001meeting to order uh we don't have anyone participating electronically excuse me motion to approve the agenda with the addition of a Clos session follow May making you have to you have to give the section number do we have it yeah well we have to be specific when we to amend the agenda to add a closed session at the end of this work session to discuss a Personnel matter second do we have a person section that's not until we read into closed it's at the end okay um all in favor any opposed no okay all right we will approve the agenda with that addition of close session at the end do we need to do a roll call because we have a Clos session or we do the Clos session not we don't have to do
002it now just because we're changing that okay so we will um Talk our first discussion item is elementary school bell scheduled hearing for the 2526 school year all right I'll kick us off I'll kick us off then I'm going to turn things over to Dr shutz and Mr F here uh Mr wilcott is also here with us from Transportation U we this is coming back to revisit if you'll recall back on February 18th in the February 18th uh work session um I worked with Mr Fulmer Mr Macky uh we came and presented to you an elementary tiered bell schedule that we really felt uh it came from Transportation working with Transportation would allow us to provide more ontime buses it would allow us to uh improve our communication with our families because we would have
003our on time buses um we thought it would also allow us some more flexibility if you recall uh it does free up some buses because we see that uh bottleneck at at our elementary tier right now and so it allow us to free up some of those buses and really support our transportation all overall it did not change the current order uh with high school going first Elementary and and middle school at the end but it does create two tiers um there and so we do feel like this would be um a good shift and so I did share that with you in February um and you know the next slide will show you the times that we proposed and you'll see here that we did move Rock Hill from 7:30 to 8:15 and proposed
004that they start at 8:15 the remaining schools either shifted 10 minutes earlier or 20 minutes later and so these were intentionally paired by Transportation based on the length of the routes how the routes were put together and so that so they they weren't just arbitrarily put in a in the 85 or 8:45 uh time frame and so really looked at this as how we can uh be more efficient effective with our routes and communicate with our families and so um we did put this out to our families we wanted as I share with you on February 18th wanted to get uh feedback from our staff and from our families about this schedule how it might impact them um and so want to take tonight to share those surveys with you and what the results are
005and then we'll we'll wrap up the End by talking a little bit about next steps and and what we plan to do based on that data and where we are now so with that we're for to have Dr Amanda shutz with us who is our director in the research evaluation and strategic Improvement and she's going to talk us through the survey results hey good evening everyone so as Dr Smith mentioned because we knew this would be a shift for our community we wanted to get their feedback so before you could be informed when you're making your decision so the two primary stakeholder groups when we're considering would be our parents and our staff so we surveyed our current prek because they will be kindergarteners next year through grade four because those grade four parents would
006become grade five parents for next year and then we also surveyed all of our Elementary School staff so we tried to keep the survey brief and to the point so that our participants wouldn't be burdened by a particularly lengthy survey really isolating around three ideas one was an open-ended question where we just asked Folks at the end to give us any additional feedback that we didn't hit with our first two questions we had two items in total and we Chang the verbage depending on the stakeholder group so we asked at first I essentially a question on a lyer agreement scale with three points the agreement we'll see on the subsequent slides um was yes no and um here we go agree um neither agree nor disagree so we had a neutral option and the first
007question is or the first statement that we asked participants to rate on is I would support Stafford schools adjusting Elementary start times if this will improve students on time arrivals as go is consistency and pickup and drop off times so for our parents we can see here you've got the counts above the bar an overwhelming amount of agreement in total and then the subsequent slide gives us a breakdown per site so you can see on the three bars here we've got the blue is agreement the gray is disagreement and the red is neutral so for our parents at all of our sites we see much more agreement than disagreement with that statement our second statement is I would be willing to adjust my family's routine in order to accommodate a transportation plan that is more
008consistent and reliable just as with the prior item we see more agreement then disagreement overall and then the subsequent slide in the slide deck gives that breakdown by site just as in item one for our parents we see at each of the stes at each of our schools more agreement than disagreement and more agreement than neutral so we asked the same question or the same items to our school staff this slide gives us the breakdown for responses for agreement disagreement and neutral so overall just like our parents we see more agreement than disagreement the next slide gives us the break down by school s for the majority of the schools we have more agreement than disagreement and more agreement than neutral there are two schools for which we had slightly more disagreement than agreement and
009those schools are fair farm and white water did we get a pulse on why they disagreed yes stay tuned it'll be another we got into that exact question I love when I can see again it's a preview so here we go for item two same question asked so that we could have comparative points for both stakeholder groups I would be willing to adjust my work hours to accommodate a plan that is more consistent and reliable we see a more agreement than disagreement and then the breakdown by schools here just as we saw on the prior slide we have the two schools both Fairy Farm and Widewater where we had slightly more disagreement than we did agreement so we before Miss Hall said we will I promise you we are addressing your question just give me
010one more slide before we get there so our open-ended response this is where we asked folks to just give us if there was anything else that you wanted to give us feedback on related to a change in our Heering this was their opportunity to do so and so when we math schematically these responses we saw an overwhelming amount of support for any plan that will ensure Transportation improve Improvement and considerations for planning that both responding groups just asked that we consider some of the planning aspects that would go into ensuring that this would become um a solid plan and a good degree of improvement from where we were last year and specifically related to Traffic patterns in the morning specifically about the the schools that had close proximity to one another such as middle and
