if you notice any signs of distress or simply have a feeling something that just isn't quite right, please don't hesitate to reach out. uh we will share the these slides in the the QR code that has resources available that includes uh the 988 hotline along as resources that we have on our website staffordschools.net mental health and so just want to reiterate the resources that are there to help you. Um we do want to continue to end that stigma around mental health and understand that it's something that we all work through and we want to support you. Secondly, uh I do want to say thank you to our school board and the the board of supervisors. Several of you just echoed some of this sentiment, but it is has been a long process.
295Um excited to be where we are tonight with the approval of the budget. The the operating budget does allow us to plan for growth and supporting the needs of our students and staff. We are also very pleased about the and I want to mention the success that we had with the full funding of both our three R projects and our capital improvement plan. And I think that was a huge gain for us and a huge win. Um, and the investment really reflects that shared commitment to our student success, making sure that we have safe and modern spaces for our students and staff and just continue to support support the incredible staff that we have. With this funding, we are better positioned to move forward on on key initiatives that support our strategic plan that supports
296many of our strategic goals and strengthens our schools. And so, um, you know, as a brief update based on your approval this evening, we are prepared to issue contracts this Friday. So, thank you for working with us on that. We are we will continue to move full steam ahead to issue those contracts to our staff so we can continue to retain the best and brightest. So, once again, thank you to our school board and our board of supervisors for the partnership and the support. Together, we are building one staffer. Our community cares deeply about our students. And next, I'd like to recognize a few meaningful engagement opportunities. Our school has received a generous donation of formal wear from Mr. Paul Reky, a dress designer and former owner of HNG Formal. The donation is valued at
297approximately $100,000 and included a wide selections of dresses appropriate for prom, homecoming, and other special school events. The contribution made a meaningful difference for many of our students by ensuring that this cost was not a barrier to participating these important and memorable experiences. The donated dresses were available to our students at our pop-up prom shop held at AG Wright Middle School earlier this year, and we're grateful to Mr. Reky for his generosity and for supporting our students in such a thoughtful and impactful way. We continue to build new partnerships and expanding opportunities for our community. And one example of this forward momentum was the recent job fair that we held on April 30th. Our human resources and talent development team came together with our county to host a joint job fair uh with the county
298government leaders and we brought together leaders from human resources, transportation, nutrition services, operations and maintenance and they were all there and we had over 200 folks come through the doors uh really looking for jobs and opportunities. a lot of them federal workers and we were looking to capture them and and continue to take care of our community. This is just another example of how our county and our school board are working together to create that one Stafford. We're fostering that collaboration and we're strengthening our community. So, uh this wouldn't be possible. I just want to say thank you to our human resources and talent development team, our communications team for for marketing, our operations team. Everyone was there to really try to take care of our community and bring them into the fold here at
299Stafford schools and Stafford County government. Our EPIC students and that stands for engineering professions and industries of construction that center at Stafford High School. We recently had those students tour the building site at high school 6. Um our facilities and leaders from McDonald Bullyard and Pek which is MVP. Our construction managers managers led the epic students on the tour. They got to hear from designers and trade professionals, including mechanical, plumbing, electrical, framing, drywall, and masonry crews that were actively involved in this work. The tour ended with a safety harness demonstration connecting directly to their national center for construction, education, and research core craft credential, which our students will earn, and it helps them to uh make sure that they are dawning a safety harness as a required task. So just another excellent example how our
300Stafford schools are connecting students with those real world experiences and setting them up for credentials to experience success right after graduation. So many great things going on and just another example of our sphere of connection and opportunity was our recently uh hosted launch of career GPS guiding pathways to success and we held this on April 23rd at Stafford Regional Airport. Thank you for several of you for attending. We had over 2500 sixth graders and 60 vendors here out on the airport. It was an interactive event that was really designed to introduce students to a variety of career pathways as they begin to plan for high school and just one of the many events that we build into our strategic plan work to make sure that they are prepared for post-secary success. They were able to
301explore hands-on exhibits, meet with local professionals, and really we had all seven of our career cluster areas represented. We had high school students from our high schools, ambassadors sharing their experiences in specialty programs connecting with younger students. It was just a tremendous event and just grateful to our community partners for making this important work possible and really partnering with us on this event. Moving from elementary to high school, just want to take a moment to celebrate an individual accomplishment that reflects both academic excellence and personal dedication. AJ Stton a of Colonial Forge High School won the prestigious National Merit Vulcan Materials Company scholarship. AJ who present intends to pursue a career in mechanical engineering is among 830 students nationwide recognized for in this 70th annual National Merit Scholarship Program. And so very excited for him
