001the alterate she's not coming I have ation in a second on the agenda please to approve second all in favor I any opposed no thank you Dr Smith would you like to take us off absolutely so um first session first item is around the elementary school redistricting for 2627 thank you for um your priorities that you shared with us the last time we were together together and also want to thank Mr White uh for really working hard to get these together um to present to you tonight um you he will go through those and we'll share those with you and then um get any feedback there and then we'll be also ready to have the first community meeting on Thursday evening so Mr White thank you all right okay all right so tonight's objectives first
002I'm going to start with what we've heard from the school board uh we're going to jump into all of the considerations for policy really quickly then we'll dive into those initial boundary scenarios just want to give you a heads up every school is impacted and then it'll be next steps and feedback process all right so what we heard I watched the tapes I listened attentively I just want you to know that that's why I'm not going to go through all of it but just sort of major sub bullets there you know we we paid attention to forecasting and rolling in capacity we heard about utilizing space at our schools you know space optimization make sure you get the areas sort of in the outlying areas make sure you fill those up um in terms of
003demographics we talked about keep track of Title One programs you want to see that data we have that um in terms of Transportation let's be efficient and safe as possible all all right so here are the factors for consideration per the new policy that's coming out fairly soon it's pretty much the same thing as the old policy just sort of organize these sub bullets uh just wanted to point out one thing we heard what you said and we went a step further and added more of these considerations in developing these plans uh in particular I can talk to the contiguous School attendance areas MH we removed four Islands from our elementary schools with this so just want you know we went above the Beyond just you know the primary we also took into account all
004the secondary considerations all right so let's start first with scenario red just want to point out on the left we have a map of the current boundaries and on the right we have a map of scenario red so the thick dark line you see on the map those are the current boundaries so if you look at scenario red I'll just zoom to elementary school 18 we see that Elementary 18 receives students with Heartwood as well as fman uh and Rocky Run so that's how you sort of read you know the boundaries who's going where by looking at those lines um you'll also notice Elementary School 19 you see that it grabs students from Stafford it grabs one planning unit from grafted and that planning unit is rather large and you may remember in the high
005school redistricting process Transportation said hey you know what it make my life so much better if you sent so that's why we did that just wanted to point those those are the brookpoint kids that weren't supposed to go St we're going St then went toook like three of them yeah yes so there're not very many students for transport efficiency purp they wanted them to be assigned to es9 for elementary are there more than three kids or like more than high it's still very small still very small okay um and then you also notice with Elementary uh School 19 the boundary uh grabs a portion of uh Winding Creek and then going north it grabs a portion of burns um then moving along can I ask a quick question just about elementary school 19 yes um
006do you the kids who will be going to elementary school 19 will all of them go to Stafford Middle and what point oh not likely to happen most of we don't really have feeders that work that way so we don't have a feeder alignment that works where this school automatically everyone goes to this school I mean it just seems like given that it's a campus kind of thing that it would be good if that could happens but are you saying that would be I'm saying off top of my head I I'm going to say not 100% but there will be some alignment but it won't be perfect alignment okay uh is it I mean do we know I mean other than the fact that there's the middle schools sort of geographically weird um is there
007any reason why we would I mean it's I mean is there any reason because I see the way this is split over here and you were saying this was evaluated by transportation that seems kind of pretty far away from 19 yeah again in their opinion it was more efficient to Route the kids to 19 than to graft in Village just the way the roads are set up okay and so that's why that move that's why that looks that way because visually it looks a little what middle school would these kids go to just out of curiosity which on this section here they go those kid so these kids go to um Stafford Middle but then they we just redistricted them to forge okay okay I'm just trying to fall out I'm sorry so um you'll
008notice in the northern section of the map there have been some very there have been some changes as well if you look at the Park rdge area uh what we try to do is go back in and uh balance enrollment uh with Park rdge so it sort of gets it looks similar to its old boundary prior to us having a crowding issue with Partridge um and so we try to make fixes balance enrollment and you know keep things so that little that little blue circle is that island or is it just that you've got it that's North Stafford High School parents who have children that need to attend an elementary school would send their children to Garrisonville instead of another school currently the parents of children at North go to cute Waller Barrett wait say
009that again so if you work at North and you have an elementary school student who needs to go to school as part of your employment like you want them to go to school in your feeder pattern currently employees children are districted for Kate Waller Barrett okay uh and this would move them to Garrisonville is that because of the overcrowding at Park bridge I imagine parkd is right next to North I mean I would think if you know a faculty I would imagine if we went back far enough they were at still don't I mean it's just that little that little blue circle is that no there no residences there literally the high school Camp go concern when I saw it with transporting those kids but the parents have to provide their own transportation I mean
010I thought that was teachers are that was part of policy in the past if the parents are teachers we bust them from the parents location or to the parents location depending on the work work location like yeah that's in the policy now have elementary kids dropped off midd scho or pied up from high school is there policy or maybe we Chang that too the policy used to say if they wanted their children to go to you know out of their District where they live in that they had to go to the closest elementary school to where they were right that's we assign it we assign the closest elementary school it's not really the closest it's the ass the closest in that planning zero oh it's zero no residents we don't know how many employees children
011from North currently attend an elementary school yeah I'm sorry not in the entire planning unit but just in that one little odd shap okay anyway that's interesting I didn't know we bust that's something we probably should look at also okay and then uh in the so the southern portion of the map you can see what we did in this scenario with Elementary School 18 Rocky Run um grabs rapan Landing in that area uh you can see Heartwood uh loses a portion of his boundary Ferry Farm extends sort of Westward along 17 you can see we do grafting Village so in this section of the map one of the the primary considerations would try to fill up some of the outling areas and that's what we attempted to do so that's why sort of looks that
012way right now and so let me jump into sort of some of the key highlights of scenario red so we did optimize seating space um there were zero schools over 100% capacity in 2026 when the school opens and there will be one school that's slated to be over capacity in 2028 which is year three after the school opens um there are two schools slated to be over 100% 5 years out in 2030 and we have here it shows the Max Capacity those schools would be SL to be at 103% which is still very manageable depending on U how the kids are distributed by grade and so forth Garrisonville far uh Ferry Farm and Rock Hill are slated via 89% or higher in 2030 so are you isolating them because they're they're outl yeah um with
013regard to es18 is slated to open at 70% utilization and it stays low through 2030 it only gets up to 73% so there is some seating space uh open to accommodate students from Westlake um of course es8 relieves crowding in the southern portion of the county and also we have the demographics of what es8 will look like what we're anticipating at opening so we have R lunch percentage 54 El at 18% and SP at 15% um so we're keeping Elementary so we're keeping es18 down in anticipation of Wesley coming online in this scenario so we have three scenarios this is the low scenario for es8 yeah I mean most my I mean I'm going to hold off of my questions until we're done but I have some I mean there's some really big concerns about
014hardwood L and even you know if we're going to shift any metric it should be to more of that if anything's opening at 70% in 2026 it should be hard do you know what I mean I mean I'm I'm holding off I want to see but but that's why I want to hear the discussion first but in my initial look like that's been so but anyway all right I'm here to listen all right all right and then with regards to ES1 19 this slated open at 95% utilized and it will not exceed 100% through 2030 uh of course it relieves crowding in the northern section of the county with regard to demographics free reduced lunch at 50% L at 24 SP at 15 and of course all three of the scenarios were reviewed by the
015transportation department got their feedback and Incorporated their feedback into the boundar yes all right so let's move on to some of the data and what we have here is a chart that shows you the projected capacity utilization it compares the current boundaries to scenario red so for example if we look at Barrett the first school Under the current projections Barrett is slated to be at 105% 109% 114% and that shows you 2026 2030 to the right of that you see with scenario uh red that improves it goes from 105 down to 90% it goes from 109 down to 91% and it goes from 114 to 96% so if you sort of Follow That same uh approach you'll see how what the capacity looks like with the new boundaries compared to the old boundaries how there's
016an improvement in most instances there also Al you can look at the before and after for your demographic data because I know that was something that was important so that you can so for bar you can see it goes from 27% down to 24% PR reduced lunch 59% down to 58 and so on so you can see that for all 19 schools all right all right so I'm going to move on to reassignment so this chart shows you the anticipated number of students moving and it shows you the red shows you the school that they're going to be attending and then sort of the the schools uh that are not in red that are under it is showing where they're coming from so for example with Barrett 683 students will remain in boundary at Barrett
017but Barrett will receive is projected to receive students from Hampton Oaks and 22 students from Mon and that sums up to that 756 so this shows you for all 19 schools where the students are coming from and and how many was there okay you have a specific question I can ask no just like you're doing such a good job this is fantastic thank you I try um all right so if no one has any questions I'll Garrisonville shows that receiving the number that they're keeping is on the bottom in Garrisonville that's correct yeah so they're not moving it's in alphabetical order so Garrisonville will keep 428 of it current students they're not moving but they're going to receive 207 students from barer and so for example es18 and 19 since they currently don't exist they're
018only going to receive from other schools and we see like so for example es8 receives 404 from Rocky Run 192 from Hartwood and 155 from F these are all projections so the number in the red is the total projected enrollment not like school capacity that is correct yeah that's total enrollment thank you for making that and Mr White I know you're going to touch on this but um this this includes the total number student would not take into account any potential exemptions that might be provided for fifth graders is that right that's correct so yes this is all grades all grades okay and so with just in terms of the layout of the data we show you year one year three and year five just so you have an idea all right so now I'll
019move on to scenario orange that's a very helpful chart by the way that very helpful thank you once I figured out how to read it which was just now when you said it so thank you right I yeah I had to have him explain it to you it actually made sense to me already well you're straight up so you know totally know that's true all right so Li does my have trailers no but they said if they if they don't get relieved they we'll leave them next year do about trying to start we keep it moving folks yes I can get to your questions and all that good stuff too so now we're at scenario orange and you know some people like to flip back and forth between the two so they can kind of
020get a visual of how it changes but I can assure you scenario orange is a little different uh there are some changes at es8 I'll point out I know very subtle if you look at es8 in the orange scenario you'll notice the blue goes south of the 17 so that's the Stafford Lakes Village uh community and so we had we grabb more students so that we could fill up es18 higher and light up part one a little bit yes yes that is correct and up north the map pretty much stayed the same you'll see a lot of change more so in the southern portion of the map particularly Rocky Run vs8 and the Southeastern quadrant of the map so but I don't understand because the numbers are still the same for Heartwood across the board
02186% 87% then 100% that's because the boundary doesn't change so when the boundary changes then the mix of students changes in terms of planning units but if if the same planning units are assigned to the same school in each scenario then the numbers will stay the same when the numbers change it's because we moved the planning unit so we don't uh have oh you move that one from Mar run though okay never mind that's a good question thank you for asking that yeah yeah all right and so um again a lot of the change is going to be towards es8 Rocky Run fall meth Conway graft Village and bar very again our goal was try to be as least disruptive as possible to students while at the same time keeping the boundaries contiguous and filling
022schools up so why is there zerri I don't see any other Zer yeah there so there are two zeros on there right now and the zeros they're planning units that don't have students so I don't know if you remember oh okay so that's an APU yeah that's can we can yeah I'm just thinking if I were a parent looking at this I would just see Zero I would expect there was nothing but I get what you're saying but somehow we need to add to this chart that we're going to put up for everybody to see that there is a planning unit assign there's just no kids in that planning unit right now yes and I do have but it's further along couple slides down in that reassignment plan there's a note that talks about that
023so so we address it but on this CH okay yeah it's oh if I'm missing it on there I'll put it on there I apologize um okay I'll make sure that it's just thinking y thank you I'll make neither one neither one of them nor yeah so that Falmouth planning unit is John Lee Pratt par we split that off the last time because it's like hey can you fix this this is yeah and the other one uh was Zone commercial it's that Aldi along 17 there's a plan un that looks kind of weird through there so we just kind of split that so it make it look a little better again there's zero students involved all right so let's talk about some of the key highlights of scenario orange one of the big things es8
024it's slated to open at 84% so scenario red was 70% this one's 84% and it stay it stays below um it stays below 100% through 2030 um or with regard same thing with Westlake development there's some space and we look at the demographics no significant change 51% 177% 15% sped for es8 es9 the boundary doesn't change pretty much we're at 95% full demographics they don't change and then if we wanted to go look into detail for specific schools um we have slide 11 here that shows you the breakdown for capacity uh and the demographics all right so moving along here's the reassignment plan for scenario orange and then at the bottom left corner sorry I didn't I need to make that a little bigger but it says um it talks about the planning units with
025zero students and why they you know in the John le PR so the par correct that's why it's got zero there so it's not a I don't understand why we have planning units that have no residences so we'll never have a residence oh because I'm sure they'll find a way to put res yeah I think when it was originally drawn they made it sort of big and then it got a little clunky looking when it and so we just try to cosmetically the step Marketplace Apu uh yes it does it has an APU so the whole county has a APU yeah the issue is whether or not there's students there so let's move on like we found along 610 you know some of the hotels you wouldn't think that well you I would think that
026because you may have some homeless students so that's why we have to put everything in a planning un I don't think the county would allow people to reside in the par but a planning unit is more than just a home right a plan unit when it's made it's not it's took a GIS it's more than just houses so that's why it's called I think County for I think can I ask a question just in terms of presentation at the end of this is it possible to put red orange and yellow piece of paper beside each other or is it doesn't get too distorted just so oh we have that that's coming up good question just like I'm my head doing everything all that I've been working on tell he's done this done it once or
027tce all right so I'm gonna get my smarty um notebook I'm just going to put that away because I don't need it all right so here's scenario yellow last one I problem okay uh es8 slated open at 92% in this scenario so that's an improve that's higher than the other two the demographics doesn't change much for es18 es9 is the same there no changes in demographics um all right so then I'll move on I apologize to utilization and demographics here for those of you at home that want to see your particular school what happens we have there and then here's the reassignment plan all right so now the fun part ah here's where all three are contrasted against each other all right so let's start off with projected capacity in 2026 by scenario so the
028blue is the current boundaries red orange and yellow so let's start off with 20 26 let's start off with es18 first right now there's no boundary that's why it says na not applicable however in scenario red es8 is 70% in Sara orange is 84% so that area highlighted in blue is to show you uh the differences in the three scenarios and this is just an example for es8 but you can do that and see the differences for every school so you can see the projected capacity for each school and you can also see the demographics for each to how it changes so um some of the key highlights are we'll have to figure out with in terms of decision points es8 at some point uh how much what capacity do we want to open it
029at are we going to go you know on the lower end or on the higher and that's something down the line that we we'll have to figure out another thing I'd like to point out because I'm sort of a data person if we look at no way if we look at uh so for example burds uh we have two schools that are slated to be over capacity in 2030 but they're not by much Burns is one of them at 102% and so is mon at 103% so just give you a frame of reference if we had a school is a th000 seats 3% of that is 30 seats so just want to give you a frame of reference so we're talking about it's crowded but it's not so far out of control where it's not
030potentially manag depending on how the kids are distributed oh you're talk when you say manageable you're talking about the 5% yeah so this is not we haven't reached 5% but this is 3% but I just want to give you a frame of reference okay it's less than 30 students in these for these schools because um they don't have a an enroll they don't have a capacity of a thousand so it's going to be less than 30 this assumes that your calculation your predictions are all right which at the school level corre there's going to be more more kind of Wiggle that's correct 5 years out they're not going to be as good as one year out or two years out so the further out was more the error right yeah um but yet so just
031based on you know what we're estimating those two schools are going to be up there and we have a couple other schools if you look at 2030 es9 is at 100% harwood's at 100% now again that Heartwood it doesn't include additional seats and it doesn't right now have West Lake uh in another boundary it just keeps West leg right now that heart but all of these have Rocky Run quite low yeah so I think that's my biggest thing here in looking at this is that as we progress through the scenarios because Heartwood stays the same we're not finding ways to kind of move the boundaries so that Heartwood is less so that we don't have that compression on that building so I'm not sure how that lays out but that may be I think that's