011high school or some of our Elementary in Middle and then effects consider for us to consider the effects on the end of day school travel how is that going to be relative to our community commuters as well as again those same schools and then a third theme that came through was just consideration for redistricted families who would might have to shift this year and then experience a shift yet again going forward and when our when we have our elementary redistricting yes ma'am no I'm sorry I'll wait okay and here is that not quite yet this is our key takeway and then this is where I'll get into the idea about how we investigated a little bit further on the faery farm in white water so majority of those stakeholder groups agreed that they would be
012willing to support the proposed schedule change willing to adjust schedules to accommodate this tiering proposal and then here's where Miss holstead we got into a little bit of a a little more investigation to determine why we had some disagreement in those two schools little bit more disagreement than we had agreement so our principles followed up our executive directors our school leadership followed up to try to uncover and unpack a little bit about why that would be the case and the last is we also make sure that we address any of our concerns any of the concerns that the St the two stakeholder groups brought forward into our work plan so to address your question so what did we find we found that the staff were overwhelmingly willing to support a plan and that was going
013to have Improvement they just wanted to know a little bit more did we do so some investigation about particularly some of our elementary school like for example we've got AG Wright Middle School and our Garrisonville Elementary so uncovering some of that have you considered that have you considered the commuting the aspect of the community that's going to be coming in and our computers on the roads trying to get have you considered that it was just some ideas of have you given this enough consideration and enough investigation to ensure that this will have the highest to their school where they teach they're looking at they were taking sort of a full commun look at what was being asked wi water the problem is a traffic issue right you drive by every other Elementary School in Stanford
014County to get to Wi water so and then five more minutes down the road you're in Jump free and there's two elementary schools there and they're looking at the traffic and the commute right and especially especially now because it's it's that's their biggest complaint their biggest concern yeah so you're right Dr War we specifically for wide water they were concerned about that commute they said most of our folks are traveling from the south up to the north um and you know and Mr Fulmer and Mr wott can speak maybe a little bit more specifically to this but we did look at the longer routes with Widewater and the shorter routes that they were combined with um and so is there a way to make them earlier and there's really not because it takes some buses
015out of the high school routes and so we did take a look at that to see is there a way to make some of that work to address some of those concerns uh specifically for wide water we speak about fair farm a little bit more too but yes I would like that I don't know if Mr Fulmer or you or Mr speak about the specific white is this because they they're proposed to start later earlier but I imagine if you went to number the other schools that are proposed to start later they would prefer to start earlier too they me my curiosity in this is that with your I mean I I'm thinking of it I guess differently but my thought is and in Widewater and Fairy Farm same um um in Harwood but I
016think they're early but is the no they're first5 okay is the outside schools have longer routes wouldn't it be better for timeliness if they were on a first tier so you can CU they're their buses are going to kind of mix with the later tier buses so I guess that would be part of my Wonder it's an availability of buses though Al so so but the way I can just I'll quickly just address that so when you move them to the earlier tier all those buses then can't be used on our high school tier because if they're long enough routes right it means they don't have enough time to get from the high school and do that elementary school route so a lot of them in the mornings so a lot of them are on
017the later because they gives them enough time to still do high school and still go do that elementary school route they're probably those are going to be situations where they're not doing a first year Elementary School run they're only going to do high school and they're going to go straight to that second tier elementary school and that makes better good thing is that this is not the same percentage as the parents because at least half a percent 50% of the parents you know 50% more were would support it so my concern with that is that we only got a 14% response rate from parents we got a 38% response rate from staff and I am concerned that a 14% response rate means that this opt in thing is going to be a freaking nightmare well
018that's that's another story I'm not I can address that well can I also just say something in August when the parents are calling Transportation saying where's my bus and they're like What's your name oh you're not on the list correct they're going to be contacted the con contacted here yeah the other concern I have is this plan was all drawn up based on prior to redistricting now we've re redistricted we've changed all those attendance zones and now for example um is much longer so but fouth is shorter and F this is so so I'm just I want to make sure that the pairing of the schools comports with every District they plan that we settle on because things have changed and and one of the things we're looking at is so one this is going
019to um Pros going to effect next year before the redistricting goes into effect so so that like our trial run year then yeah so we're going to evaluate all all of next year and continue to um try to improve and then we'll also evaluate it based on the new boundary zones that we settle with for districting so there we don't want to switch them up every year and and switch in year two but we're going to have to look at that and see does it make sense do this does the hearing still work in the same order for year two because there's going to be an odd number well there's an odd number of schools next year too who's the odd one out so it's not always sister yeah it's not always just a one
020to one sister SCH sometimes one school is feeding into two or three school bus drivers the 18 and 19 have to be added in here right and we and it's not shown here because we're looking at the one year but in our original presentation we actually did project forward and and actually it's we're getting a little bit ahead we were going to mention it here at the end but one of the things that we did look at was a little bit of the concern of we originally thought Stafford L needed to flop in year two with looking at it we think we can actually keep staffordale on the current tier and Elementary School 19 will flip to the other tier so that's a a positive that we're not going to have to flip staffordale I'll
021say that um you know my my district obviously has some of the shortest bus routes um but even within the people I talk to at my campuses they all want to be on the earlier route and I think that it's more cultural than logistical because the culture in Stafford is that the later your bus you know the later you are on the bus tier the later you are getting home the more likely your bus is so I think that once we have a successful roll out the decision or the assignment of what tier you're on won't really matter because at the end of the day you're still getting home on time and that's kind of always what it's been is this the reliability of being able to plan your day around getting home at you