302and just congratulations to him. And last but not least, this brings me to uh one of the most meaningful milestones as we get ready for the class of 2025 graduation. Mountain View High School and Stafford High School will host graduation ceremonies on Friday, May 30th at 6:30 p.m., while Brook Point, Colonial Forge, and North Stafford High Schools will host their cere ceremonies on Saturday, May 31st at 8:30 a.m. Graduation is a proud and joyful milestone for our students, families, and entire community. We are really excited about this and we hope many of them folks will join us. If you're not able to know that they will be livereamed for those that are not able to attend in person and you can check with your specific school or view at this link online scafst staffordschools.net/graduation for
303more information and we look forward to honoring each and every one of our graduates as they cross step across the stage and step into the next chapter of their lives. So thank you and that concludes my report. Thank you very much. All right, Dr. Chase, would you like to start? Sure. Uh, it's been a long night. I don't have a huge amount to say other than I'm thrilled that we got the budget passed and um I'm looking forward to attending graduation. Thank you, Miss H. I planned on being short tonight and then now I don't know how to upstage that one. That that was great. I can't be that short. I'm just saying. Um longer than her. Yeah, I know. Um I don't think it counted towards my time though. So um I too just
304want to I too just want to bring um attention to mental health awareness month. That's sort of like my I mean I'm hoping everyone notices that's my biggest focus at this point in the game. um three and a half years later, it's, you know, it's been, I think, one of the hardest things um of being on this board um in general is just watching some of the things that we we're seeing take place across the school system with our kids who are struggling um silently or openly or whatever way it is. I think um you know, you would hope over the course of time that it would become less pervasive and that we would have uh more resources and yet over time it has felt more consuming. Um, so I, you know, um, there's a
305few things, I feel like I'm I'm struggling that I should mention them or not mention them. I don't know if I should give them any air time, but we talk a lot up here. I talk a lot up here about, you know, parents having to do better to model for their kids the behavior that they'd like to see their kids doing. And and I I really just encourage our parents if they're listening. Um take a minute to step outside yourself and definitely watch your behaviors and your actions and see what you're actually telling the kids around you. They are watching. They see you. They hear you. Um and oftentimes they think that that behavior is okay. And I really just want to point out that it's a heavy burden for a kid to try and
306live up to the angst that an adult that they're that they respect is is exhibiting in the world. And so if we can just try for a minute to realize the impact that even your stress has on your own child, but more importantly, your anger or your disrespect um and and what that actually says, that's a heavy burden for a child that doesn't have the rest of the information to both process and and and to step away from that. So So to our kids who are struggling, there is help out there. People care speak. Uh don't be afraid to say what's on your mind. No one is judging you because everyone out there is struggling with something. So please understand that. Please hear that. And I don't care who it is, a trusted teacher, another
307friend, you know, the grocery store clerk speak. People want to hear from you and they want to make sure that you're better. Um, and you know, just on that note, um, there are several things that we're working hoping to bring to the school system in September or bringing to the school system in September. Um, and it'll be a baby project for me. I'm hoping that it grows into an annual thing once, you know, past my tenure here. Um, so, so really focus and pay attention. It will be mental health focused. And I and I really really hope that we'll be able to bring the community together and bring out um some of some of the resources that are that are accessible to you at that point or at any point really. Um, I love the
308one Stafford motto and the one Stafford sentiment and I I really hope that that becomes the way that we focus all of our energy moving forward because I I think as um individuals we're all kind of great in our own way, but I think together we're definitely much stronger and I know this board has proved that to me over and over again um that we can't do it alone. I'll be at Mountain View graduation and uh also Colonial Forge graduation although that 6 a.m. wakeup call to a n graduating student is not appealing. Um, but I am looking forward to graduation this year, probably almost as much as the seniors, Miss Healey. And and we'll welcome you to Mountain View. Thank you. I'm looking forward to graduation as well. I think you all most many
309of you know that's my favorite thing of the year. It's just so exciting to to to see the the fruits of the labor of all our dedicated staff when those students graduate and the families are so relieved that it's there. Um, I just want to use my my time this evening to thank the board of supervisors for uh approving the purchase of the Black uh Jack warehouse property. I I I I really know there was um or understand there was a struggle on you know some of their um parts to, you know, about whether we should use that funding for the warehouse. And I think they um I think I think they listen to us and and recognize that, you know, that that's something that that we believe, you know, is best for the county.