032something that I have to start to look at in the future cuz each of the scenarios seem to be moving between Rocky Run and and 18 MH and I would just like to see maybe a little bit more of how do we get I'd like to see love to see Heartwood start at 70% but um just because we can't tell when we'll get a replacement or you know whatever so is West like zoned for Heartwood then it would have to be based based right now it is for for the geography of it it would have to be but I'm less concerned about that because I know I can also zone less like for whever we want right because at this point I know I wouldn't because of transportation and whatnot but I have to take
033care of the kids who are here and the building that's standing and so I'm sorry for the potential kids that are coming but I've got kids that are currently but heartwood's going down by yeah so Heartwood 25% under every scenario yeah but if you but if you take a look at the numbers right like if if I have to justify anything I don't know that I can justify Heartwood starting at 86% or whatever and a year that Rocky Run is starting at 70% right my bigger concern is the is the pressure on the Heartwood building than it is on um so me okay there's one scenario for Rocky one is that but the other one Rocky one is at 949 correct but what I'm saying is if there's a way to move that so I've
034got one scenario where Heartwood is at 71% that'd be amazing I'm not there yet I'm still listening but I that's where my mindset is so for me scenario yellow where you have Rocky Run Elementary Schools boundar like you have people who live I I don't know if there are people living there or not but right next to the school they're going they're going across the road they're going to go across 17 to elementary school 18 and so that looks a little right so if I could U if I can just explain a little bit so here's scenario yellow and so so remember Rocky Run is literally across the street from es8 right yep and so in this scenario we took students from Rocky Run that's that blue area that's south of 17 and we moved
035them to es8 to get its capacity up above 70% right so I can't always win yeah it's a balancing game no no and and all I'm saying is compared to the other scenarios it's like man you're right on top of that school and we're you know in terms of thex so just was interesting yeah can I um ask a question about when you're calculating future capacity or projected capacity are you using the current cap so with class size reduction schools example you're saying Anthony Burns is going to be at 102% is that 102% of its current capacity is a class size reduction school yes and then if any school were to fluctuate they might not actually be at 102% because they may you know this school might be actually higher because they're not class size
036reduction now but they might be after we redistrict and then vice versa something that's look looks like it's 103% might not be because they might lose class size reduction after a few yeah like Burns won't be pre I mean qualify in any one of these three yeah so Burns likely their capacity would likely go up if they lose class size reduction because now the class sizes can be larger for K through three so that would make the bu just a little bit wouldn't be you know since they're so close to being a like does that bring it down to maybe like 9 98 right like so that like and I need to know that for also for schools that might move in the other direction if we are looking at them at 96 when they're
037at a full capacity school and they become a classwise production school we could be at like 105 right and we don't want to do that either so I'm just Conway's another one that would probably end up losing that losing that and their capacity is low in are and so is Mark Brent maret Brent's capacity staying low just because of the geographical proximity of students to pick up to go there is that yes the market Brent it's you know it's um doesn't have as much density as some of the other areas in the county because it's not directly off 17 not directly off 610 so we talked about moving some kids out Heartwood to Brent and and didn't want to do it because going to be a long drive it is a long drive but so
038then my question is I'm sorry Ela but my qu so I just wrote this down like there's five kids over here that are on the side of Rocky Run that can come out of right the little number is I'm on that big and those are details that can be right but but that's what I'm saying like that's so in considering it because I haven't really seen like how if shifting and moving it may not make sense I don't know but I but it is something that I'm I really I think we need to be focused on just because I have really grave concerns about that building being it shows only 436 students though in Harwood through all three scenarios but my question is how long when can we redesignate schools as either class size reduction
039or Title One based on these scenarios because some of these schools are going to lose like have their free and reading Lune and other schools are going to see those numbers go up yeah new schools can immediately qualify for class size reduction at least that used to be the case but existing schools it's this weird three-year rolling average except if Co hits then it becomes a five year Rolling average but it's air flexibility to designate them we do not have to keep class size reduction because that was the issue when we had the last redistricting we had schools that were clearly not um in the same level of need in terms of the numbers of reduced but yet what had the carryover 3 years they had the benefit but not the need that some of
040the other schools did so I think that's something we need to address maybe after we finish this how we're going to do burns goes from both Title One and class size reduction and and Elementary School 19 picks up all those students yeah so you're saying Dr you're saying it's automatically consider that until you can for a brand new school if you open a brand new school and it has whatever the state requirements are it immediately would be a considered a class size reduction school okay but and we can choose to do the class size reduction or not as we wish but if if you're an existing school it's a three-year running average of pr- reduced lunch that at least that's what it used to be to figure that out oh yeah and so if and
041that's from the date of the redistrict it's each year so so they wouldn't be eligible until and then if they have to wait 3 years and that's there's going to be schools that are losing out so this we need to consider with our staff and and the school I mean Fairy Farm in all these scenarios is going to absolutely shift Conway is going to shift the other way and Garrisonville is likely going to shift you know in other schools like water are not although Conway is not a glass has never made it to glass size reduction I don't think that I don't think that so if I could just point out here on this slide so the area where it says free and reduced lunch we have the the bolded in Black uh school so
042those are two existing schools that would be going from uh free and reduced lunch of over 40% to below that 40% threshold and then conversely the the two uh green tupal there uh those highlighted areas shows the two schools that up yes and so these are showing existing but then if you look at es8 and 19 both are slated to open above 40% free and reduced Lun I I just want to make sure that we're putting whatever resources we can in place for our schools as soon as we can so I don't know what that timeline looks like so when you say 54 51% pre-introduced lunch for these new schools are they is their capacity being being calculated for class size reduction not yet because we don't to First that was really what it is
043like if based on what we're looking at saying Burns is at 102 Burns will not be at 102 because it likely right change might not be at 70 or 84 or 92 higher higher yeah these are estimates I just wanted that these are estimat program capacity changes every year and it's based on we look at for each grade yeah I mean so it's it's a it's a complex calculation is it premature to ask based on these scenarios this might be a Dr Smith question if our number of eligible schools might change like if we have six C schools now would they stay about the same or would we need more or fewer um same with like Title One and like that type of thing not identifying them um because it's premature to actually identify but
044generally speaking is the spread the same I don't want to go to 12 and I want to come down to three um let's remember we don't know what's going to happen with Title One sure but the students will still be here and the data will still reflect the need of the community just will depend on where the money comes from to support them on what we do yeah and we're happy to to project that based on information you have the scenarios that you have I think we did try to take a look at that you can see the the schools that are above 40% and what that looks like so we were trying to see how that might impact there um in terms of title one and and Dr kerser can correct me if I'm
045wrong because I know she was looking at the title one and the class size reduction and what our options are but in terms of title one we can't include them in our grant uh for our Grant application for title one when we hav they haven't been open yet right and so we wouldn't would still be a lag before we can include them with the additional schools do you also remember that title the pot of Title One funds The piie Remains the Same and so it's going to if we add two more schools it's just every Title One School get is if we're adding two is it because we're adding two or is it because we're shifting populations and therefore these two over here aren't anymore um and that's why the number of total schools is
046really can Shi the money after so so let's say um Burns is Title One currently and we haven't opened the new school but then when we open the new school suddenly how quickly can we flip it to send the money to Elementary School 19 from and remove Burns I believe it's with the Grant application but I see Mr bowling or Dr So based on the prior year enrollment demographics so you have to have that year where you can't just open and in October move the money over okay that's March 30th but we can designate the title schools right so if we have now what do we have seven or however many how many seven or eight well let's just say we have eight right now and to the redistricting we could designate five or six
047or whatever and the money that that pie would be split up there and it would not go to the other ones is that correct they're eligible but we don't have to sign the perent of free and reduced lunch threshold right because that's going to change though it's going to be significantly CH if the school is at 46% today and they end up at 23% under every scenario clearly I would prefer to see that title money go to one of the schools that has increased there's a one year lag in that and so they have to be funded for the following year and then they can come off so our could our one year lag be next year if we know for a fact that they're going to be coming off the next actual submission of
048students enrolled in at Mar at March 30th but we we designate those schools year the the government doesn't tell us what schools are title one we designate the schools that we want to be title one so so is that something that we as a as a school system have the authority to designate school we set the we set the threshold right so we can't change like we can't cherry pick we there's a threshold and the schools that are above or the schools that are below but we can in effect we could possibly set the threshold where some schools would get more than they would get if there were more schools but I think the problem is based on per pup so if you would set the threshold and then based on the per pup of
049the number of students in the building that would impact the amount in that building based on our local and consistent rules about the Threshold at which we are identifying a title one school right but we could set the threshold so that it did not include a school that perhaps was included but I think what you're saying too is that if we Once We R set the redistri boundaries and we do already know what the percentages are over the course of the next year while we're preparing for that school to open that doesn't count towards what you're saying which is the lag in that year and that's what I think you're asking right I just I just I've been through this before and it really bothered me that we were giving extra resources to schools that
050didn't really fit our definition of you know needing it because and it was just because of this rolling average that you know that that the state put in now the rolling average can be to our advantage but in these cases I our resources are limited and I wanted to go to the schools that really need it and this goes back to your point about the perable allocation it's not exactly a per pup allocation but it's additional funding for schools with higher needs needs population so it's something we can discuss later but when does that application go in because we're going to have to know a year it's du by I believe June is that correct okay it it'll come to you before it goes but it comes to us and it's on the consent agenda
051when when it goes in what year is that for is that for the a year from the following year okay so the application we file that comes to us for approval in July will be for the year that this redistricting is in effect but it has to be based on numbers actual numbers on March 30th so you can't predetermine that what year this year the this current year for next year so for instance next year on March 30th we could not identify es8 as a title one school because they don't have any actual U numbers yet but can they be added in when they open is that after March 30th point in time we would look at the so the first year they can't qualify for anything correct and you can't move the funding except
052based on once they receive Title One designation that means that you can remove them but there's a onee lag after you get so so 18 and 19 even though they're they make be one of two of our highest need schools cannot get any additional funding until after the first year that is correct what about class size reduction can they open with class SI reduction I thought they could open with class size reduction but wrong I would need to talk to Patrick about that be sort of they're already opening with class size reduction because for the most part we're already but that's only because it's only one Lev not the building one additional note the board at one point did make a decision to only fund elementary schools with Title One funding right that could be
053Revisited based on free and reduced lunch uh rates at other schools and we do have some that are inching up that are middle school should can we set up a work session at some point maybe in the summer s on it because I think I think it would be helpful to get all this information and put it on a spreadsheet and to talk about anything that's going to actually help us with this decision- making process then we could do a more Global work session once we've made a decision on how we what our options are Missy Missy you would add to the B agenda the title one classroom reduction information and it's like there's like somebody's listening in that's right I know hit the red button under the table get in here now school and
054high school okay so the question was class size reduction can can you qualify for it as soon as you open or does it have to take a year it takes more than a year more than for new schools uh for uh so I will check with Mr Fulmer because this comes through the state's calculation tool right um but uh it is you cannot be based on projected enrollment that has be based on historic enrollment and they only do the recalculations during bayum uh or once per B and so depend you forgive me I don't recall which year the B it'll be when the schools open but uh until they year yeah so they might be doing a recalculation after one year but uh we would have to check on I see what you're saying so
055at a minimum it will need to have been open for one year and depending on where it falls in the cycle it might be longer okay and then we we should get we should get information about how much we pay to participate in class size reduction you know how much we get and how much we pay and we might want to consider not accepting it where it's not needed and taking what we pay and use that for you know the new schools or schools that could need it because it's a real disadvantage disant Pat question kind or I don't even know whose question is but um does that bium tiin does that mess up us up often is it worth us advocating to have them like do it every year no okay the B P
056is not in and of itself uh the challenge a challenge that we experienced was that they did not do a reset uh during Co years and then when they did do a reset they essentially said we're going to ignore a couple of years of enrollment data because we know that enrollment and membership Statewide was wonky during those years and so it has led to a lag in adjustment of at least one school that should have rolled off CSR which really hurt us because we never really our enrollment recovered so quickly right yeah so so that is a place where the the structure of the B review itself is not really a problem it has there have been some challenges the last few years because of the decisions for how to implement by and the data
057into it anyone else um um I just L I just have a question to you based on like getting information out to the public in terms of you know um where the where the numbers are coming from for West Lake if we could go back and add to the the information that we're presenting the number of expected houses not just in West Lake but on Centerport Parkway in particular because there like we know there's all kinds of subdivisions coming over there as well so it'll just help us okay and by probably I just mean me but to be continually reminded right like of how many subdivisions were because again we're talking about potential people not people that are here currently but I need for people to understand like the weight of what's actually coming and
058I think we can forget that a little bit like 784 homes is not a small number of homes that are coming to West Lake so so if we can continue to put that in our I don't care if it's asteris or whatever but just continue to remind people about the the growth numbers that are coming that would be really helpful okay um what about uh Rising fifth graders because I thought I saw something saying there will be no fifth graders in the two new schools but then the the where we have the historic fifth grade thing where yeah if you want to stay if if you're yeah so clarification okay let me just move on real quick and then I'll jump on that sure so for those people watching at home with regards to next
059steps please our community engagement overview we have community meeting March 13th community meeting number one and you can see on this slide upcoming engagement opportunities okay in terms of you have questions after you see the the presentations posted on our website you can reach me directly you have my email directly did you hear that no it's public the public the public can call public can call me directly you email me call me I am y I am I am I got kids in the school public and then all right so let's get to that exemption that's what we were talking about so so historically the school board's desire has been to allow Rising fifth graders to remain at the current school I found this by going back to the the last Elementary redistricting and I
060grabbed the text from there and transportation to and from school must be provided by the students parents or guards right and this exemption Clause has not been was not extended to siblings of rising fifth graders this is what we did last time it's up to the board and we've done that we've done that for thing we do differently is those um we would I think we talked about um at least on the high school level for kids that don't have a school to go to otherwise because there won't be a senior class at high school 6 so we provide transportation for those students to stay there why are there no fifth graders at es 18 and 19 that doesn't make I saw doesn't make any sense to me we've always had all the grades for
061elementary and middle I wondered about that because otherwise they wouldn't get an exemption right they would what would they do well are we I don't know I I thought I read somewhere something and I may misread so have a phys so would there be a fifth grade class for 18 and 19 so what I'm thinking is so if you're in existing School the question becomes if you're at Harwood does that that's just an example does that student stay at Harwood to finish their grade year um only if they get they qualified for this ex I think but so so if I'm hearing the discussion right because then I'm feeling like I interpreted this page wrong um I mean I feel like Elementary School is very different than being a high school being a fifth grader