022know my contract hours are over I'm doing this and then I'm getting home 20 minutes later but when buses are late all of that gets pushed out and it's interesting though and I know you need less buses on a middle school route but if you're looking now towards the end of the day um I mean honestly I think if you surveyed everyone they would all put themselves on the early one so I don't even think it so but um in looking at the late time for the tier 2B as they're getting out at 3:15 when you have schools in the out let have to go all the way to the King George and Beyond in Fairy Farm and all the way up to uh out to Widewater those buses aren't going to be available for
023Middle runs so how are we okay with the number of like it's nice that we can talk about the start of the day but our problem is honly they're not available for middle school now because of how long Those runs are so those few minutes shifting won't impact us too much some of them will still be available right not every Widewater route is an hour long some of them are shorter so they'll be able to do that and go and help at Shirley H okay but Middle School is our lightest route so we need every correct so is the theory that the the first tier tier where the tier going in earlier Those runs are shorter so that they'll they'll be finished earlier and then can go on to the second one or or middle
024school yes so I wouldn't say it's 100% true and you might have some longer routes on that bus not every route on that first tier will be used on the second tier elementary schools it's only the ones that are short enough so um take like Park Ridge Park Ridge is probably one of the shortest they might be able to go help Burns or you know or uh winding which is but not quite as short as parkd but sometimes the way they're paired allows you you know in this scenario parkd is on the second tier actually goe yeah so in the survey were they given like it just sort of says would be willing to adjust were they given any sense that we're only talking 10 to 20 minutes were they shown this they were yeah
025I just yeah so they so they got to see this that this was actually the first in the opening so they could see the school that they would be assigned in the time right Y no I'm just curious what were they and I also you mentioned the response right it we they were only given a two we window so that we could try to give you guys information you had it quickly so for the opt in it's much longer we'll have a lot so that's my question just two things what is our roll out plan for getting parents I know we talked about it a couple like last month or whatever just kind of a snapshot of what we were doing for getting parents ready for the optin portion of it like what are we
026doing with that and I'm right there I mean whoa is it in so we're talk that see I am so today I a we so I will so two other things so you know we we did really look at this I will also remind you that we I think I shared with you back in February we talked with all of our principles and let them take a look at it had some conversations with them 100% of them were in agreement that we felt like this is going to improve and so as I again I'll go back to what I shared in February if we continue to do things the same way we're going to get the same results and so having this proposal I do think makes us better is it perfect probably not we're
027g to I think we're going to get better and we I think as Miss Randall pointed out maybe at the last board meeting this is just kind of the first shift and we're going to try to make it better and we're going to make need to make changes along the way we've got redistricting coming up we didn't feel like we could wait till after redistricting to you know parents need to know what time their kids are going to school and when they're coming back and so them there so I think based on all the data that we have in terms of this those that filled out the survey based on the feedback from principles based on our feedback from Transportation um we do think this is the best way to move forward and so moving
028forward we do plan to move forward with this plan there are a couple of things that we continue to work on I think Dr shutz mentioned for example the Garrisonville AG rights in terms of that uh we are engaging with law enforcement and with the county and other resources to go out and look at that Transportation plan and that Bus Loop and that car rider uh plan just to see how that's how that's working and what adjustments we we need to make we've been out there a couple times and we continue to work with those principles on that's just one example and there'll be others that we'll need to work on and we may need to come back and make additional tweaks and changes along the way U but we want to make sure we
029get it right so given that uh our plan is tomorrow uh is to go ahead and launch communication to our families about the tiered communication I think going to get a lot of attention more than the survey oh spring break well because some you know tomorrow's the last day before spring break some families may or may not already be on spring break but it's the email yes it's just a the initial notification we will have ongoing communication this is our initial we wanted to share it with you tonight uh have this conversation feel like as soon as we know that we're moving this direction we want to let them know as soon as we know so we're going to go ahead and have that initial communication tomorrow after spring break we'll have continued communication letting
030our families know add that last sentence that you have up there onto the communication yes yeah we we'll continue to talk about that we continue to evaluate what I want to be clear though is we're not going to we're going to continue to evaluate it we are not planning on making additional changes for next year sure we would make it the following year 26 right right but I just I would like for them to know that this isn't correct you know that we're giv it a try and then when we add two more schools if something happens right we're going to have to evaluate absolutely I just want them to know to keep that little little air of um yeah between the attendance zones changing and the addition of two schools I just wanted I
031I just want to temper their expectations to know that this it might not be a one and done when they talk about changing again in August of 2026 hear changing it again times would change might one or two schools might change I appreciate the fact that the first thing that the parents got to see was this because there's always angst around redistricting changing in Stafford County is always bad no matter what it's for it's just it just makes people get frustrated so if I know I'm at Rock Hill and I might change to whatever school's next to it at Le you know at least I know oh okay well next year or the year after I'm going to have 10 minutes later or 10 minutes earlier or whatever right um it just I think knowing