310And although not all of them agreed, we we did have four that supported it. And I want to thank them because I think that that is a fantastic long-term investment for the schools because we will use that warehouse um space and if there is an opportunity to share some of the space when the tenant moves out with the county, I I know we're going to make that available to them as well. So, I appreciate the good faith in us in um in them approving our our request for that funding. And also I want to uh thank the board of supervisors for identifying the um meals tax increase as a potential source of revenue for the schools. And that $3.1 million is what allowed us to make the 2.7. Although we would have all wanted to
311do more, um I'm glad we could, you know, get to that 2.7 for all of the staff and that would not have been possible. Of course, the vote is still out there, but I'm going to be, you know, not even cautiously optimistic. I'm going to be optimistic that that's going to go through because, you know, we have we've gotten the the commitment. So, you know, a couple weeks from now, I'll I'll sleep a lot better once, you know, it goes through. But, um, but if they had not done that, it would have been a lot more painful to to work on this budget because as as much as we would like to do more, it would have been much much more difficult to not even be able to do the 2.7 that we have. And
312finally, I want to uh thank our community, you know, and that's our school community and our parents, our advisory committees, everybody that came out to support the schools in this budget season because things were not looking um very good when we started out with the recommendations. And I think we we ended up in a much better place than we were in when the county administrator's initial um you know budget came out. So yes, we went we we asked for more. We could absolutely use more, but I'm I'm going to see the the half full glass and be grateful for what we got, which was significantly more than the original recommendation. And that's because the supervisors, you know, listening to the community, you know, made a decision to to do more for the schools than than
313was in that original recommendation. So, thank you. I'm looking forward to graduation and all the celebrations at the end of the year. Miss Randall, it has been a year and now it is time to celebrate. I have enjoyed um the gala. I've enjoyed mentor 360. I've enjoyed seeing so many awards. When you see where we started at the year with our educators and our students and how we end the year, it's just so heartwarming because there's growth in teachers. There's growth in all of our educators and in all of our students and that has been a lot of work. Um, I'm excited looking forward to graduations for Project Search Phoenix and Stafford High School. But what I really want to tell you about is Oh, I want to also wish a happy retirement to Jake
314Cook and Jeff Jeter. Um, I was very surprised to see him. Jeff Jeter was leaving. I just really love his work. But anyways, I had such a really fun day last Thursday. Um, Angie Mgo made it possible for me to have this day. I started off going to I I got my boots on. I got my pink hard hat on and I got my pink vest on and I went to the boot site and just then out of the bus jumped the electrician students, the carpentry students and the masonry students and their educators. They were even better geared up than me. They had tool belts clipped on. It was awesome. But what was really fun to see was the girls in the electrician class in the basement up on ladders drilling holes to run the
315electrical wires. Oh my gosh. Because they were going to finish the basement of this house. But to see this house and the progress and all of those students jumping off the bus, jumping into their jobs because they only have a short amount of time. but the educators all dressed and jumping in with their tool belts on to help the students with real life learning. It was so really cool. But then I got to keep my gear on and I got to meet Jason Talry, John Kramer, and Matt Townsen at high school 6. I got to walk in the front doors of high school 6. I got through the academic classrooms. I went through the cafeteria. I went through I mean I got to see the visions how one space was going to be used for
316dual purpose. I got to stand center stage and look at something that looks like more like the coliseum because there's no seats. It's all concrete. Um I got to see some drywalls. I learned that they're by the end of this week they're supposed to have the windows all in because they want to get the windows all in so they can turn the air conditioning on and work better in the summer. and they're ahead of um 18, which you can also see. I got to um even go out on the roof, although it was not harnessed, but I went out on the second floor roof and got a chance to see out um over where high school 18 is, the new bus parking. Jason was very, very thorough. Um then he drove me around so I