062is very different than being in high school and I think at this point we have to rip a Band-Aid off and just move we're moving okay I mean these schools are close enough whatever we're moving subsets of kids that aren't being straddled neighb trying to spend their last year here with their friends right their neighbors bestant as opposed to correct so I kind of feel like if that's the way I'm reading I'm not I'm not comfortable with opening up new elementary schools without fifth grade got to make sure that we're not going to end up with a school with 30 fifth graders you know what I mean or not even right um that's my only concern I'm happy to go in either direction but I don't I understand it with high school but with Elementary
063School I'm just I mean they then they'll move with their peers which I think is much more advantageous I agree than than the geography supports that device what we have for our high school so but we've allowed it in the past and I don't think we've ever had that much of an acceptance of it it's it's it's it's an accommodation to some families with all due respect the last time we would have been in this scenario was 2006 because mure was a rebuild and so we wouldn't have been under the same scenario that was 20 years ago and oh was a long time ago mon wasn't built that long ago it wasn't 2019 but it was a school it was it was a replacement school so it was in theory not redistricted to fill with
064all new kids I know you added students ask Miss gu but I don't want to pick that still angry I'm not going to pick that wound but the last time we opened an empty school that we was in 2006 we don't actually have a really long history on how to do this um I don't know what you guys did for middle school and youall when you open Middle School haven't done a middle school we done we did it for high school and then we did it for elementary but 2009 when the when they were siblings generally the parents just moved everybody so they could stay together but but I don't see how we could allow them just across the board to stay at the existing schools and then the transportation would be nightmare you know
065going back and forth the whole point of this is is almost a accommodation of privilege is that is that the families have to provide the transportation we're not burdening Transportation with it you know with it I think it opens upar I I think if any parent has a significant issue maybe they have a student with an IEP or something I think they will address it with the princip be part of that but I don't know that I want to make a blanket exception why don't we listen to the comments that the publicity meetings and see what it's something that I think it's important to note that there a large difference between accommodating High School seniors and accommodating well I I can tell you the reason that came up is because there was a lot of
066angst in the high schools and maybe it was back in 2005 but among the the families and and it was a response to the Community you know um input that that came up and it was not that large a number and I'm not you know saying we need to do it now but I would like to listen to what I think it's important to put it out there that the consideration is we would open fully all grades we have to open a fifth grade there that's not it's not fair student question is it possible for you guys with y'all's magic computers to look at the number number of fifth graders this may impact and how that would look with Transportation would it be disastrous to grandfather or whatever you know what I'm saying can you
067guys give us that input yeah we can give you uh like estimates of how many it be a fair estimate good for transportation because the families are going to be transporting the kids okay it can't be a negative for transportation yeah if they you know do it's another car rider ENT right okay but that almost makes it more realistic than to say we're starting with the greed you know like I'm not even sure about the exemption piece unless like to Dr Warner's point it's for an IEP or for like they do consideration we don't need to make an exemption for an IEP because there's going to be an IEP meeting and that team is going to decide where that child should be right but what I'm saying is not an exemption for an IEP no
068no but what I'm saying is is that instead of saying no exceptions or no exemptions whatever that's not necessarily the KE the keys would be just to say we're opening with fifth grade and then exemptions we have our town hall on this our first redistricting town hall is at Stafford high school on Thursday night I'll say it again at the end of our next meeting um there were you can reflect back on the Friday memo there were a couple of options that Mr White has already penciled in on his calendar to hold for us over the next few days to kind of talk specifics um and so we out and set those up and are we accepting digital comments as well that's what we traditionally done that's going to be part of this anyone can
069at any time up to you know a certain date submit digital comments that will come to all of us yes before we move to the next agenda item let's take a quick recess because Missy says we can bring our dinner in and a restroom yeah so uh we are coming to you today uh with an update on Drew Middle School plans and how they are coming along excited for your feedback and direction on a few items and so Mr to is goingon to kick us off yes thank you Dr Smith M of the board um we are excited to present you our progress here on Drew Middle School at ool Farm if you will off cliff Farm Road um so in front of you um it was actually a copy of our our schedule where
070we're at in terms of the overall design process um and we'll I'll refer back to that later um and as you can see um we're here today to give feedback um from you with some specific guidance on how to move forward form an auditorium spaces um I do want to stress with everybody that this is an iterative process where things go back and forth as we coales around a final design but that we also have a timeline with this um so if we want to open this the doors of this facility in August of 28 to new students um your input here today and in the coming weeks we have real time impact on those design decisions and how we proceed um obviously we also have a budget we're dealing with as well um so
071we'll do our best at every step of this process to help you understand how your decisions and guidance impact that budget um we've been very successful recently with having some cost effective designs um so we're always looking for opportunities to refine scope and I'll give you some recent examples here that the board may wish to aine on today as we get into this um just even in the past week um we've uh been talking among staff and there's been a recommendation to consider removing tennis courts um from the rebuild um and that's because of the current use of the tennis courts of the existing middle schools as well as our ability to maintain them um in same vein we were debating whether or not to have lockers in the middle schools and the the consensus
072has been that yes we were going to recommend to continue to keep Lockers in the middle schools but those may be items that the board might have some input on today but as you'll see those this is a live iter iterative process and we're still working out those types of decisions um so I'm going to turn this over now to uh Tom Lee uh Tom and his team at Samaha says he it's the architect for this um uh project here for us he'll describe to you how this design has evolved the concepts in play and answer questions you might have um Mr Mr Lee's group is also Samaha is also the same group has recently done the um Elementary School designed for us so we know we've got a great partner here with us who's
073um good at helping us get those cost effective designs um that still meet the community leads uh so Tom and he brings Good Cookies BR good thank you so much I appreciate everyone's time tonight and I'll just start by opening up I'm to follow along with Jason's comments about where we are in the process and today we're the last date on this slide but you can see we reached out we've gotten a lot of input from Educators from community members and so on and you guys have been a part of this process as well so we're just kind of a step along the way and I'd say we're moving into schematic design is the phase that we're in currently so we haven't locked in down any of the design but um I've gotten a lot
074of great feedback along the way um and this is just an example of that from the November 14th meeting where we engaged the community and talked about their preferences and what their major concerns were and highlighted here in that tallest bar on the chart is the performance space it was important to the community that we were able to recreate some kind of Performing space within the school and we'll talk about that a little bit in the discussion um I don't know if you're familiar with the site off cliff Farm roads in Leland it's you know east of Route One north of Falmouth um and U so we looking at this site it's a north south elongated site but it has quite a bit of to the kind of West Side some steeper Graves and some
075Wetlands along here so you'll notice that the site and the building development is all really kind of hugging the stem Road Cliff Farm Road for the most part um the image on the left is just a enlarged plan of the site plan you'll notice that currently we have a k loop at the North side and another loop at the South Side some of the parking and vehicular movements on the site may change as we develop the plans further but this was just a general layout to show how the building would be oriented on the site and that we can accommodate the Playfield requirements and the the erress of the site um for movements separating as much as possible vehicular pedestrian movements along the way um I'll jump right into the conceptual design and to start
076since we knew that performing space was going to be an element that might vary among options we started with one that didn't consider it we took it out of the program just to get our design concept together and here we've started with on the Easter right side of the plan an academic core and it's a kind of a c shape or backwards C shape here and the idea being that then that is split by an activity street that runs north south with secondary entrances on both the North the south end of the building and then your activity spaces like dining and the gym on this level in particular are on that kind of more active louder side of the site it's nice because these entrances can access both loops on both sides of the building
077you have admin here at the front of the building on the first floor between the main entrance which has the best exposure to the incoming um View and then between the two entrance so you get a lot of passive visual security from Administration this also allows us to have spaces en Circle the courtyard which gets natural daylight into every teaching space in the school and then for economy sake we stack all of the core classrooms on top of each other sixth seventh and eighth grade U moving up through the school and part of the reason we're stacking up the three stories is we want as tight of a developmental footprint as possible because we recognize that hey there's a lot of cost development or a lot of cost in developing and you know spreading out
078here we also have some steep grades to the west but also this school may become a prototype for your middle schools and you may want to be building it again on another site and by the tighter the footprint the more it allows you to consider other sites that may be geographically beneficial to you that if you were to design a sprawling School you might have less options at your disposal um moving up to the second floor on the kind of the starting Place concept you can see we still have that academic and activity split through an activity stre on the second floor as well there'd be a a glass curtain wall looking into the corridor or into the courtyard so we have a lot of visual um security over top of this space in this
079plan we have the auxiliary gym and then the locker rooms and team rooms and some of the gym storage spaces as well above the dining space so this would be a a split um gym activity where you'd have the O gym some of other spaces on the second floor and M below noting that the main gym is also a high volume space so we wouldn't be building above that on the second floor the media center sits directly at top of the administration administration department but it's also projected out over about 12 feet in the front so that it allows you to have like a large covered walkway in the front of the school um and it can be a nice focal point as well and it puts the the media center in the middle of
080the second floor which is nice as far as it's distance travel to all the different grade levels as a shared space really in the heart of the school you'll notice we have science coming around um the second floor as well as well as health close to the gym area and then we have working family studies here at the north we also I should go back one slide we do have in the initial concept two of the level two special ed classrooms each with a changing room and we have one special at level one for each grade level and this space can really be anywhere along the or classroom areas just represented here just to show a placeholder one of the things that we also have in the program on the first floor in the music
081department is your original uh program that was based on the mure program from when I was constructed had two um music spaces and so now we've recommended having three music spaces so you can have a complete space for band Orchestra and coral separately each with their own instrument storage so and there's been a review of the full program so that we can check out like what we would recommend making shifts to to help add space here and dial back space there a little bit just to kind of for operational purposes can I insert a comment sure so just for perspective the edpe program we had was from 2009 for the M schools so as we've been going through this there's certain recommendations that Saha has made and of course we're meeting with staff understanding okay
082this is what the edpc says but what's more what's actually happening in some of these facilities and that's where as we've had those meetings some of these Concepts will shift right thank you now move add to the third floor on the third floor this is just completing out that stacking of the core spaces in this initial option we had teched upstairs along with eighth grade science and this was an L-shaped part of the plan and the reason being that if that circulation we can meet all the ESS requirements for this floor with just two stair towers and this becomes the third story I should mention on the previous floor even though this is only twostory the live actually I need to go missing oops I'm going the wrong way that's why keep going up oh
083keep going up there we go going backwards there we go so here you can see um the media center and that's a higher volume space so it's not going to look like you have the RO line at too many different pitches it's going to be more right to left with the activity Street being well defined but this higher volume space on the Second Story will somewhat match the elevation of the roof line on the third story over the academic spes all right back on track so we wanted to start looking at some options and these really aren't meant to be options they're more like Jason mentioned an iterative progression so as we learn things it you know somewhat informed of the next option so I think you'll see that as we go through this and
084we started with option one which is really meant to be capturing what is in educational specification as it is now which is from a performance space and these are all based on solving the performance Auditorium kind of discussion it started with a dining hall with a cafetorium concept and then a forum space so this isn't intended to be necessarily the option that everyone is excited to get behind it's what the Baseline is for discussion purposes and helps us establish the Baseline for what the size of the building and the cost and so on but there's some disadvantages and advantages obviously there's no additional funding needed for this opportunity um the disadvantages is that dining really doesn't have any flexibility for use as another space um at the same time as it's being used in this
085Auditorium type function um it's not really a dynamic performing space it doesn't have great Acoustics it's not a high volume space there's some kind of obvious negatives to this idea but it is on the first floor and it is off the main activity Street and it's what's in the current program where are the elevators so in this concept there's an elevator up at the right upper corner here that's a three story elevator and then there's a twostory elevator here off the activity Street um so we wanted to separate them and we we move them around in different options as well um but we do like to have two elevators in the school in case one's out of service for uh we had an issue after Thomson was built there was basically one elevator that was
086used and if that elevator wasn't working students that needed it couldn't get up and and they also had to have a key and it was you know really you not enough to have one and it needs to be strategically located because if a child is in a a wheelchair and has to get to that elevator we don't want that child to be late for class because have to go so far to get to an elevator and then get back well I like that we have this one near kind of like the athletic side of things so they're going up to or something like if we went that does the second one go up to three stories the second one goes up to the three stories and that was maybe a weakness in this plan was
087that the elevator off the activity Street only went two stories and in the later plan both go three stories so if there's a need to get to the third floor you have that redundancy if you go to the third floor again maybe I thought it was really only part of the school was third floor that's why it wouldn't have gone all three there right so in this case this one is the only one that goes three stories lied the third floor to this firewall one of the things I could mention here that's also nice about this design is for evening use there's a firewall that comes right through this line of the building so you can close these doors and then the community can utilize the dining hall and the gym have access to group
088toilet rooms and to all the egress requirements they need but they're not able to get into the rest of school separately from that if there's an interest in getting into the media center and those spaces there's another series of doors over here where they could get to the main entrance the media center and those activity Street spaces but the idea is when the school is not in use to close out the the core classroom spaces so you have less space to try to Monitor and that goes back to a lot of the feedback we heard is that we want correct yes a community facility that can be used in the evenings and this might be a dumb question are the athletic fields CL Tock room closely like the athletic entrance I mean I don't want
089to assume that there yeah so the gym is on the southwest corner towards the fields so you can see that the gym that blue right where that Ori Clos discuss now on the other side north parking lot a little bit and reducing the south parking lot for the real purpose of bringing the fields even closer to the school so anytime we can make little edits like that is Bus Loop that's separate from the car riders correct Yes Yes sounds like we're fixing a lot of existing issues that's the goal one of the things that came up to in our conversations was that there's a preference to have the special ed level two classrooms on the first floor because there's 15 students per class in there and that'd be a lot of load on the elevators
090as well so if we can reduce those um as a benefit as well but so this being kind of the Baseline if we go to the second this is the other end of the spectrum this is if you were to build a purpose buil separate Auditorium you know solely for that use um um this you know has some benefits in that obviously it's the best from an acoustic and performance standpoint you know lighting and um being able to like basically utilize the stage for a sole purpose so you're not moving things in and out flexible use but it's also the highest dollar cost and it doesn't create other opportunities in the school through flexible use like allowing the kids to come in to use it as a dining space or using it as a athletic
091space or having it be a social space or a student activity area so we thought we'd show this too and basically whereas option one might have been zero cost increase but not necessarily getting you to your goals option two is more of like a six to S million cost increase potentially and we wanted to share that one of the other hurdles is you do have an auditorium program in your high school atpc so this might start to get up against that program and there might be discussions among the school board like where do you provide performing arts or performance in which education specifications what's the current cost savings projection cost savings from from the budget amount I thought we so right now go back to the original option the original option I'm going to learn
092which one these Arrow I'm sorry I don't mean I can hold it to you get to the end I'm just when you said six to seven million that's of course so that would we don't have but if we have it in savings at something but we don't really have it in savings the county is already County those savings on their side I understand you're saying from the elementary schools or other or even from this one I mean considering that we did save money in elementary is possible right so right now we're at a little over 113 million on total budget um and that was above the budget from it was about two years ago since then we've been able to save some money on the elementaries and so we've already in theory using some of