032what's ahead just helps our constitu a little B I also think after last year's beginning we we can't delay making some changes we have to make some CH we don't there's no choices here something has to happen because I mean we would I mean what's our excuse next time like in August we're going to be like oh we know but we just wanted to wait so that it would like I don't we don't have that that's not an option so for me finding things like you know being able to do little things like this are actually showing our proactive approach to it but you're right I think we have to be really cautious as well about tempering the expectations of everyone and being like no one's going in there and being like this is spot
033on the best planet ever seen we're going in saying I am it's a start but to that end July 29th route information provided to families so I want so mentioning that so yes so we are July 29th we will I want to get down to that that is two weeks before the first the start of school and talking with staff that's earlier than they can recall us ever telling families what your route well we've told them but the bus has never showed up don't tell them we haven't told them that early not not since 2007 when I became a mom here so so it is 2 weeks before the first start of school and that's when we're going to say we're going to have everybody routed and we'll communicate to our families about about their
034routes um we are not going to guaranteed Transportation on the first day of school if you are if you come in and register between those two weeks because that goes through all the routes and we'll be clear with our families and we'll work to get them in the routes as you can imagine some are easier than others if they're already on a route that should be on what we send out in this and then if you do not have you have not opted in you may not have a route so I'm going to go back to the top for a second for Dum manual if you recall that one of the key recommendation of the transportation review was that we do optin so we are moving forward with that I've heard from you as well
035that you support optin So beginning April 8th we will uh put out the optin transportation selection it is a selection it's not a survey it's not optional um and so we do have plans our work group has been working on this and how we're going to make the initial push and we're going to be reaching out and and getting this this completed and then our principles we've already had ation about principles how we're going to enlist their help to make sure that we get every single family and every kid coded so we know whether they're riding Transportation or not sign up for kindergarten can we give information of those parents now as well so so don't we have a process like an application be in the system only do it's already part of the registration
036form right anybody who signs up after this starts and the ones that have already signed up we need to make sure we send it to them because they're not going to be in this scho until summer I I just want to point out um and Dr shutz has been helping kind of lead this and the work group and the planning that goes that's involved in this um not just for the opin but actually for getting ready for the start of the school year we've been doing that for a couple of months now so we've already met several times with all the the stakeholder groups and and preparing for next year which is why we're very confident in that July 29th date to having all of our route information done uh so everybody's everybody's involved and
037committed to to getting it done timely and that optin has been vetted out with a lot of people and we've already thought about kindergarten registrations and we've thought about the social media push and how we get uh we need that 100% response rate whether it's us calling each family one on-one to make sure we they tell us what that selection is we've already talked about if the school year if they haven't registered by a certain date how long do we provide them before they get a route right like so so um they're selecting for the start of the school year they can make changes during the year you just have to give us time right ideally two weeks is what we tell people historically we've always said up to two weeks before you get that
038route really we don't need two weeks we can do it less some of that depends on if it's a one one stop in Hartwood that's down three winding roads that are private and we're probably not going to get you the next day you live in a in a park R giy Mill or west we can get you on a route within you know 48 hours probably without but the same rule applies if you're not even if I if I so if I have my kid in but they don't appear on that bus for the what 10 days they're off right yes okay so none of that has changed that is still a fact even if I've opted my kid in correct but our communication to families is don't just pick yes because you don't know
039whether you need Transportation or not right be honest and then if something changes in month two or three just notify us and we'll add you to our route a job change we're doing two key things to try to to to address the transportation issues that pled us for years right number one is opt in so that we can put your kid on a route because we know they need a route correct number two is stearing that the elementary school and not just picking up kids because stopping at houses there's a kid register there I have two questions but I raised my hand first question go ahead that doesn't matter my I think this is great I appreciate all the work you guys done you guys have done my respectful two cents I'm adding is when
040you guys do your social media and all your information push about the opt-in you tie in the July 29th date and everything that people see so they get opt in and if I haven't heard anything by the 30th I got to call somebody or do something or because even if they don't get it their neighbor might get it or their friend might get it and I know a mom's at staffer County we take care of everything everybody we will be like oh you haven't heard anything you need to contact so if you could just tie that in so it's one and two absolutely to that end I love the the 29th is a Tuesday and not a Friday because when you tell parents that the you know you'll hear by Friday and then they haven't
041heard and then you're dressing all weekend you can't do anything till Monday so the 29th is a Tuesday that's three days what's the last date to opt in is well so the right the timeline is intentional because we've built basically we're looking for efficiency right and we we understand this is truly a partnership between parents School central office everybody trying to work together so that we can be really efficient with our routing and if you're going to put the 29th also really make loud and clear the last day to opt in so your question about the opt-in so there it's a two it's a twofold process the first is parents we're going to have this login and a form selection and then and once we close that then that information is going to be communicated
042to schools so that schools can reach out they know their families they know their parents so that we can get that 100% response for every student we'll know whether we need a bus in the morning and in the afternoon and then that final 29th date we have you can see we have an intervening date on there where we're going to direct parents to log in to confirm make sure that their selection is still meeting their needs and what they intended to select so we'll have that part of the communication and then the 29th will be when the routs will be provided to families okay last day of school May 29th is last day of school great can I um two things first of all and it's nice to have this tier option um as an