317could see like where all the fields were. I'm telling you, it's so cool to see something that as a CIP member back in 2010, I recommended to voting on it multiple times to try to pressure supervisors to go for it and then to see it in its construction phase. Not the done phase, the construction phase. I I highly recommend it and haul your gear on and go. Then we drove out to the Cliff Farm property where Drew is going to be because Jason's been really good about Mr. Tarry. has been really good about giving us these plans, but I'm a visual person. That's why I went to High School 6. And I got out there with the community and saw what could be a problem for them looking out their front porch to this three-story
318building when they've had this beautiful meadow. And Mr. Towry took a Sunday to go out and meet with the community to try to figure out what the parts and pieces are that would make us better community members um to helping this community and he kind of figured it out and it's going to be, you know, it's he's going to need our support on that. He definitely has my support on that. um to see what they want, what they need to get this project done and be a good community member at the same time. Um but it was very they if you go out there, they even staked on the road all the measurements so that you can see what's working, what's not working. And I know Miss Guy got a chance to go out there
319and visit it as well. And I would just say um again, you don't have to wear a hard hat on this site yet, but yet. But um it it's really something to go out and see, you know, projects in construction with the Boots House, High School 6, and then just this beautiful meadow where um Drew Middle School and the fields and parking and all of that are going to be. Um, so I I really appreciate a lot of the time that they took to help me see things that I just needed to see. Thank you, Miss Guy. I wasn't ready. Okay. Thank you. Uh, I am Why are you looking at me like that? Because we're the only two. Anyway, doesn't matter. Doesn't matter. Um, I'm totally off my game this evening. I'm sorry, guys.
320I am not feeling um I'm not feeling normal. But I am I'm super glad to be here. It's the Be quiet please, please, please. Uh it's the end of the year and as you can see, if the board members act this way, y'all can only imagine what the kids are doing in the classroom. So I'm saying what I'm saying is like, you know, pray for the educators and the and the people in the classrooms because it's it's rough. Um but I I did have fun at the field, you know, that I went with with Tower and got to see the Field of Dreams. Yes, I I had fun there. I had a great time at the gala. I am disappointed that I won't be able to make it to Brook Point's graduation, but as you
321do have me covered, you know, there's not enough seats for everyone to be there. And you know, since it is my birthday that day, I will be turning 50. Um, you know, I will not be there. But also, there's not enough seats for the elected officials. although I was the mature one and gave up my spot. But um I do want to talk about something that um is to me this is odd um but it is this book. It's called The Other Side. Um there was a a social media post that was not accurate. I I'll put it like that. I'm trying to be respectful of the um anonymous poster and respectful of the educator who actually was reading the book. But the the reason why I'm talking about this book, The Other Side by
322Jacqueline Woodson, is because it was said that the book was divisive. And um everyone has their own opinions and that's totally fine. And I respect most people's opinions. I respect most opinions, period. I respect them. But when they're wrong, they're just wrong. Um, this is not a divisive book. I've read the book. The book has received nu like just so many awards it's ridiculous. It was written back in 2001, so it's received like 20 awards. Um, and I can't think of anything that's divisive about the book. It's about a little girl who has a fence on her property, as someone already pointed out in the public comments, and there's a little white girl who lives on the other side of the fence, and they end up becoming friends, and all they do is sit on
323the fence and just talk to each other. If if that's divisive, you know, I don't understand what divisive means. Or maybe the individual doesn't understand what divisive means. Um I don't understand not wanting your children to learn the actual facts of American history. And some of it is not pretty. Some of it is pretty dark. Some of it is pretty depressing. But it is our collective history. And there's no need to be fragile about it. Uh if your child feels guilt over the past, explain to your child that we have come so far, right? Explain to your child that yeah, this might have been the reality, but we don't have fences separating us now for a while. Uh, so I I just I would ask parents if you feel uncomfortable about something, instead of making