093those savings towards the towards the middle school so this would take that 113 up to closer to 120 so there's no there's no pot to pull from to possibly pay for that auditorium at least I think to miss sigman's point the the county has made clear that they've already reprogrammed those funds from a capital plan as you mention this is a good place to see it too the original program has the 3,000 foot forum and so on in earlier phases we were looking at more of as a student activity space so we had like some social stair seating and so on but through our conversations with staff and Educators we've learned that that also needs to serve a function for you know teacher improved like you know continuing education for work and everything else so
094it needs to be also a en close space or somewh can be used for a for lecturing as well all right so get back up to the separate Auditorium option and it doesn't change much else in the other than having this space the other negative potentially about this is it does create additional footprint to the building so it expands that site area development and it may be less accommodating one and sorry let me jump in one other thing here because I know this is may come up if we desire to um bid the auditorium as an adult on bid day this is probably the cleanest option to do that with um the other options which we'll go through here in a minute more or less incorporate those um performing spaces into the school and become
095much more difficult if not perhaps impossible to really add really do as an add all sorry go ahead so the idea being that if on bid day there's enough overall savings that we could actually afford that purpose built Auditorium space this is the cleanest option to do that when would we have to make an actual decision on doing one of these we're asking the board for some direction today on which which way to begin on Auditorium performing space and we're hoping with each option that decision gets easier on these parking lot right so that would be extending the footprint of the building and the parking at the North Side would have shift to accommodate okay yes Dr wanted a question we have yeah I was just curious if Drew has weighed in on these yes
096we have met with Drew's staff um they are their um opinion is that a purpose built Auditorium is what what they would most desire and I think with each option what really influenced each option is trying to get more items off the cons list for the prior option so these aren't these are um a progression of ideas as well so another thing that just to kind of throw in the for the conversation of Auditorium is when I've been visiting some of these middle schools that don't have an auditorium like Drew has some they are trying to utilize High School space I mean my kids were just using the gym but um you know being a short person I know it's a shock but when I would go if I had to use one of these
097cafetorium and uh Dr Warner and I talked about this I would be sitting in the cafeteria looking at a stage going I'm never going to see my kid but that's who came to see whether they were in a play or the band or the orchestra the you know I'm down here they're up there and they're not on risers in the band or in the orchestra so that was kind of a disadvantage but one of the things when I heard when I was at Stafford Middle and when I was at Dixon and of course when my kids were at Dixon we did everything in the gym we sat in the bleachers you heard everything you saw everything it was you know that's what we were used to but they don't they go to the high schools
098now and then to try to get on the high school schedule with their concerts and plays and everything but they don't get to necessarily get the rehearsals in there it's like they practice very crowded in their school and go to the high school so just something to think about like I said I know Drew has that as an advantage so I could totally see why they would want it well the other thing I'm concerned about with that is that if we're building a high school in a Fine Arts Center it makes sense to a middle school that has these features to feed into that Drew would likely be right um so options options three and four as we move ahead here um are really our attempts to try and solve that question or balance a
099little bit more of this conflict between um what what we're looking at budget wise and how how to also respond to the community's request m concern and I'll get you is whatever we decide should the Board of Supervisors have wanted us to go in the other direction which is easier to change yeah like it because they can easily just not because we do have a three on three scheduled foror no that's seven but the three on three is scheduled for April 7th which is a month from now which is a long time but in the grand SCH of things that does give them the opportunity to kind of weigh in on this and you know kind of give their blessing or Express concern to go in a different direction and you know this these type
100of decisions have inadvertently caused kind of angst before so if we could make a decision that we can then you know codify after we get their their thoughts as long as we have it as an addon I don't think we can you know lose anything because we're not offering it and then we W add it on unless we either got approval from the supervisors to increase the funding or if the bid came in at a lower amount so there's you know we could in effect put it as an add-on and then go ask the supervisors for more funding if that was something we wanted to do not funding because we're still under our budget it's just getting them to release some of the savings well no but they're saying I think we need to have
101the discussion on the three and three but decide what we think is best for our students sure abely but we also I I just want to see three and four so yeah so and I yeah's the four let's move I just want to see the other options let's talk about I thought you meant three on four we change rules too because this this has evolved and so I have to talk to option three and then option four I can wait until after go the option I'll wait so one of the hurdles we identified in the other former options was not having this flexibility for the Performing space it didn't have any other value during the school day and we had understood that Drew had a capacity in their current Auditorium space of about 275 kids
102even though we were trying to accommodate about 430 kids in the new Auditorium there wasn't any use for dining there wasn't any use for Student Activities it was just basically an empty space except for those few days a year that it was utilized so here we had this large Courtyard space that was in the center of the school right off this activity street with a stair accessing it near the dining area and one of the options was to enclose this Courtyard with a glass Skylight over the entire thing and make it an interior space and have kind of redefine what a theater is instead of being a fixed Auditorium and being more of an Amphitheater that would have Terrace seating and it would have a stage and it would have storage spaces off of the
103activity street so that you could stage performances in this but then also during the school you could have students gather out there for eating you could teach combined classes and spaces you would have kind of a real active student focused area in the middle of the school whereas we thought the the auditorium as an addition on here would be one cost of about 67 million we thought this would be around two and a half to3 million dollar but you know it all depends on where you draw the line for things like acal control and writing control control and how performance Bas how much you make it an Amphitheater versus a um auditori T schools that have these so it's a neat it's a neat idea it got some Traction in that it would be a
104really Dynamic space it would be daylit it would be you know right across from music so performances moving in and out of the space would be easy um and this also something that you could potentially do later but you know with all these ad alternates the concern is like what else do you pay for up front that can't be taken out with the bid like for the auditorium addition it would be all the Civil work all the storm water management based on the larger footprint would have to stay so there would be parts that that you'd be paying for that wouldn't be recouped out of the alternative similarly here like mechanical systems and so on you might not be able to make it a clean separation once you've designed around this concept but this was
105a neat idea um to share some ideas I think there was still an interest in having a more conventional Auditorium space and some of that may have been based on how they've been using the space in the past but we wanted to be Innovative and show some ideas here as well and and and the again the idea here was it gets mult multiple uses throughout the day kids could come from the dining areas or from the special letter art or music areas and use that space during the day but then it could be easily converted over to a more of a performance space for a band concert or whatever Coral concert um a concern here here is this idea of you know having uh we all know if it if it looks expensive it must
106have been expensive and to be to to at least that's the sentiment right that we often face and part of the reason we gravitated towards this is because we saw this as a cost effective way to still utilize it space we're still building the four walls regardless so if you simply put the glass enclosure on the top and allow that daylight to still come through we feel it's actually cost effective way to use that space versus perhaps um allowing it to be more dead typical more Dead Space if you will uh but then after all of this we've had a lot of conversations with staff over the past week where we presented these three concepts and that kind of led us to a fourth concept which I'll jump right into that and I think this
107solves a number of earlier issues we had but it also includes additional spaces that we learned that were needed um through our conversations with staff and Educators um a few of them I'll point out the additional spaces first it was two additional level two special Leed rooms each with their own changing room um there was a Digital Arts lab that was needed to be adjacent to a um engineering or I guess we'd call it a uh technology space um and then there was also a computer lab which is where like a business classroom on the space as well and then there was talk of adding lockers within but what we noticed in previous spaces where one we had the dining and then we had the kitchen and then we had the and then we had
108the gym space and there was really no reason that the ca or the kitchen space had the length in this Corridor so we moved it off to the side we kind of Consolidated where the loading docks would be knowing that we'd have a stem off of that upper Loop before we get to the unloading area and then there was also comments that was a kind of a con on some of the earlier schemes is having this split between the ox gym and the main gym on different floors so what we did is we pulled the ox gym and the locker rooms all down on the first level and we kept the north south Dimension tight and we just expanded a little bit to the West here um this also allowed us to put the ox
109gym right next to the gym so that we could have a folding partition in here so that if you had a very large event then you'd have basically the overall large gy um your program has a quite a bit of square footage dedicated to the AUX gym um more so that we've seen in some other areas so there's a large footprint for the PE activities but then we thought back about the Forum program that we had in Doc gyms flexibility so what we've proposed here in the center of this space is your 3,000 square foot Forum that's in your program with your 800 um square foot stage that seats about I think it was 170 people in just this forum portion and then what we're proposing is to reduce the square footage of the ox
110gym and take that 2500 square ft and put it adjacent here and have this space split by a folding wall and then having telescoping bleachers here at the back so that we could gain the the auditorium seating now up to about 430 students the idea being that if you wanted to use this for a classroom setting you could keep this door closed or if you wanted to have continuing teacher education going into this space you could use the Forum in performance nights you could open the wall you could telescope the bleachers and when I mentioned telescoping bleachers they're not gym bleachers they would still have the seating and the armrests and the backs and they all come out of the system when they telescope but then during the day it's essentially another activity space for
111PE it would have a floor in it that's similar to the gyms you could do exercise in it it could be a dance space it could be whatever the program is during the day when those bleachers are pulled back and what we liked about this scheme was that it got you the same capacity theater like space that could have the same performance qualities and it was also Demis for different group sizes because if you ever had a performance where there's only like 80 people in there and you're in a 500 seat Auditorium it doesn't it's not great for the performance either so we like the idea of being able to tie it down but there's no additional square footage to get this accommodated in your program there's it's within your program for the Forum the
112stage and the additional space for the auxiliary gy does that translate into not more money I think there would still be the cost of the lighting and the specialized Acoustics and sound systems and things like that but it wouldn't be big money it would be we're not six to seven we have expanded the footprint right and we've expanded the footprint to the West here a bit um but we've reduced it north south and I think what we can do is work on the plan and some of the loop that was across from Cliff Farm Road and maybe try to massage the plan to make that still fit on the on it's still as about as compact as we can get right so this is a larger footprint to Dr Warner's question so there would be
113a slightly elevated development costs with this we're not in the anywhere close to the Six to7 Million range we're talking hundreds of thousands of dollars right same thing with lighting and some of Acoustics some of those types of things we're talking much more minimal impacts from a budget standpoint um one of one of one of the challenges though is that you know this is a north south elongated site now we're stretching the building this way along that so we got to take a closer look at the Bus Loop and some of those other things but again this is part of that iterative process where we're progressing towards a a a can Acoustics and lighting be upgraded could we start with like one level in the initial construction and then sure like a rigging sound systems
114they could be added to later they could be or you could do an adult that might upgrade certain systems right to you could go with a very basic system and then have an adult that might allow for certain upgrades if we can afford it on bid day as can I ask the future expansion space is that undeveloped is that is that my question gr when we started looking at this what we wanted to do was give you a space that you could expand a number of classrooms you need in the future and we origin started by looking at having some space on the third floor as cold dark shell which we built out and then fitted out later but you're still paying for some of that up front so what we decided to propose here
115is where on the original plan we had the art classrooms down here you could come in later and build a three-story addition here you could pick up two or three Labs per floor or three or four classrooms per floor it would give you that capacity increase without building any additional um infrastructure space and this this ties back to the conversation this this ties back upstairs it's moving upstairs so one of the conversations that the board had about a year ago was this question of 1100 students or up to 1500 students right and the decision was 1100 but if we have some opportunity in the future Flex up that would be great right so this accommodates that concept along with some of the C cold dark shell ideas that we even talked about again cold dark
116shell is something that we could look at Andes do folks know when we're saying cold dark shell what we're talking about is essentially enclosed space that we're we're constructing the foundation the walls the steel everything we're not finishing it out it's walled off and then in the future it's easy to go in and develop the space out right but you're still paying for the envelopes in the initial construction and making sure students can't get into and some of the reasons do cold dark shell is because you can't build over top of occupied space with you know infrastructure but if you can build your addition running all three stories then you could come in over a course of a couple Summers and you could build this addition and just take out this partition wall and connect
117it up um so that I like the fact that it's internal too because it doesn't affect like where your Bus Loop is or where your parking Loops are it still gives you the perimeter of the building that's fixed and the contractor come in and do this in a fairly short order and so and this the building knows that no one in the building now now I will say I want I want to make this clear that that future expansion space would would definitely take us over the 160,000 sare foot that we budget right so that would be something right now I would say it's not in our budget but it could be a bid day at all as well something to consider and see if we have we can afford it when we get there
118then we've got that as an option or we say we know that's developable in the future this is measuring out at about 166,000 Square ft um it's still in precon or still in Pre schematic so like we don't have structural steel in there or chases for mechanical but we try to size everything you know 2 to 5% oversiz so then we start adding chases and steel and you know elements we have to do to make the building function then we still maintain the correct square footage for instructional spaces did you guys give us or can you give us a a guess estimate for the future how much it would cost to build it out just so my brain can we can we can pull some numbers together on that yeah I know obviously it's going
119to go and again we're not looking for direction today on the cold cold darkell concept what I think we want to hone in on here is from an auditorium Performing Arts Forum perspective which direction does the board think would be well I I like this design just because of its flexibility but I also I have been opposed to the concept of a full Auditorium because I felt like it was something that none of our other middle schools could have but at the same time we're building this high school with Fine Arts we have to have a pipeline of students that are interested in that this would give us that so I agree but then my concern is not all the students that would be applying to our School of Performing Arts are going to be
120at school either so then there is a disparity amongst also whole this is like we're drawing a line everything before like right now really 2025 is before and then everything we open moving forward is after and that's what we're doing for our high school or for our elementar for our midd also it's also something other middle schools could use and that's what I was going to ask right so instead of using a high school the other middle schools can use this and then my other question was would they ever be able to practice on this as a middle school and maybe that won't work I'm just wondering if that was something that they could do as well sometimes they did offer like the opportunities for you know um because they don't really do the before
121and after like we used to have with our kids they do everything during the day to get ready for concerts yeah and so to have a place where you can have like I mean when I went into Stafford Middle and they had their Advanced band all in the room holy cow there was no I mean they're all blowing breath and that room and it's not set up for all of them to be in a classroom so yeah it would given them an opportunity to they could do it after school potentially and you know when you think about what schools have and what schools don't have I I just think for me I'm for the auditorium I like the this last option or the second option yes cuz I'm short well no short jokes please but
122I think that it would agree with you okay okay but I just feel like we are run we're opening another high school but we're we're going to run out of opportunities for middle school kids to do their own thing in their own building which is fine but I I mean I I just think that we're we're still in a growing way that we can't afford not to have something if we're building it build it right the way that they need it and we'll use it and like you said another Middle School could come in and use it like Dixon could do their performances there especially if Stafford High School isn't available I think there's two other things I really like about this option is one is this activity Street functions as a Lobby for the