043out of the-box solution to us you know trying to kill it and drill it the last few years with the only keeping three tiers because when I've looked at other counties they yeah like some of theirs aren't even on tear they just have like weird times 20 different start times right and I could I was yeah it was just really hard to figure and follow so I just appreciate this because it's while it's a little different it's still keeping it nice and neat but the second thing is and I talked to Dr Smith about this this morning if you really want to be successful on this push to get the opt in is have competition to say the school that gets 100% gets an ice cream party now you're not just speaking to the parents
044you're getting to the kids I need ice cream get online and fill out that form I love that idea can we go ice cream yeah I'm going to the winning school is that okay with you only if it's respond kid and let you f that's right your kid got I had a kid okay that's right whatever start I got so I'm just suggesting snacks are a motivator but if you but if you put it make it a little bit of a competition challenge you'll get the kid I mean right now you're trying to get to the parents but if you want to kid say Mom you're on your phone log in and get me ice cream I'm just saying bring a truck up in front of the school done get free all right are we
045ready to move on to item on agenda Elementary School redistricting for the 26 27 school year hi for you can watch are you kicking this off we starting with I think Li's ready to go you ready scenario green that's it scenario green we're going to review the new scenario green and then we'll get into our next steps in the feedback process all right just want to give this live to those people watching at home these are the factors that are given consideration when we develop scenarios and let's jump into scenario green so the on the left hand side of the screen that says current boundaries those are current boundaries this school year you'll notice the thick burgundy line around the the boundary edges you look to the right you see scenario green where you see
046the colors bleeding over the line that shows you where the register think is uring so that's the map and then let's talk about some of the key can you that last statement again where you see the what example on screen here you see that in the Heartwood boundary you see that a portion of it is turned blue oh Goa okay showing the new boundaries that lead bleed over the existing boundar and F over because looks like places so the boundaries are bigger we did not have a big enough attend on a film fa to fill Fairy Farm up until this point and we're trying to maximize that because it's a you know kind of one of the furthest out if you outlier and see how Conway was split yeah now that's just because it was
047the only place there was room yeah so now we're trying to fix the splits yeah and we Conway is reaching I mean where Fairy Farm is reaching up some of that is a park yeah it's actually an island of people out there but it attached by a park what nobody lives in a par like f got like from here and it just got so small I was like why why didn't like I'm take over that but that that makes a lot more sense now yeah it's a park that was my question too when I looked at it by the way so you're right on we added an elementary school there too it's challenging to get from that pink area to f so it help if Mr White talks through some of the kind of summary
048of the changes here for Su for scario green sure get us back on task so some of the key highlights we were able to optimize seating space at our existing schools when the new when this if this scenario were to be in effect it would be zero schools over 100% capacity in year one when the school opens and um there three schools slated to be over capacity in 2030 also in 2028 there's only a single school that's slated to be over capacity so 2028 is three years after the boundary change takes effect one of the directives from the board was to try to fill up schools in the outline uh areas of the county so Ferry Farm Garrisonville and Rock Hill are all slated to be 85% utilized or higher in 2030 with regards to
049elementary school 18 it's slated to open at 95% utilization and2 92 and will'll remain below 100% through 2030 that gives us the opportunity to have some seats available for West Lake development of course es18 will help relieve crowding at in schools in the southern portion of the county with regards to demographics for8 we see that there's wait can I interrupt you just really quick so Elementary School 18 is lated to be 2030 in 2030 scheduled to be 94% this is we're not even talking about whether we get a Heartwood replacement right this is if we maintain the same building that we have right now at Harwood correct so if we don't get our hardwood replacement which no it does not current seats that would go down correct that's what I just wanted to make sure
050that that was clear as well okay go I'm sorry okay so with regards to demographics uh bs18 slated to open 51% free and reduced lunch 177% students uh that are English language Learners and 15% students that are special with regards to es9 that's L it to open at 95% utilized and it's not it doesn't exceed 100% capacity 5 years out in 2030 of course es9 helps Rel crowding in the northern section of the county and you can see that the demographics are very similar uh 50% lunch 24% high elll and 15% sped scenario green was reviewed by the transportation department and it me their minimum standards no nothing jumped off the page as being uh a bad move so that was good so here for those of you that are in numbers and utilization things
051like demographics you can see school by School uh what they B change does so let's start first with Barrett we can see that under the current boundaries uh Barrett is over utilized in 2026 all the way out through 2030 but with scenario green you see the numbers have declined which means that we have some seats available we've sort of relieved some crowding there so ad mission accomplished and we said in the ear in the last slide that all all of our schools would be under 100% utiliz so if you sort of go down that column where it says syy 2026 you can see the percent utilization and those you want to do like before and after you can look at 2026 on the current boundaries and then look at 2026 on the scenario green and
052you can see the differences so can I point something out that I'm concerned with so when I looked over this what struck me was how much Burns drop dropped in their demographics yes like significant drops in L free and reduced and not so much in bed but the one that really kind of struck me and uh is Rocky Run because their L population went from 16% to 20 6% I know why that's not my question my question concern is and and we talked about this even when we talked about and I know this isn't for you but we talked about this when we talked about 18 and 19 and trying to make sure with their schools opening with the um uh the free and reduced uh lunch being so high that we wanted to make
053sure we were concerned that they would have to be like a year without all full support because that's just how Virginia is Dr Smith has something to say about that okay but I just like to finish so my concern is is that when you have uh Rocky ran who's also had other um issues this year uh and now they're going to add on to them a jump from in L from 16% to 26% how how are we going to support that school in Year One one of redistricting wait and let me add on to that just my concern just in looking at it was um was that to that one question but also when we were talking back to base and what those numbers did and how that Rocky was pretty impact Rocky was pretty