324a social media post, maybe talk to the educator in the classroom, maybe read the dang book, you know. Um, and if you read the book and it still feels divisive to you or offensive or is inappropriate, then ask questions. You can call any of us, you can email us, you can speak with the superintendent, you can look at the curriculum and see if it aligns itself. Um, but I would ask you not to make statements that are untrue about our educators or that are about what we're teaching in the classroom because it just creates stress and drama for the community and for the educator potentially for the students. I'm not I'm not saying that that happened. I'm just saying that's a potential um a potential thing. So that's it. The other side it's a great
325book. I would suggest people to purchase it and donate it to a school. I will be donating this one. I'm really mad you spoiled the ending. So, um I think a lot of my board members and probably some people in this room knew I came to this meeting really kind of grumpy. I had some big feelings about things and I've decided that I'm not going to be grumpy. I'm going to focus on gratitude. I'm going to keep my complaints to a minimum. And I'm just really, really thankful for this time of year. Um, my kids are just so excited, not just about the end of the year, but like next year, you know, they're already looking, they're not even done with this year, and they're so excited about next year. Um, from my rising senior
326to my rising kindergartenner and those in between, you know, we just have so much to to look forward to. I um much to my sixth graders dismay joined him at the uh career GPS at Stafford airport. Um it was fantastic. It was overwhelming. I uh reached out to Delegate Mildy because his office is literally down the street and I was like, "You need to come over here and see all these kids just thinking about the road their path is on." You know, my sixth grader, he feels like a big kid now because he's in middle school. Um, and each of these kids came with their badges and their like, you know, with their they've been in this sixth grade class, Pathways to Success, that helps them see where their strengths are and where their strengths
327can eventually lead to um a career in something that they're already good at, they already enjoy, and what that looks like in the real world. So, to see them kind of doing that exploration was just just so much fun, and we couldn't have asked for better weather. It was it was just great. Um, I'm also really grateful for the joint town hall. It's something this community has not done before. So, I'm grateful to both boards for supporting that, for the community that came out and supported that. Um, it was a really fun event. I learned a lot about data centers, um, which is, you know, of course, a huge topic and while it's not directly related to schools, the things that our families are dealing with and um, going through, you know, impacts what's going
328on in our schools. Um it is the season for end of year theater chorus band. So please look at your calendars and go out and enjoy um some of our incredible talent uh from our for our students for many of our especially at high school. Some of these this is their last school performance. It's super emotional and it's just the excitement that they have and um seeing them kind of love on each other is is great. I love it. Um, I enjoyed the gold star gayla, which I love because I see all of our staff supporting each other and celebrating each other. Um, to see their, you know, their spouses or their parents or whoever they bring with them to celebrate their achievements in our school buildings. It's a huge room. It is so many
329people and that's that's amazing. um the partner appreciation for all of our community partners that make things more possible for our kids whether it's through donations through comm through through uh internships through um fund drives for just making opportunities happen uh delegate Cole came to that as well you know very strong partnership in Richmond so we are glad that we've had we had him to represent kind of our elected partnership um we have our retirey dinner this this week as well mentor 360. I the people who give so much already to our kids and then to give back to each other to make sure that their team is supported. I love that. Um and I'm really grateful to you guys. This redistricting when we started it for elementary schools, I was in panic when I
330saw how Hampton Oaks neighborhood was was divided amongst three different elementary schools. um and I did not know how we would be able to work through to um not just bring them together, but to mitigate some of the other concerns across the community. So, personally, I'm I'm very grateful to have Hampton Oaks remaining together. Um, I mean, I'm glad they're at Hampton Oaks Elementary, but the more important thing would have been to have them together rather than divided because they are a long time community, a longtime residents that have always um that worked really hard to get together because they previously were not and then to have them get to that point and then split them again. I was really worried about that. Um, I am going to issue one complaint and it is that
331after three and a half years, you guys still call me Miss Hollstead. Like in the community and on this board, it's like everyone does it. Everyone does it. Three and a half years. Sigund Hollstead, different people. That's it. We're journed.