123theater it's right in the middle of the school so that you're placing the auditorium that wouldn't need naturally daylight windows in a space that doesn't get access to Daylight whereas in the addition Auditorium option it really limited the daylighting into the dining area but we also it's also a community resource because we know that our Community rents our spaces uses our spaces for Community Theater for you know faith-based activities and this becomes another resource yeah because it's it's all selfed because you can block off the rest of the I mean there aren't a million high schools in the South the way but these pull out these pull out seating things like how well do those work how much do they break because we talked about that with high school we know how they are with
124Chromebooks how are they going to be with these bleachers and we decided against it but I don't have any experience I mean they're fairly they're fairly large and they would be handled similar to like when you operate a mobile wall in one of your schools it would only be staff members doing it they don't they don't pull out manually it would be through like a motor driven situation and how many seats would be the this mechanical so in this case almost it would be almost a little over 200 right3 go from this down it 170 of the fixed seats in the form another 260 in the telescoping and where was the stage be like if you were so the stage that is right here and then there's stage storage and there's all the you know
125the idea also is that you come in on level here and then the SE the floor rakes down and then you can come in on stage level here so you get the 88 compliance you still get the the R floor of the auditorium space so that you know um and we're talking just a few hundred, difference between are budgeted for this type of option I think you have the cost of the telescoping bleachers and then the improvements from sound above what you do Capital right so I think we're in I think we're in that half a million million dollar versus six to million well I'm anybody else have you seen formes so we're doing a high school and silver spray uses a similar concept that has telescoping Auditorium seing for the same reasons they had
126a very large D this and I think it's more friendly Student Activities during and after remember this isn't just an auditorium after school it could also be a athletic space after school right like it could be where are the Lockers in this in these scenarios that's we're still working on because we haven't really determined the percentage of lockers to students or students High number but when they were taken away some of the students and the parents wrote in in terms of they that they their their children did not want to have to carry personal items yeah I think kids are missing out on a World of Fun by not going to their Lockers in between Class honestly when I was that was all that's where all the fun happened trying to get them to be
127I think yes well do we have the money in our budget to accommodate the half million dollars this is going to cost I I just want I think that should be part of this discussion because we I don't think we can just say oh just do it it's only going to cost a half million but is there a reasonable expectation we're going to have 500,000 in savings that can cover it I think right now we are in the right ballpark in terms of square gross square footage and what we're costing out at this level is gross square footage and so we are still reasonably in that range I mean I need that to be in that early well if you look at like the tennis court options not doing the tennis courts right how much
128is that how much is that in a savings that's about half a million so conven that was by chance I will say um but the um grow square footage is the total square footage of the school so class space one of the things we talked about the spaces we added but one of the spaces that staff mentioned we could delete was we originally had seven science labs and we went to two for grade six so to do that we stack them all here instead of and you know we time sensitive so that's so that's a savings there to right so there's one more one less sign I'll go to the second and third floor really quickly just so you can see the other things are discussed with the digital Arts lab they wanted an adjacency
129near the tech lab so we put the Tech Lab over top of the cafeteria um this also moves all of art to the second floor so it's new to the tech lab so they can share some equipment systems does art have life it does it's off of this main open courtyard and then good at North that is good and then lastly we have still the the L-shaped space on the third floor but we have work and family studies in a business lab up here on this floor as well the second floor is a freight elevator back there and about to mention that so larger elevator we looked at trying to get the Tech Lab to the ground floor based on like bringing in materials and so on but we found we just couldn't stretch the
130site plan more to do that so what we did if you go back to the first floor we have the loading dock here so if you come off the loading dock or off this entrance there's a large freight elevator here which now would be in the three story area and it can accommodate all three levels and have this iMed JJ seats art and the tech labs the other elevator is that three the other elevator is right here St three stories as well okay so if we could pull the board on our options I'll start with you Dr Warner wait IAL it says is that on floor number three is only one only one special at level two is always on level one the special level special level ones there's one per grade on each floor
131on each floor okay that's what I was wondering all right yeah because I saw it I didn't and then some admin spaces are spread out through the building as well just to get eyes on all the different corridors yeah I mean I I I like the completely separate Auditorium but this seems like a nice compromise alternative this guy I like this one because of the cold dark space whatever it's called that's what my want Jas she has number students what was the what was the Drew's special preference what was Drew's preference Drew Drew did state that they would like a full Auditorium I think this does get them the full Auditorium it's just kind of a a different way underwater like same yeah yeah it doesn't flood that would be great miss h i mean
132so I mean I if we could offer the world we would offer the world right like that's not an option here but we also have a fiscal obligation here which is to look at what gives us the the best bang for our butt and so for me it's this one this feels like a happy medium for everybody particularly if we could use it as a community space as as a maybe not as a give back but even a rent back that to me sounds I don't want to and I'm the least pragmatic out of all of us I would think but like from the perspective of really looking at our finances and what we need to do I think we need to be responsible I I think do you want to weigh in from a
133student perspective on any of it or do you um I did think the amphitheater was pretty but I like the Forum best I think if you're not going to if you're going to build something it might as well be the Forum because the full Auditorium would cost a ton and I don't see much of a difference between it and the Forum like not to justify 6 million yeah so this is about a half a million Easy Come Easy Go just this then option four four okay all right thank you all very much talk to so we technically have one more agenda item we don't really have a lot of time if you just want to give a very quick highlight overview and then we can happy to to do so we do and Mr White's
134coming in he was going to help me with that a little bit we can talk briefly there are slides in board docs around this we did take a look at non-transportation zones um we do have 13 schools that have existing non-transportation Zone they're ALS also referred to walk zones um on occasion and so we have looked at those any impact to and we we have to pull together our team that includes law enforcement I it's a team a committee that looks to make sure do we have sidewalks do we have crosswalks how can we really take a look at this and so team has met just they they've met and they've looked at the 13 schools that have existing walk zones or non- Transportation zones um however the any impact and change that we make
135right now is going to impact car riders and transportation and traffic zones and our recommendation is that we send this to our transportation um uh work group that's working with the study recommendations uh that we consider this for in the start of 2026 because redistricting could have impacted as well we just think changing walk zones at this point is is is not recommended that we send this to that group we'll look at the remaining the citizens advisory committee for transportation or separate I'm talking about send it to we have a group that's working on the study recommendation so and also go to Transportation advisory have time to talk with them and we would also look at it for our ex or 17 schools that don't have a clear Cent walk to so let's us do
136a more thorough review include the others and we come back and work on it for start started 2026 or should we delay it to the start of 2027 I think we'll know more once we dig into those other schools and once redistricting is over with as well so this was I think I mean this came as a result of some of my concerns and we were dealing with the transportation debacle in August and so for me I'm fine with all this except that I really my biggest thing will be making sure that these redundancies or these these drivers that are driving back to a school to pick up students that live a half a second away or whatever like those things so I I as long as we are very clear that we're giving the
137new re Elementary School things outside of redistricting all a chance the new Transportation CU those were when we requested these things there were a lot of unknowns that are now known but there was a lot of problems correct but so just to be clear your team that you're talking about is this organized um non-transportation Zone safety team that's that's transp team safy and security they'll be talking about these things as we go out and as we Implement some of the new things then after redistricting and stuff right there is a team that team looked at the 13 that currently have those zones they have not looked at the 17 that don't have them yet we need to do more work on this do that and then but also the red discharging will impact what they
138found anyway right yes we believe so okay that's fine all right thank you thank you Mr White that was that was the easiest un States stand indivisible andice for thank you very much to North Stafford High School's Air Force JROTC members of tonight's Color Guard include William Burnley canasa Curtis Kayla canizalez zaran lose and sulan badada the instructors of the North Stafford High School jrc program are Lieutenant Colonel Dave Branham and Master Sergeant Tony Mendoza thank you all Miss Hall could you please call the role yes Madam chair Dr Chase here miss e is absent Miss guy yes miss hallad me too Miss Healey Miss Irish Miss Randall here miss Sigman here and Dr Warner here Madam chair you have a quorum thank you can I have a motion in a second for the agenda
139please motion to approve okay please cast your votes on approving the agenda Miss Randall your button's not working okay that passes seven to zero is there a motion for the consent um Madam chair I would like to uh remove item 3.08 from consent to discuss uh put for Action so we can have a little discuss about that second 3.08 okay we'll add that down to action so motion to approve the remaining consent agenda second okay please cast your votes on the consent packet minus 3.08 there that also passes 7 to zero Dr Smith announcement of administrative Personnel appointments yes thank you chair I am excited to announce and share with you several new appointments uh the first one you actually approved on February 18th and he is started with us but now that he's here
140I wanted to introduce him formally uh to everyone and that is John wilcott our new executive director of transportation services so so Mr Walcott has joined our team as of March 3rd as our new executive director of Transportation Services um he was previously the ex exive director of transportation and Fleet Services in Houston Texas the seventh largest school district in the nation he also served in Houston as their training and support manager for seven years and he has been recognized as fostering strong relationships with stakeholders vendors and customers ensuring transportation service Del delivery within set timelines he has a proven track record of managing complex projects optimizing workflow processes and uh supporting that work he has his bachelor's degree in Business Administration and project management from Columbia Southern University and we are pleased to have
141him with us welcome Mr wots thank so this makes uh day seven I'm all the way from Texas it's a lot colder um but uh just would like to say yeah thank you thank you uh but beautiful team in transportation um I'm just really excited with working with them they're doing great work um and I would be remiss if I did not say thank you to the beautiful uh transition and handoff of the Vuitton uh by the interim director Mr Greg Macky so uh thank you looking forward to the [Applause] opportunity all right our next appointment I am very excited to uh share with you our new principal of high school six yet to be named um at the name of high school six but our new principal is Dr Mike Kelly Dr Kelly will
142launch the creation and brand of high school 6 as the school's founding principal Dr Kelly has been a school principal at Virginia Beach city public school since 2002 currently serving as the principal at Frank W Cox high school the high school uh there at Cox high school was identified as an Exemplar school by Virginia Department of Education in 2425 and in addition to his tenure as a high school principal he has also served as a clinical associate professor at at Virginia Tech Dr Kelly chaired three dissertation committees and served on eight additional committees his work is also reflected in the numerous educational Publications and he's been a presenter at numerous professional conferences and we are thrilled to have Dr Kelly with us he earned his Bachelor of Science degree from California University of Pennsylvania a
143master's degree in education and human development from GW and a Doctorate in Education administration and policy studies from George Washington as well welcome Dr Kelly thank you Dr Smith members of the board I'd like to uh introduce my lovely wife Amy who's with me tonight so we're very excited about moving to Stafford it actually gets us a lot closer to her mom too as well so uh looking forward to the experience and to getting to know Stafford better we're already shopping for houses so looking forward to it thank you all all right next uh I am thrilled to introduce you to the new assistant principal at an Moncure Elementary School Miss Jennifer wolfen Barger Miss wolfen barer will join the administrative team at mure elementary school as the school's new assistant principal she's been a
144part of Team Stafford for 21 years as an employee first as a teacher at North Stafford High School and currently at Ferry Farm Elementary School as the school's Innovative learning coach Miss wolfen barer is a graduate of Stafford schools and attended Moncure as a student from from grades first through fifth grade she's committed to this school and we're welcome excited to welcome her back to be Nation she earned her bachelor's degree in biology and music from the University of Virginia a master's degree in curriculum and instruction from George Mason University and a degree in educational leadership endorsement from Longwood University welcome Miss W wolin bargar to your new role thank you Dr Smith and Bor I'm very excited for this opportunity to continue to serve Stafford at aure and very thankful for my family my
145husband Andy two of my three children are here one is playing baseball tonight and my mom and dad who made the drive to come be with us as [Applause] well I would also like to introduce you to our new assistant director of special education Miss Aaron Barker Miss Barker will become the new assistant director of special education in the office of student Support Services Miss Barker started her career as a teacher with Team Stafford in 2008 moving to an assistant principal in 2019 she has recently served as interim principal at Ferry Farm Elementary School and is currently the assistant principal at Park Ridge Elementary Miss Parker also spends her time as a volunteer for the girls on the run after school program coordinating all program Logistics and has been recognized as a recipient of the
146remarkable Council supporter award she earned her bachelor's degree from Duane University a master's degree in special education ation from ODU and a certificate in administration and supervision from the University of Virginia congratulations Miss Parker thank you Dr Smith Madame chair members of the board I am really excited to be joining the team over in special education and student services and bringing my knowledge and expertise over the years of supporting special education and making sure our kids have exactly what they need um I wouldn't be where I am today of course without my husband John he's right back there and my uh my mom and dad are logging in virtually along with my mother and father-in-law so hello but thank you again so much and I look forward to joining the team [Applause] there oh that
147concludes uh the administrative appointments for this evening great so we'll move forward with our Awards and recognitions right good evening school board members and Dr Smith this evening we'll recognize the dedication of many of our most tenure school board members and recognize the importance of some of our counselors will miss bresnahan please join us at the podium March 2025 is designated as school nutrition month in Stafford County recognizing that Student Success is closely tied to their health and nutrition to support student well-being the school system is introducing new menu items that encourage healthy choices National nutrition month provides an opportunity to engage students Educators and families in promoting lifelong healthy habits and we encourage everyone to participate in activities that support nutrition physical well-being and a positive culture of Wellness thank you [Applause] well North
148Stafford's Andrew weed and Shirley Heim Middle School's Michael valeric please join us at the podium the school board of Stafford County designates March 2025 as music in our school's month recognizing the vital role music education plays in fostering creativity critical thinking and emotional expression music positively impacts students academic social and emotional growth contributing to their overall success this month highlights the dedication of music educators and the achievements of students while emphasizing the importance of ensuring all students have access to Quality music education we encourage citizens Educators parents and the community leaders to enjoin Us in celebrating the value of music and shaping the lives of our students thank you [Applause] L nor staffords Carol Kaufman and Lissa Lynch please join us at the podium March 2025 is designated as youth art month recognizing the vital
149role of Visual Arts in fostering creativity crle thinking and self-expression this month highlights the dedication of art Educators and celebrates the artistic achievements of students the school system remains committed to providing a well-rounded education that support strong support for arts in an inclusive and empowering environment we encourage the school Community to participate in events exhibitions and activities that showcase student talent and promote the importance of arts and [Applause] education well Stafford High School's Michael didario and Colonial forges Lisa cover Tui please join us at the podium March 2025 is designated as theater in our schools month recognizing the vital role of theater education in fostering creativity teamwork and self-expression theater programs enrich our communities and instill a lifelong appreciation for the Arts while equipping students with essential skills such as communication collaboration and problem solving
150this month also highlights the dedication of theater Educators and students whose hard work deserves recognition we encourage Educators students parents and community members to celebrate and support theater education throughout the month of March and Beyond with colonal forges High School teacher Heather thoron please join us at the podium March 2025 is designated as women's History Month providing an opport Unity to honor the invaluable contributions of women throughout history recognize their achievements struggles and triumphs Fosters equality and inclusivity while inspiring students to pursue their aspirations regardless of gender women have made significant impacts in education science Arts politics and social justice shaping the world we live in today Miss Thorton has served on curriculum and textbook committees over the past several years two summers ago she was a full bright fellow to Vietnam and Thailand we