054impacted by that they have seven two class that's my concern are we alleviating any burd for let's understand that Rocky ground will have will have fewer than half the students will have been there this year mhm right I mean there will be 300 students who currently go to Rocky Run and there will be 431 Who currently go toway right so it's going to be very it's a big adjustment it's a big adjustment it it is but I just would like to I guess it it's very difficult for me to just look at that and see that they I want to know what they because these supports I mean the other part part that we don't have on here is how many level two rooms are we going to be putting in or will be in
055each of these schools as well we have their sped percent but we don't teased out and we know based on information that we've received the number of level two classrooms has significantly jumped and you know between needing pull out space for a jump a 10% jump in L students as well as the increase because we don't know what that sped number means like how how many level twos and how much in classroom space will they need so it's just a concern I have for Rocky Run specifically um but like I said I I noticed that there was a significant drop in Burns but there's they're the only one like everyone else that had an increase was a hand handful or less theirs is the 10% it's CU three quarters of that school I know why
056I know why that's not it I I want to know what are we going to do about that right well I think Dr Smith has some answers to that so I'm to share and actually Mr bowling can chime in in second I just think he'll be able to share that we did get a little bit of information uh unofficial I don't know how to how we want to frame this but final guidance it's not final guidance it's very unofficial but we did get some information about Title One in terms of their first year uh we asked for it in writing I don't think we've gotten that yet but I don't know if you want to share that oh that's exactly what he said related to our concern we brought up the last meeting is that
057what you're talking about yeah the ability to open up a brand new school that's projected at 50 well above a local threshold as a title one school and our argument was that we know who the kids are going to be you know like so it's not like we're banking on we think it's going to be no we know who the kids are um we're seeking guidance right now initially we got a response that said yes you can and we said oh could but I did say can you please send that to us in writing uh because we don't want to find out after it it was a bad interpretation by one you know employee they provided us guidance that pointed towards um Charter a brand opening a brand new Charter School yes at the department
058of Ed local local it's the federal uh the the employees that that oversee the federal funds at the Department of Education which Department of Education your department of didn't that superintendent just leave yes well information she doesn't do this know federal regulations that that they're uh implementing but I know those are still in I don't want to hear about that right now just finish this so we're seeking guidance on um on you know the actual words that will allow us to do so uh to make sure that we're following uh the law so um we're and you get back to us when you know when we get closer to we certainly will yes and we'll include it as soon as we can what money is still going to be ail schools that are going up
059to our threshold assuming our threshold stays at 40 because there are schools that are not currently there but will be there that are existing schools that I think you can make the same argument for some that make how are the thresh what how we set the threshold that's a decision that we make the board this this the board makes the decision I when I struggle with I feel like and maybe I'm this is the number I feel like aren't we above that as an average so our threshold is below the average like aren't we at like 42 or 44% free and reduced lunch division wide yeah and then I know that the threshold is only Elementary so maybe that number is different at elementary but if our average is 42 or 44 but our threshold
060is only 40 then we are does that just give us more wiggle room to make so that we can make our decisions I thought we got a set amount of money and then we distribute it so if we have more schools we each school gets less okay we decide soon you will at the April 8th board meeting uh we were going to discuss that I think in part maybe uh and we are going to bring forward some scenarios based on different thresholds that you all can look look at is there a way two years now this is not next year it's the year after next is there a way for us to find out what the um we've got percentages for special ed is there a way for us to find out level twos so
061that we can see who's going to have what we're happy to look into that I it's be tough to project level ones and level TW we two years of kids that aren't even in school yet but but it's a question for Rocky Ry giving the increase need what will be the increase in need well the schools that I'm worried about in this case would be heartwood's got 18% Barrett is got 16% SP that's isue so I'd really like some idea and um I think Rock Hill's 6 just because it's a we've seen the the jump in the number of classrooms which is real estate in the building yeah so while we're saying this is number of a student y if we don't if this is actually if there's a a grand number that is going
062to be level two then I'm concerned that you know we get an estimate of the number I don't know that we can do that though well and Dr bush has stepped in maybe she can help us with that conversation just around as we project out to two years from now are we able to project level one level two classes and you know I I I guess before she weighs in I will say you know I think we're doing a lot of that now and we're all going to have reduced capacity across the board which is a good thing yes but I don't know the degree to which we can actually project that far out but Bush we're talking two years out um as we get closer to within a year a year out we probably
063can't it won't be 100% because the IPS are annually reviewed right um but that is something that we can look at and we usually pull student um information at that point just so that as we're looking to project so would you say about this time next year we would be in a good position to see this look at this and and see see what kind of classroom space we're going to be asking these schools to make available for level twos yes okay yes so we would have pretty good when will the IEP meetings take place for the students that are scheduled to be redistricted that would determine whether they move or stay at the base School point where they are now would that be this time next year would we have that those in place
064that's going to affect your numbers so we won't do it for every single student it's for it's for parents to some of our level St students level two students who may have difficulties um with transition to a new school um they may request to have IEP meetings and the IEP teams will meet and talk so it will be for every student but certainly um those would probably happen I would say somewhere between February and may time frame yeah so this is the time of year that those would happen Okay so we still have a core group of kids are staying where they are no matter what right because of the services that are provided in those particular schools is that correct that's be uh no because of the and Fairy Farm has multiple disabilities as
065well M disabil right the multiple disability uh classrooms they will stay where they are so there's no those students are they will not be but I think the important point that I know Dr Bush and I talked about is specialed special students with disabilities are generalized students first and so when you redistrict all of our students will be redistricted and they will go to their assigned school if if there are special circumstances we need to look at transition with a particular student a particular family that's where it'll go to the IEP team to really make a decision on on the best place well am I right that the program capacity may change at schools 100% yes so these percentage is using current program capacity which change drastically once this districting happens and so but with
066a 10% jump in um the uh L population what kind of supports I mean like I said everyone else is a handful or less or a drastic drop and this is a 10 this is the largest increase what kind of supports can Rocky Run expect or you know our staffing standards I would imagine Garrison well they're getting Garrisonville is going up nine yeah I was just looking at that I've already had this discussion we got a year we got a year to get it in place because we're gonna have to make sure we have staff in the schools that can help with that transition not just with the students but with the families and I know Dr Smith's going to be be on it I'm so glad we have a year to to get ready
067for this yeah but I'm just wanting to hear it for myself because I'm struggling to support this if that's not addressed like I want to is it a I know we're getting 37 required by state so just as a point I know we have green up on the screen but I feel like on every color we have schools that are going in Big Ships right so this is like a global question but I would imagine like but this is the one where we all worked on so that's why it's being I'm discussing it right now also I think public transparency it's not about this scenario it's about all scenarios but like for the schools that are going in the other way they will lose esol staff because they no longer have the student population that
068requires that number of staff and those positions would have to follow the students I would imagine yeah and I and but again needing real estate space for those pullouts as well and then um on that to that end is there I would hope or maybe is there a conversation that says if we have kids moving from Conway to rock Iran those some of those eall teachers might follow those student we're not looking at the other scenario so that those relationships are maintained so we so once you know once you approve plan we've talked about having a transition team that really looks at this at the division level because there's things I've talked to principles the past two months about this so they all know this is going to be a shift for everybody right and
069so we there are probably some things we can do division wide that's going to be supportive of this change there's also be some things that are school by school they have you know that they can do and so we're talking about a transition team that can support this to say okay we're going up by 10% at Rocky Run let's look at some of the things maybe that we've done at other schools with high e all population and what's been successful what are best practices and how can we support those teams where they are because like you said in this scenario what Rocky Run needs and maybe what um I don't know what Conway needs right is going to be different in terms of the changing demographics so we can provide more of that targeted support
070based on that and some of it might be transferring some of those staff or giving those St an opportunity to move there's a whole lot of other things that we can put in place too well and and I mean there are scenarios that are kinder to Rocket run absolutely yeah just as an example yeah but there's going to be some that are going to be move we need once you adopt it we'll have better all right now we ready to go now we can actually start to I think they were at one time but they're not anymore okay but any other so any other suggestions or sort of thoughts on what on balancing that number sort of strategically that is that still on the table or no right like looking at so the difference between
071and I and I'm I briefly made mention this to morning just earlier today just you know Safford Lakes is split in all of these scenarios there split so given that we would try to stay away from splitting the communities in general like is there some wiggle room there to to shift and adjust it'll equal out the number and keep that group together I know it's not small shifting I get it that's a behemoth of a neighborhood that has like large you know how many kids it's a lot it's a lot 6 high school kids how many Elementary I I mean I don't remember the total number we did it a long but I'm just asking if if it becomes is it necessary to try that at this point I mean I'm not sold if it
072I'm asking is it necessary to relook at that as an option if say no and give me an idea then I'm happy Sim concerned about elementary school 19 right we just running the numbers in our previous scenarios um Garrisonville went up 11 in elll and Rocky B went up nine so those numbers are I mean they're about the same right so there was always going to be that shift in students because we were moving so many to accommodate the new schools um I think the challenges I think the challeng is is just making sure those resources are in place because the L teachers we the students are already here so we should have those teachers we just need to make sure that they're following their students to wherever they are well the teachers are going
073to be here next year right so that's good the teachers are here next next year then they'll be in place they'll know the kids when we get ready to move the kids we should have more than enough flexibility to have at least some of the teachers follow the kids yeah and with the new Staffing standards we' got more staff in that an elll anyway we're like really expanding I think the number of students those ratios are coming down yeah and at some point between now and there early early started school if we could get the number um or or the projected placement of the additional e teachers for next year it doesn't make sense to do it for this year because they won't be here and and the um level because then once we know
074what's going to be there next year then then the question after that is where they going to be the year after you know based because certain number going to go to the two new schools there's going to be shifts yeah I mean the good the good news is that we'll have more was so that's and as I said we have a year to plan and it'll take that whole year I'm sure we can so we have a town hall where this will get presented along with the other scenarios is that April 1 a he's got some more slacks so we just skip through them and are online folks I had a chance to go on there recently our folks taking to the online form again and as as robustly as High School or less so