151appreciate her impact on our school community and encourage Educators students parents and community members to participate in activities that celebrate women's [Applause] accomplishments will Mr Macky please join us at the podium during his tenure as the interim executive director of Transportation Mr Macky demonstrated extraordinary leadership adaptability and a deep commitment to Excellence stepping into a critical role during a time of need he quickly built strong relationships with drivers and staff fostering a culture of trust collaboration and continuous improvement with his strategic mindset and Hands-On approach Mr Mackey implemented key operational enh ENC Ms that significantly improve the efficiency of the transportation office his efforts streamlined routing systems strengthened communication channels and ultimately transform the department into a more cohesive and effective team his ability to listen problem solve and lead with compassion made a lasting
152impact on the department in the school Community remarkably Mr Mackey accomplished all of this while continuing to guide the leadership team of Monier Elementary School balancing both leadership roles he demonstrated steadfast commitment to students staff and families his unwavering dedication and exceptional flexibility exemplify the very best of leadership and education thank you Mr Mackey for everything you have done and will continue to do for the Stafford community [Applause] okay we will move forward to item number six on our agenda our student representative report Miss Irish good evening members of the board administrators and community members over the last month Lily and I have worked to expand student awareness and communication Pro academic support and encourage Civic engagement February was mostly about laying the foundation we created and will soon launch a student feedback form and
153are taking steps to improve peer tutoring by researching existing options and examining how these compare at different schools and like what level of Education they are high school middle school elementary school who's doing the tutoring what subjects it's in that sort of stuff and then looking ahead to March our focus is on implementation we plan to strengthen student representation by launching our student feedback form soon throughout the schools for academic support we are hoping to collaborate with student organizations to promote tutoring not just at the high school level but at the middle and elementary school to also help develop connections between these students and we are trying to make sure students know how to access these forms of support on Civic engagement we are looking to find and highlight volunteer opportunities for students through our
154social media page and organize a forum through which students can discuss school related issues and voice their perspectives with us directly today I also had the opportunity to go to the student government luncheon hosted by Dr Smith and it was good to not only voice my own opinion but hear from others Lily and I are only two people we only have our own perspectives and it's nice to hear what other people think are issues that we may not be experiencing ourselves especially at the other schools so thank you for that also if you were not at the last board meeting I would highly recommend going back and looking at it because I thought that how the staff coming to the meeting and voicing their opinions and changing the ideas of the school board members for
155what to do on the budget was really inspirational and I think it's really good to see thank you thank you next on our agenda are citizen comments there are three minutes allocated to each speaker or group speakers shall identify themselves by name if this uh by name and where you you don't have any organizations speaking tonight speakers shall also announce the purpose or topic of their comments any citizen comment which is profane abusive or which threatens imminent physical harm shall be ruled out of order Miss Hall Madam shair we have two people signed up the first will be Shannon Finger holds followed by Molly denim Shannon Finger holds Heartwood District the budget is on a lot of our minds I agree with folks that spending needs to be sensible and transparency should remain a priority
156of the school understanding what our Educators and staff do is part of understanding the value that our County residents receive for the dollars that are spent the last two Saturdays our family spent time at school organized events a sport stacking tournament and a state archery tournament the PE coaches and other staff helped kids learn skills after school for weeks spent time reaching out to parents and setting up all the logistics then on their respective Saturdays started their morning mornings before the sun even Rose and continued well after lunchtime setting up coring kids and packing up even driving all the way out to Doswell do you know how much they got paid for all that extra time zero zero dollars thank you to Miss Carson and all the others that made these experiences possible for the
157kids it is easy for us as adults to see a yearly pay next to a school schedule and think that ain't so bad what we don't see are all the additional hours beyond that school schedule practice practices clubs concerts prep work lesson plans behavioral meetings researching ways to help a kid trainings um relearning a test priority because there's a different Governor not because the kids learn any different and Grading that they do after their family goes to bed maybe showing a chart of the actual hours Educators put into their year will help others across the street understand folks have said that test scores in Stafford aren't great right now walking through Hartwood and Rocky Run Elementary every day kids who need extra Assistance or in the hallway learning it is similar at other schools the
158students are faced with distractions of parents walking through with snacks or her class going to PE this is because the space constraints after years of being told to make do without the ability to plan for the future well the future has came to roost and we need to make some more strides even facing the resistance we are now a parent at the last Community connections meeting said everything boils down to money and the priorities should be money and I Curr that is that hurts my little heart but he was right it's a tool that we use to acquire Necessities imagine being required to renegotiate your personal paycheck every year with slideshows and multiple presentations to bosses who some of which refuse to see what your daily responsibilities look like in the end they decide you
159get less than what you need and you have to go back and decide which bills you aren't paying while the analogy isn't quite the same and it's quite common in the government you can see how much productive work time and future planning is lost to this budget dance of uncertainty a revenue sharing agreement with the Board of Supervisors won't solve all the problems it can however create a base to plan off of and save some time in the long run thank you thank you hello Molly denim from the Hartwood District yesterday I attended Dr Smith Community Connection at Hartwood Elementary it was a great forum and a chance for him to learn what is important to the commity Community by asking three important questions for everyone who attended and I just wanted to share my
160thoughts from last night the first question was where do we Excel as a school system and my answer was simple we have amazing and caring professionals at all levels working for our schools taking care of our children they work with relatively low pay they work long hours they have meager to no funding they work with cranky kids and even crankier adults yet they do it anyways and for that I am truly thankful from the teacher the pair of professional the office staff the school nurse the counselor nutrition staff maintenance staff the administration and everyone in between that I have may have missed when people say it takes a village to raise a good child I see an entire village within every school in our County the second question was what needs to improve and man
161is this a loaded question but as I really thought about it one answer stuck out amongst the others we need consistency across the board we need to make sure that every school has the same opportunity and every child has the ability to thrive this means we don't have an elementary school that gets to go on three field trips a year while another goes on none this means that every Middle School needs more diverse electives that are available regardless of which school is attended this means every high school has to have the same activities and opportunities available for our young adults to explore um as they grow into adulthood and this also means that discipline must be administered equally among the schools for equal infractions and not based upon which school is more lenient or which
162is more strict I want the best for my kid I tell my kid all the time that she is the center of my world not the center of the world as she often believes however I want every kid to feel like they are the center of the world because they are part of Stafford County Schools the last question is possibly the one that means the most and that was what is the most what is most important to do well and the bottom line is we can't do anything well or Implement any ideas without proper and complete funding to do what we need to do action our school district takes causes a funding line somewhere a principal picks up a phone to call a parent you pay the principal you buy the phone you buy the
163phone line you buy you maintain the office you pay the office staff to maintain contact information you buy the computer the information is stored on and you pay the license to access that application kind of like the old lady that swallowed a fly it's all needed for one five minute phone call multiply that by over 32,000 kids enrolled in Stafford County schools and millions of daily occurrences and you quickly see how the school board got to the budget request being asked for tomorrow night it all ties together and it's not a small price tech because it is not a small undertaking I encourage everyone to think about these three questions then Advocate Your Truth for our schools to the Board of Supervisors this budget season so we can get the funding to make our vision
164happen thank you thank you very much that's it okay action item action item 8.01 authorization for a change in the use of $82,700 [Music] got pulled because we didn't have enough funding and now there is Savings in order to get it done so it's not a new project but when I'm sorry madam chair um you it's savings but in other situations where we've had savings it's not ours to use and this one it is ours to use mam chair Jason T apologize had a emergency call from home um we're okay kids uh or kids sometimes um uh but yes uh so this is a a compilation of savings from um six different um areas six different projects a portion of which is from The Rock Hill interior uh project which was previously um fully funded
165and then was um delayed at the um at some discussion with this board back last May um and as part of that um we also made a decision around that time the Hampton Oaks mechanical project um which um we needed to progress more urgently on the Stafford Middle School project um that project was also delayed um and is been placed back into the CIP it is currently scheduled for uh 2030 on our end uh the Board of Supervisors has said 2033 uh so far and what we've what we've seen perhaps from the boards end uh but yes so this is um funds that are currently available that is appropriated to the school board and could be moved for this use okay I have the dumbest question on it because I'm not really good at math
166but 82,000 right and then underneath is the quotes that we're looking for to do the stuff right yes so what are we actually re appropriating the whole 822 or the 562 th000 from the north from the Hampton Oaks do you understand like up at top it's like completely completely complete the remaining funds on the Rock Hill project are 154,000 right we're not pursuing Hampton Oaks Elementary mechanical that's 562 so we've already allotted the 154 for Rock Hill right correct and the remaining balance from this Hampton Oaks is what we're asking to put towards Rock Hill a as well as the remaining balances from Fairy Farm Rock Hill the modular and Drew which are above that they're completed but those are remaining we didn't spin those right but Rock Hill Elementary interior oh so we're just
167re we're just reassigning it to a different portion of what we want in Rock Hill right that's what's throwing me off is that Rock Hill's on here but we're talking about Rock Hill I'm sorry we had pulled the Rock Hill I remember that I absolutely remember that but then I was reading this as Rock Hill Elementary and I was like I'm confused but yes I got you yeah for transparency and to really show the dedication thank you finance people one of the amounts here is literally $52.79 cents left over from a roofing project at an elementary school which is a big deal it's not a small roof but we are literally reapo we saved and are reappropriate $52.79 so for people who don't think that we are pinching every penny we absolutely are and that
168is part of an $820,000 project now so big things and we're super transparent as well just saying yes and for people who don't think that we're transparent that's we we are down to $52.79 on a single project that we were able to reallocate miss Hy how much is left in the original uh project that we you know had approved previously but had to pull because we didn't have funding it it this says it was approximately $2 million and now we're appropriating about 800 is there you know still a significant amount of work that needs to be done at Rock Hill yes I'm I'm fully supportive of L and thank you but I just want to make sure you know people understand that this doesn't even get us back to where we were when we took
169the money away great yeah no great question um so at the time when the board made that decision we actually you we we left about $80,000 to fix the bathroom partitions and doors that were falling um so we did that over the past summer this will go ahead and allow us to replace um the carpet throughout the majority of the school um the SE in tile and do painting in the school um just a new coat of paint really is what we're talking about here mostly um and uh um and I also apologize some uh new Cabinetry so we will um actually take the sinks out and the plumbing fixtures out put in new cabinetries put the old sinks back in at this point and then our hope would be that with phase two potentially
170if the Board of Supervisors approves those funds that we come back and replace the sinks and fix fixtures some of those other items perhaps the lighting which is also fairly old well thank you for making this amount available for us to consider so so let's also highlight the inefficiency of not having enough money to do the job right in its totality like if if we could just go back and really for the record highlight what you just said we have to pull out existing sinks to put in new stuff put them back to then in the future ask for money to pull those sinks out again which in the future May cost us even more money because we don't have enough money right now to complete this project in full for the totality of what
171we need I think that's a disgrace but I thank you for your patience and helping us all get through it but I really think people need to start focusing on that that is that's disturbing to me but not because of you you're great is there any further discussion on this topic please cast your votes we've got a we've got a couple of screens here no okay please cast your votes there we go thank you tally the votes that passes 7 to zero I item 8.02 authorization for staff to request reimbursement in the amount of $4,644.00 available for people the public to see if they clicked on this agenda item or is it just for us No it should be on the agenda item there are photos of um the repair and uh pictures worth a
172thousand words and we'll be sending this over to the County Administrator with with all of that as okay no further discussion please cast your votes motion carries 7 to zero item 8.03 approval of funding plan and request to the Board of Supervisors for an additional appropriation for the health benefits fund motion to approve the additional Appropriations for health benefits second do we have any discussion on this I I would appreciate an explanation just so the public can understand what it is we're doing here is f sure I apologize that I'm not Chris Fulmer um but thank you um so this agenda item relates to this um this is the women's month so oh good we're on Trend um so this agenda item relates to the staff request for additional appropriation for the health benefits fund
173um as sometimes typical this year we do have the funds but we need the appropriation for the legal authority to spend it um as was discussed by Mr Fulmer um previously during the midyear update the health benefits fund is currently facing medical claims that are dramatically higher than the budgeted amounts and also prior experience um historically we've budgeted really aggressively in the health benefits fund because we've had a healthy fund balance unfortunately um and we've had healthy surpluses um we have typically also trended under market for our expenditures those positive Trends have ended um so we are need to monitor this fund really closely which staff has been doing and so therefore we need to address the fact that expenditures are increasing faster than contributions to the to the fund resulting in um the exceeding
174of the fund balance so Mr Fulmer introduced some strategies to handle this problem um during the February 25th meeting um and tonight we're bringing the request to address the $6.5 million need for projected expenditures and health benefits fund the 6.5 million in the agenda item is proposed to be handled from a number of from a couple different pieces um the first one is 3.4 million from prior year fund balance the prior year surpluses um discussed previously and then the other 3.1 million coming from transfers from the operating fund to combined for the 6.5 needed for the health benefit expenditures on the other side um and the operating fund um will come kind of also from two parts um the first part is utilizing some of the projected salary and benefits laps some of those savings
175that we discussed in the midyear update so for 1 million we're using that to kind of handle this health benefits fund additionally um we're looking for a reimbursement of the other post-employment benefits or OPB trust fund um to the operating fund of 2.1 million um that that will then those two amounts will be transferred to the health benefits fund to cover that 6.5 the one million from the salary laps is obviously already in the budgeted funds the OPB trust fund 2.1 million was is not in the budgeted funds so that's why that request is for the additional 2.1 in the operating fund that then makes up the 6.5 in the health benefits fund do that make sense absolutely it's a lot of little pieces so much any questions everything Miss Hy and if you don't
176have the answer to this we can get it in a a memo um we added 4 million to the health benefits in the coming Year's budget that we uh approved is is this is more than the 4 million that we need this year is there a a potential that we're going to need more than 4 million next year and it's something we need to start you know looking at now um potentially I think it'll be interesting on the trend of like the expenditure side there also in addition to the increase from the operating fund into health benefits there's also increases from employees from the increase that the rates so the contributions from employees will be ALS Al increasing in the health benefits fund and from all the other funds um but it's definitely something that
177we need to keep tracking when looking at the expenditures and the overall impact on that fund but we can get you more information on that as well yeah I think Mr Fulmer told us at one of our meetings that it basically cost us about $9,000 per employee that's not covered by what the employees are paying for the the benefits so I just want to make sure we're not in a position like this next year that we may may not have a lapse or we may not you know have something to to draw from so if we need to be planning for it it would be helpful to have that information before we sit down and do our reconciliation um you know when we know what money is is going to become available and we can
178definitely get updated information on that as well and miss miss hey just to respond a little bit to that I do think um as you know we've been on a pretty um upward trajectory in terms of our claims and going up about 15 to 20% we've been hearing from um our insurance provider that they feel like that's going to level off and so uh we are hoping for that uh you know I think the $4 million we have recommended for next year we think will cover us but if we continue to go on that trajectory obviously it would not and so that's why we're continuing to closely monitor that to see where we are any other discussion please cast your votes motion carried 7 to Z Item 8.04 approval of an Appropriations request to the
179Board of Supervisors for carryover purchase orders in the amount of 157 m882 N4 200 I'm sorry $24.92 from fiscal year 24 to fiscal year 25 motion to approve item 8.04 second any discussion on this item so this is stuff we've already spent right I mean these are just the purchase orders like we have already done contracts or whatever but the items just didn't arrive last year and so we still need to pay for them as they arrive this year is that is that correct that's right Dr Chas so these are our open POS that we have that that transfer over from one fiscal year to the next um we do have those open this does look larger than normal just because of uh the capital projects fund as we're for high school six and our