075I haven't heard a lot of a lot on my end of things that folks are unhappy with any of the scenarios so to go to a new school yeah I think I think that's part of it there a Winn on our side that the others don't have it's either they're staying they're aware of the overcrowding it's not like they can't see it so I I think most of them are not unhappy for the districting because there's two new schools opening and they're going to come back off of that but I mean I heard from people who were redistricted two years ago who said why am I being redistricted again and so this plan keeps them at the school that they're at but interestingly people I'm hearing from were very upset about the last redistricting and
076now they don't want to leave that school so I think it's important realize that they didn't believe us when we told them right that that people we have a lot of very fabulous schools and administrators that are running them I mean that's they and I will say in the last redistricting the thing that impressed me the most was um when a lot the parkage kids had to go into Garrisonville and the Garrisonville principal would come and and in all the cases actually the principales making such welcoming efforts for the families to know come to the school let me talk to you let me show you around let me put you at ease and they did it so well they really did one of the things I've talked to Dr Smith about and my one-on ones
077is um ALS once we make a decision of course making a um kind of facilitating the transitions of PTO and ptas um because how do you have an election for PTO in May of 2025 2026 when 75% of your student body is not even going to be there the next year and vice versa like you you can't run for a PTO you're not going to be at and then all the planning is over the summer right so if we can facilitate like a coffee morning where you you know come wearing the shirt of the school you're at and sit at the table of the school you're going to and then everybody can kind of meet and plan and work together to you know best support the schools because those those parents they're backb they sure
078are and I want to make sure they're part of shirt for their new school once they're sitting at that table like I feel like that's that's how you figure out who's going where and like get to know you know how how your tribe is going to expand I guess cuz it's not like hope you never lose your old tribe right it's just things figure but it helps to remember so maybe we need to recruit some of the former PTO officers whose kids are graduated to come back and work with new ones when they get in there that aren't familiar with the school yeah because the kids don't want their parents there and Middle School generally um I do have I do have one request and this is for the board and I think talked to
079most of you there are 30 students um up towards the Fier line that in the yellow red and orange proposal are slated to go from Brent to Rock Hill and Mr White did exactly what you know the board directed ham is to add students oh it's it's done in green well in the it's done in the green but I just want to say I know we're going to be discussing the rest of them but my request will be for this board to allow them to stay at Brent because there is there is no difference either Brent is at a certain percentage in Rock Hill I mean it's it's like di Minimus I think Mr White said it was 2% so whatever scenario we come out with if it's not green I'm going to ask the
080board to make that change so just to to you know have that disclosure here because I don't want people to to to think it's absolute you know with any of these and if if anyone has any you know tweaks I'll call it that wait I'm sorry at Margaret Brent now one of the scenarios put them at Rock Hill all three all three scenario put them there but by putting them at Rock Hill they were put there because we said fill it yeah yeah but why you know it's a 2% difference either way and either you know it's like a seesaw one's 2% up or down it it it makes no difference and it in the numbers but it's a huge difference to the so I'm going to be requesting that well especially when they drive
081their own kids and it's 20 minutes round you know two round trips it's an extra 20 minutes out of their day so well that's going to be interesting to see like I would almost love a heat map of where our opt-ins and opt outs are right um well I it's interesting I think a lot of our opt outs are going to be because we have failed in transportation and once they see that we are succeeding in transportation we may end up having more people that want to take take the bus if they can rely on the bus which I'm cautiously optimistic will be the case well and it's interesting too because in the principles that I've spoken with this year um they've all said of course when the busing transportation was a nightmare they had
082a lot more car riders than they anticipated and they thought that once the bus scenarios got better that they would drop off and they haven't they have not hasn't gotten that much better well yeah because they actually have routs now so there's a lot better well but there's still yeah I think it'll be hugely better the problem is that the kids don't like riding the bus because the buses are loud they're overcrowded we're sitting three to a seat and not every kid is skinny in the size too and also some students as uh board member hallad says are feral and it's it's hard it's not fun riding the bus and so then once you get your parent driving you the first two or three weeks or months or whatever then you start begging your parents
083and the parent is like me and it's like crap now I got to drive you um it's really hard when you let that Genie out the bottle parents and you start driving your kid it's hard to put them back in that bus um and I'm a old school parent I believe in tough love but I still couldn't get them back on the bus so it is what it is okay so for those that may be watching at home I just want to put out there a reminder that on April 1st we'll have Community meetings number two that will be held at North stacker high school at 600 p.m. and then on April 8th there'll be the school boards public hearing and that will be here at the B complex 31 Stafford Avenue at 700 p.m.
084okay so um let's take a thank you five minute recess and we'll read into closed I just want everybody to be able to use the restroom thank you okay here I come you have to take roll first or is that no I moved that the board convene a closed meeting pursuant to section 2.2 d371 A1 of the cot of Virginia to discuss disciplinary action against an elementary Support Services employee second Miss H will you please P the board Dr Chase here miss guy yes no AG Miss yes AG great miss yes Miss Randle yes Miss Sigman yes and Dr Warner yes M chair mtion passes thank you 23712 of the code of Virginia I moved that the closed meeting held by the that's my water held by the school board during its work session or
085March 20 2025 be certified by adopting the following resolution now therefore be resolved that the school board of stacker County Virginia hereby certifies that to the best of each member's knowledge one only public business matters lawfully Exempted from open meeting requirements were discussed in the closed meeting to which this certification resolution applies and two only such public business matters as were identified in the motion convening the closed meeting were heard discussed or considered by the board second Dr Chase agreed Miss guy yes Miss hon yes Miss Hy agree Miss Rand agree Miss Sigman agree and Dr Warner agree Madam chair the motion passes we have no business coming we have no action coming out of those closed sessions our meeting is adjourned thank you um I'm going to be cranky at Agenda