180capital projects but this is this is a normal thing that we we do every year to to roll over those POs and just for those who aren't looking at the um attachment now over 140 million of this is associated with capital projects um the remainder is you know a much smaller number any further discussion please cast your votes nope that motion carries 7 to zero item 8.05 approval of proposed amendment to the memorandum of agreement between the school board of Stafford County and the Stafford Education Foundation motion to approve theou for the Stafford Education Foundation second is there discussion on this item um I was interested getting a little more information um we had at the finance and budget committee um Miss Johnson who is the the I don't know what her title is administrator
181of the executive director executive director thank you um we just had some questions about this 6% administrative fee um and so I don't know if if we can get more information about that Miss Healey I I see here that this says that the uh effective date is January 1st of 2025 I would ask that if this were to be approved it would not be effective until we actually um approve it uh I don't like retroactive um not knowing what might have happened um but and but I have I have two two comments one when we initially um had theou with the Stafford Education Foundation there was um you know a a very important Point made that we had to have an independent relationship because of the the tax-free status of the foundation and i' I'd
182like to you know be assured that um this has gone through whatever legal review it needs to go through that this license and the the you know the the the partnership that is in here is not in um conf with any of the regulations that permit the the taxfree status but that that was why we did have it as as independent um now we we do provide the um the fiscal support in terms of our finance staff and also the um administrative support we've always done that but this seems to be um very much enlarging you know that um co- uh relationship so that's one and and the second one is I think we really need to think about giving an outside organization and and I love the Stafford Education Foundation that's no reflective on
183them they do so much for us and and you know really benefit us but in in view of the um the current situation with reviews and orders and you know threats of you know funding cuts um I think we we need to um at a minimum um put in here any license we Grant to to an organization to use Stafford schools and its name in connection with fundraising activities our name our brand everything else I don't see anything in here and and I could be missing it um that says that that any use would be consistent with our policies and regulations because if we just allow you know the the use of our our name then I I think that could potentially put us in a position of um you know having our you know
184um having challenges and I don't I want to avoid that because I think we've made very much of an effort to make the point that our policies our you know regulations we are consistent with you know orders that are outstanding um and if we don't have any control over it that that could be very you know awkward and potentially damaging not suggesting it's going to happen but we just don't want to give a a blank um blank license there and and that's something else I want to make sure it's consistent with the the regulations and I don't know the regulations for you know the 501c whatever um but make sure that we're not putting ourselves in the position that you know may create a you know a a financial um hardship you know to to
185the Education Foundation um if in fact we you know we cross whatever wherever that line is and the line may have moved from you know 11 years ago when we when we set this up so those that's my my my primary um concerns here so miss Hy thank you for those questions Miss Bo is here with us tonight and I know she may be able to speak to it more she was involved in the review of this document and sort from the legal side to take a look at that document um to make sure that it met all of our legal requirements but then also um I do understand what you're saying in terms of the use of our name and logo it does reference that in there but it does not list some of
186the other pieces so we'd be happy to add that uh if you'd like are there other do they even use our logo they have their own this is they can it talks about it in section A of the of the agreement it talks about that we can use each other's logos and names and as a part oh for advertising and I mean to to Grant a license is is you know pretty broad allowance and I I just don't I don't see us and and and maybe a couple months ago I wouldn't even have thought of this being an issue but today in today's world it you know I don't want to create us or put us in position where we have any U potential you know risk I actually agree I um I love them
187I had a question about the under Financial relationship and I don't know why it didn't hit me before but both A and B say that alternating parties have ultimate Authority um SCF it doesn't say so for B it says Stafford schools has the ultimate authority to accept or deny donations and gifts to Stafford schools blah blah blah but for option for item a it says SCF has the ultimate authority to accept or deny donations and Gifts do they accept them on their own behalf or can they accept on our behalf even if we're like maybe that's not a good idea or thank you Miss B sure so the idea behind a was that SEF can accept any gifts and donations according to any applicable laws those don't necessarily have to be for us and for
188B we can accept it or we can deny it so SCF can accept that um gifts but we don't have to take it thank you but we will make those clarifications that you brought up he thanks so have we looked at from the um you know that that um 501 c is it C3 I get to C the numbers mixed up I think C3 is a tax under those requirements because that was that was one of the reasons we had this distinction and separation when it was set up right and and and how we very specifically limited the resources that we made available you know under under the then existing regulations so maybe they've changed since then so the SE board has also reviewed this and looked at it from its perspective the this just
189goes beyond a little bit um what we currently have which is basically we act as a Fiscal Agent and we give them some administrative support so it it just broadens it and talks about um our financial relationship how we're going to Market each other other what are the parameters for accepting gifts um and donations of that sort so I don't think it really goes too much into that tax exempt piece that you're talking about what this how how are you're going to mark it but basically we're going to be like this in effect if if we can use any of their logos whatever they can use ours I mean they're presenting something they could under this I think they could present it as Stafford County Schools whatever they're fundraising whatever is also has them using
190our facilities which I I understand but and I understand waving the the facilities fee but this is beyond you know what you're here for Miss B but there there is a charge for the facilities we have to have a custodian we generally have to have a supervisor and that's overtime so if we're going to be waving the fee for that then that means we're going to be picking up the tab so that's this this is much more um support than we've had I'm not saying that I'm you know going to oppose it but I I think it's something that we need to to recognize that we as a school system are going to be putting a lot more you know into this than we were and I'm I I'm I I can understand the you
191know the financial support but it's just using our name on anything they want it is non-exclusive and so it it does point right it's no it's non-exclusive but it means they can use it like say they have you know a race and they want to call it the Stafford schools race that's under here they can they can do that I mean it's in connection with us though so it's in connection with the fundraising activities of Stafford County Public School right but we don't have any control over what fundraising activities and what they're going to be used to raise the funds for other than you know generally for scholarships I I I just think at this point unless there's a reason this has to be passed tonight I would prefer that it be more fully um
192thought out or or reviewed in terms of protecting you know staffer County schools from any potential you know risk of charges that we're you know in violation of some order regulation you know whatever and again this is not that I'm suggesting that they're going to do it but if there's a possibility and we've allowed it then it's on us miss Hy would you like this to go back to governance would you like this to go back to governance I think yeah has this been to governance I was going to say I'm on governance remember it being on governance could there miss any meetings it went fbsi it went to fabc um but I can see and and we had questions about the 6% administrative fee we I don't think I realized it had Ben to
193governance first yeah I I think you know that may be helpful but but I would Miss B if you're comfortable giving us the legal opinion or if we need to get outside legal you know I just want to make sure that we're not putting you know the the benefit that the foundation provides for our students and our staff we're not putting that at at any risk and that we're in adherence with you know with all the certainly the you know the IRS regulations and then we can look at the other one maybe um think about putting some restrictions on that but I I do appreciate and I I I did talk to Dr Smith and got some information about the the 6% that that doesn't uh apply to existing grants because there are some grants
194oh Mr Easley that's the name when I was talking with Dr Smith I couldn't remember the name but um Mr Easley scholarship and the Heather mfield scholarship they were put you know in place by um you know members of their families and and their supporters and Community who wanted to honor you know m Mr Easley and uh Heather Enfield and one of the um the the facts that we told the people to put in the money was there's not going to be any you know fees charged every penny you put in is going to go back to um you know into the into the grants and that's when we were actually administering these grants in Stafford schools and for for whatever reason you know Financial it was deemed advisable to have them administered by the
195foundation but yet I think our finance people are the ones that are doing all the work even though technically it's under under their umbrella so that I and I appreciate that being you clarified that it the existing grants it's not going to you know apply to and and I believe we heard that if somebody in providing a grant to Stafford schools indicated that it that there could be no administrative fee that that would also be um could be waved it is Dr Smith did the prior mou have an expiration date are we operating without one are we it didn't have an expiration date no expiration date so we are that is what we are currently operating under and this would be an update if at the end of all of our research discussions investigations on
196tax law or whatever we're looking at if the board opts not to approve theou what happens then we have our existing one okay that we can terminate it does have a termination provision can we include the existing mou um for the board it is a part of this is it if we scroll all the way down yeah it's one of the attachments okay it's the only attach we can can confirm or compare them side by side that'll be helpful yep okay so the motion on the floor right now is to approve theou I'd like to make a substitute motion that we send this back to governance or we send it to governance okay and I'll second that okay um let's cast our votes on well we have to vote on The Substitute motion yes subtitute
197motion first okay 7 to zero we'll send that to governance that closes our action items uh Dr Smith your report and comments all right see if we get it pulled up here sorry you're good all right good evening board members members of the community thank you for being here with us online and in person I'm excited to share some of the great things happening in Stafford schools as well as some updates first congratulations to Draven Williams in e8th grade student at Dixon Smith Middle School who won the 2025 fredrickburg Regional spelling beat at James rero high school correctly spelling wobbulator we wish Draven as well as he represents the division in the scripts National Spelling be that will take place in Maryland if you're like me you did not know what wul lator is it
198is a testing Dev device for radio sets and I love how we keep learning together each and every day on March 1st Stafford schools hosted an I'm determined Echo event participating families and their students learned about the three pillars of I'm determined competence autonomy and relatedness the echo event provided opportunities for Youth and parents to increase learning Advance self-determination and strengthen interpersonal relationships through breakout sessions where each one developed a one pager detailing their strengths their preferences interests and needs this evening as a part of our work session the school board reviewed the initial boundary change scenarios required as we build two new Elementary Schools elementary school 18 and 19 I do want to take this opportunity to remind our community that these scenarios will be available on our website tomorrow morning and then we'll
199be hosting our community Town Halls on March 13th at 6 pm at Stafford High School and again on April 1st at 6 pm at North Stafford High School I am rapidly coming to an end of my entry period into Stafford schools and I've truly appreciated all the staff community members students and parents who've taken the time to talk with me about their experiences in our school division just a quick note I will be hosting our final connection session uh on March 17th next Monday at Ferry Farm elementary schools and as a reminder you can always provide digital feedback the QR code is located here on the screen or at staffordschools.net connections as we continue to work on improving our transportation efficiency we're implementing a new opt-in selection for school bus services as recommended by external
200review in previous years Transportation was automatically assigned to all eligible students whether they used it or not and as you can imagine this created an initial set of inefficient routes moving forward at the beginning of the next school year families will need to opt in if they want their child to receive bus transportation this change allows us to create more efficient routes reduce unnecessary stops and improve ontime arrivals ultimately enhancing the experience for our students families and drivers families will receive more information regarding this change along with a link to complete the selection form on April 8th over the past few weeks I've heard comments from community members and elected officials suggesting that our schools are failing or declining and that's simply not true and I wanted to speak to that just briefly this evening
201our students and staff continue to make academic progress and the data supports this since 2021 we've seen gains in student achievement as reflected in our so Pass rates which are publicly available on the virgin Virginia Department of Education School quality profile for example our reading scores have increased four percentage points since 2021 mathematics has improved by 18 percentage points over that same period science as you can see has risen by 10 percentage points and we now align with the state average history and social study scores have increased by nine points since 2021 but it's also important to note that beyond our scores we're also making meaningful strides in key areas that prepare our students for future success in early literacy performance is largely returned to pre-pandemic levels with significant gains for all student groups particularly
202students with disabilities and our English Learners in dual enrollment we've seen a 77% increase in the number of students taking these college level courses since 2021 just two years or just three years ago 737 students were take were enrolled in taking these courses and now that has grown to over 1300 students taking nearly 2,000 courses we've also expanded course offerings from six to in 20122 to 13 this year in advanced placement enrollment has returned to pre pamic levels as well with nearly 2,000 students taking over 3,400 AP exams these are college credits of those students in impress of 67% of them earned a score of three or high higher which usually earns them College credit at their institution they choose to attend but these are just a few examples of the progress our schools are
203making additional grade level and demographic detail can be found on in the October 2024 school board work session presentation you can also take a look at the Virginia school pro quality profiles to gr additional information about student achievement College and Career Readiness program completion school safety teacher quality and many other topics that may be of interest to parents and the General Public while we will will cleanly acknowledge there is always work to be done and we can can continuously improve the data clearly shows that Stafford County Public Schools is moving in the right direction thank you chair Sigman that concludes my report thank you very much board member comments and committee reports Dr Chase would you like to [Music] begin um I don't have any reports at this time um I am looking forward hopefully
204to um meeting with the Board of Supervisors tomorrow evening to present our budget um and hopefully have a productive dialogue thank you Dr Warner thank you madam chair well today I had the wonderful opportunity of attending the luncheon with our students and we have some really smart kids in our County I just want to say how impressed I am and how proud of them I am I are I am I need more coffee um it was interesting listening to the three questions that Miss Denham referenced because um the students reference those same questions and the most important thing the thing they said that we were doing well was the opportunities that we provided in both CTE and advanced learning dual enrollment and the choices that they had and especially as they entered high school and
205they really appreciated that um the things that they said um we need to work on was recognizing the diversity in our school schools and accepting people where they are and being more supportive because they said sometimes that leads to bullying issues and other challenges that are much harder to deal with um but the thing that really struck me was they said what was the most important thing they focused on the teachers and how valuable the teachers are in their classroom and I thought that was such an excellent Insight from our kids and I was really impressed um the finance and budget committee met and I would be happy to report that our school construction projects are on time and on budget um and I just think that I'd like to make a comment about public
206comments I think it's very important for all citizens to have the opportunity to talk about what's going on in the schools to talk about their concerns about the budget and I recognize that being such a large part of the county budget it is kind of an important issue for people but part of that is is there's a part in there that says we shouldn't be abusive and I think that when you're asked to stand task and to stand topic that's an important thing but I also think it's inappropriate to call it specific members of the audience especially when you reference children I think that's when you cross the line and it is abusive so I I just think I want to make sure that everyone feels welcome to give their opinion and that the main
207thing is the main thing and the main thing is our students and how we are doing um and that's and I also look forward to tomorrow night when we get to meet with the Board of Supervisors and present our budget request um it's it's a challenging time but um I think that we work very hard to make sure that we are focused on what the budget needs are and we are trying to do as much as we can with what we have thank you Miss Randall thank you m chairman first of all I would like to congratulate Formerly Known Dr Rice is now Dr Robertson that was I kept thinking God he's in meetings with her all the time why is he getting her name wrong today when we were at the student forum and
208the first time I thought oh maybe I just didn't hear it right and the second time I turned to miss Sigman I was like what is wrong with him that he doesn't remember her name and so she walked over and she goes she got married so congratulations to you um it was a really nice time to attend that High School Forum um Dr shz oh my gosh she was such a natural with those kids did such a good job of of getting concise what they're what their meanings were and then going on and keeping it moving and really engaging with the kids you did such a great great job with that and thank you too um Dr Smith for all your interactions with the kids too um I REM the Mountain View kids were like
209we have to get our bus we're going to miss our bus we want a picture and they were all talking to each other and I said you want a picture with them yes and I said I'll get them get over here get the picture and so it was so great that you did that because they felt like really extra special to have that opportunity with and access to you as well um I would also like to uh give a shout out to two students who earned kindness ambassadors at Dixon Smith element uh Middle School um they were recogniz they were actually nominated by um Lisa Arthur their gifted teacher and Susan banazi I don't know if I got that right she's their elll teacher and so two people from the Virginia Department of Education drove
210up just for the purpose of recognizing them in um a special ceremony so I really appreciate that we have some really great kindness ambassadors in middle school is super hard so great that they can do that um I got a opportunity to visit some other schools these last couple weeks I have to keep booking them and then snow days happen and book them again and snow days happen so it's taking me a while to get in but what I thought was really interesting is I went into uh Stafford Middle School and I said what is your biggest issue that you're having with the kids and he said they just won't stop touching each other and I was like oh okay then I went into Hartwood elementary school and I see this woman walking down the
211hall with a shoulder of hula hoops and I thought is that the PE teacher and he said no it's our counselor who by the way occupies one counselor occupies a closet that houses like their brooms and mops and stuff like that and the other one also houses another industrial closet um but anyways he said no that's our counselor and I was like why does she have all the hula hoops and he said he's she's doing activity where the kids have to move around the room with hula hoops so they can learn personal space and don't touch each other and I thought move that to middle school so anyways it was it's really so fun when you go in the schools and and just see the energy and the um relationships with the principles and the
212staff and the students oh it just gives you all the feels um I even got invited to a cardio drumming with kindergarteners but I really was embarrassed and thinking I was going to blow it thankfully there was a snow date but I will go back and try it again um but anyways I would also like to shout out and appreciation in um advance of our meeting tomorrow evening with the supervisors Miss holstead and I on the regular have meetings with uh darl English and Deontay Diggs and we're both very fortunate for our relationships with them and even though they differ with us in some of our um things that we're asking for they are open to dialogue with us um we had many agreements we had many disagreements um all of us realizing we got
213a long road through this budget season in a in a very feels like a short amount of time but I I do want to give them the thanks because no matter what when we call and ask for this they clear their calendar um so that we can have breakfast with them and good discussions um I would also like to um just kind of give a governance governance we found um Miss oght told us that we have 109 policies that are out of date and they gave us a calendar of how we're going to move through um this year to complete all 109 policies so get your get your readers out of the back room we're working through this quick so um but those will be coming to you pretty regularly just so that you're aware
214um I but I also wanted to talk about ATI um we had our meeting a couple weeks ago and um they have uh Dr T has done such an amazing job with uh recruitment in counties where it's just really hard it's far for her and the opportunities are small but she has still worked mightily at this job and I'm just so proud because of the 60 seats that we have we have filled 56 of our 60 seats um the others as you know with all of them everybody Teeters changes their minds um and of the current ninth graders those 60 seats we have 57 of them filled still for next year and two of the vacant seats are now filled with kids that wanted to get you know we talked about exit ramps and on
215ramps and so this is two kids that want to come on third one possible so I just really want to commend her um in the job that she's done and working with all the other counties I'm I can assume Dr Chase has similar experience working together with the other boards it's just so nice to see the hearts of so many counties coming together for a really special opportunity for these kids um we have started and I have Dr Jason to thank for this as well um we have started our review process um and Dr Smith is working with us on um her review working with Rebecca or sorry Dr T and um so that's coming along as well we should have that completed I think by the end of May we'll have that done um
216I just would like to encourage everyone to uh when you were looking at the transportation I I read some things where people forgot or thought that this was this Elementary opt in was also about um changing High School Changing Middle School it is not it's strictly Elementary School that we're talking about um but I would also like to as Miss holstead often reminds us to manage our expectations because these next three years between starting the opin and potentially doing the sister school thing year one we have a redistricting year two and then we might have course Corrections year three so this may be a multi-year switching process so I just want to make sure that our families in elementary school are sort of managing their expectations about what that might look like thank you thank
217you Miss Hy thank you Miss Sigman um first I want to thank Dr Smith and Mr lion white for an excellent presentation um on the elementary school redistricting I cannot imagine the work that went into that as Mr um white told us every Elementary School in the county is affected by this I mean he gave us very um you know logical possibilities and more importantly to me is the charts that he came out you know tell significant facts that I don't have to spend hours trying to figure out myself so maybe maybe he's he's um learned from us as to what we're going to ask him and you know come up with it in advance but it it really was a great presentation and I'm looking forward to the um the community engagement to hear
218the the public comment on it and I would encourage um families if you have questions about it to um contact Mr White his information is in the um you know in the presentation which I assume is going to be on our website you know by by tomorrow because there are going to be you know a a lot of changes but I'm also very grateful that we are doing this a year in advance so that gives us time to really have a smooth transition because it's so important when we're moving students to a different School whether it's a brand new school or an existing school it's so important that the the The Faculty from the school where they were were has contact with the faculty in in the new school so that it is a smooth
219transition that you know and needs of individual students and their families are recognized and able to be um accommodated and this year you know um notice I think is going to be extremely helpful and I I think we had a very good dialogue about the the title one schools and the um class size reduction schools and that's something that we as board are going to need to address before we begin the the Staffing process for you know all of the schools because the teachers from the new school are pretty much going to come from the other schools I mean we're going to have some positions we're going to have to fill but uh but I I want to make sure that that's smooth for for the families and the students because our schools are are
220like family for a lot of our our community and it's going to be hard um moving no matter where you're moving to it's going to be hard and the the more we can do to to make that smooth is is in my mind you know better um second I wanted to um to recognize and thank U Mr Deontay digs the chairman of the board of supervisors for inviting the school board to have a dialogue to sit down with the Board of Supervisors as part of their Retreat and we all know you know Retreats are time to get away to reflect you know to have um you know more of a um unstructured or casual you know discussion and I think that that was um that was very very thoughtful of him and I don't recall
221anything like that ever happening you know in the past I think he wants to ensure that that we uh maintain you know open dialogues and have a a a good working relationship and it was a very good precursor to our meeting tomorrow because I can tell you from years in the past we've had some pretty difficult budget presentations I mean we would go and we would stand at the podium across the street and you know we'd have one person up there whoever was the bravest and the rest of us would be lined up in a row and waiting for that Squad to come out and um you know start hammering at us I mean I'm talking about a long time ago but but Dr Chase is is uh remembering some of those days as well
222so um this is this is things are so much better and um you know in terms of the relationship and and I I feel like we were being heard and I I I think I attribute a lot of that to U Mr Diggs and and the leadership that he is giving to the Board of Supervisors um my final comment is it's gator week at Garrisonville so um if if if anyone out here has any interest um in having a good time and watching school spirit at its absolute highest peak um check out Garrisonville this week and Friday is when the gator rappers come which is an amazing time and all the kids in ag Wright on the other side of the partition are crying because they can't be over at Garrisonville you know to par
223yes but most of them you know went to Garrisonville or you know a large number of them and they just they really want to be back for Gator Gator week and I look forward to visiting um Garrisonville with Miss Sigman on on Friday um the favorite day of the week and also if you go through the communities where the Garrisonville students live you'll see lots of decorations in orange and green and I mean the spirit is is is is out there for everyone to see and I know all our schools have Spirit but you know everybody knows that Garrisonville um bleeds green so thank you very much Miss holstad um okay so I um I just want to say thank you to the folks from Harwood that came out and consistently come out for and
224represent Hartwood um I was at the community meeting last night and um I I'd hope there' be a couple more people there but we have the least number of people in the biggest geography so I'm I'm I'm giving them that but I am so grateful to the people that do constantly come out and give voice for um Hartwood here but across the street as well um so in that regard you know I only have a couple of comments tonight and and for me it's just about The Angst that budget season brings um to all of us and for all of us and and I you know I keep going back and forth and and looking at you know all the promises that have been made in the past to kind of help support building Revenue
225Revenue infrastructure for this County that will help the schools become what they need to be and where those promises have fallen flat and why and I I can't get to the wise or the Wares um or even the hows at this point but I think at that once again we we the board are left begging our parents our teachers our principles our citizens in general just to go and and you know really remind and it saddens me to say that we have to remind them how important the school system is to this County um we've all sat up here right now and in the course of time talked about all the things that our kids have done and are capable of doing and the impact they're going to have when they leave these buildings and
226go on into this world there they'll be doctors and nurses and you know farmers and Pharmacists and auto mechanics and none of us can survive without any of those so I don't know how we build a future around kids that we have't invested every dollar in I just I don't know how and so when I look at this and I see all of the arguments that we have to have I I don't know how one can look at us and I get the competing priorities and we've all taken a look at what they have and you know what they have to do but year and year after year after year we get to a point where this system is having to beg them to go back and do what they should have been doing all
227year long to get us to the point that we needed to be at it is no surprise that budget season is coming it is no surprise that the school system is growing it is no surprise that that we are in the middle of unsustainable growth and so three things really bother me and that is the constant fallback of I didn't make this problem I didn't either but I voted I ran and was elected to help solve it so I'm not asking for anyone to to you don't have to take any responsibility for what happened before you got on the board but I am asking them to take responsibility now that they're on it because for three years it's been a struggle to get them to understand that you invest in the Val the investment in
228the value of the community is in the kids that that Community produces and that shouldn't be something that we have to say ever that should just be known by everyone so so I look at the things like you know oh my God the things that our teachers and our bus drivers and our support staff do and then we got uh like they do it because they love it well right I do too I also loved being a a grocery clerk when I was 17 that wasn't sustainable over time and so I guess from the bottom of my heart I just want to reiterate that this board will fight as hard as we can to do what we can to get the budget through that we need and when that money comes through we will look
229painfully at what we can and cannot do with the money we've been given but please know that in our hearts um it is devastating to all of us that when we ask for money we have to go through this period and it's not a short period of time it's a big period of time and it's a time where people are going are they going to tell me they value me or not that's what that bottom line is and you can't couch that any other way you just can't there is an employee in this world that isn't sitting around saying that their money I mean uh proclamations and those things are all nice and recognition but I got to put food on my table and I got to meet my rent or my mortgage or my
230car payment or my oil change or my tires like those are the things that we're asking for we're not asking and it's frustrating to me to see some of the comments I've seen from the public that are not true that have not been researched all the way through that are easily the answers are easily accessible if you do the work if you go you don't even have to do the work all you have to do is QR codes take a picture of it you can get right to our budget book it's online it's there it is is all there every dollar is there and so as a reminder last year a what was it 17 degree water pipe broke in the middle of Rodney Thompson we dodged a very big Bullet by that not falling
231on children eating lunch and so when we talk about the failing systems in Stafford County and the Stafford County Schools it is because of the neglect that our buildings have sustained by nickel diming projects like we saw tonight because we can't do them to the full potential that we need them to be done and in many cases we've had to magyer solutions for them to save a dollar this comes at the safety and the risk of our children who are in these schools all day and our teachers who are responsible for those children and their safety and those extra concerns that they carry and for me that's worth the extra dollars in and of itself all alone so I just want everyone to know that as we approach tomorrow night and the nights after when
232it gets contentions and people start talking about the school board and start saying all these whatever irresponsible things we supposedly have done it is not true it is not true because take a look at the pictures go back take a look at the Rodney Thompson infrastructure take a look at the pictures from Garrisonville Elementary School take a look at the brookpoint high school systems go take a look at Drew ask any teacher to send you a picture of a cockroach that has fallen from the ceiling and landed on her desk while she's teaching children like this is unacceptable this is 2025 and those are archaic structures we have asked the Board of Supervisors to help us fix that and to help us show our kids that we're investing in their future by providing the support
233staff who give them all their love and all their attention during the day the money they've earned and deserve to get those kids to and from point A and point B while Mom and Dad are out at work I mean we can pick on the public education system all we want but at the end of the day all I see is a group of really well-intentioned folks who over the years have are just drowning in changing mandates uh so things that are changing teach the kids to the test don't teach the the kids to learn do and yet they just swim upstream every time with it just trying to get things just clearing up and they keep going and they keep going for your kids so please when we go to these budget meetings and
234we go through this next process if you have a question about what's going on don't just get up in front of here and start accusing people ask the questions our people are very good about getting information to you if you want it or if you if you absolutely have to have it if you question it but to sit here and find somebody said that we need to go through and now line on them out every piece of furniture that we're going to buy come on let's use some common sense and and you want us to do that and not pay the people any extra money to do all that extra work that is phenomenal to me because I don't think anyone out there coming up here to complain about it would go to work day
235after day after day like our teachers and not get paid for doing all of the work that they've asked to do and above and beyond and over and again and never question it so that is all I have to say on that and I really hope that tomorrow many of you will show up to the board of supervisor School Board joint meeting and help us advocate give that show of support because our teachers and staff deserve it our principes administrator our central office staff we all deserve that show of support tomorrow um as we go and ask to please invest in the future of this County and our kids miss guy I love it when a republican Is So Pro education I'm just saying I do I love it you don't get to see it
236often and I really appreciate I know you're Pro kids you're Pro Stafford and I love that I love Stafford too um and I just want to Echo what you said we have the best staff the best group of humans working for us sometimes they don't like us sometimes they don't like the kids I don't blame you cuz I don't either and one is mine but we still they still keep doing it I always say that um all Educators have superpowers and your superpower is like that passion that you love to you know whether it be music or math or whatever you love the um like connect with the students and and P pass that passion along it's also you're a Kryptonite because we've been defunding education for like 15 20 years not just in this
237County but Nationwide and so you keep on doing more with less and so that's where we end up um so I would also like to just ask the community to pay attention and to make it make sense um don't listen to rhetoric check your facts whatever you hear that person you voted for the person you didn't vote for but they talk really really fast and sound really really smart check their facts because what this county is lacking is fact Checkers I see people say things all the time it's mostly not true check their facts the numbers do not lie our budget is the most transparent easyto find Budget of any entity in Stafford County hands down I will bet someone to come up and prove me wrong I can only bet $10 because I only
238make $800 a month so that's that's it but if you want my $10 come meet me all right and let's let me prove to you we have a very transparent budget and we're very open with it it's on the website somewhere um you can find it maybe I'll put it on my social media so just fact check everything make it make sense um this is a well we're going through ction this year so it's a new board all the boards can't be lying like there's there's got to be a level where someone has to be telling the truth and you you've got seven individuals here who are very different and let's just be true if we didn't work together half of us would never speak to each other but we agree on this budget that
239means something so don't just listen to what I say or any one of us says or any Board of supervisor but fact check that stuff y'all because you go out and you start repeating certain things that certain people say and it's really hard to respect you and you lose your credibility if you just listen to what you're told or spoonfed so a a good citizen you know trust B verify who we get that from Reagan I think and he need we needed to verify him a little bit more but yeah so trust but verify check you know check what you're spewing out because a lot of times it's just not true um this is going to be a really really tough time for everybody also you have people running for office let's just not forget
240that each argument or each issue behind that is a person you know I mean I've got feelings you've got feelings and you know everyone has feelings so let's try not to attack each other you know ask questions if you got to attack something attack a policy attack rhetoric but try not to attack people please because our children are watching and even if you don't say the thing your kid knows you're thinking it they can sense that energy and you know if you're not a kind person you know your kids know so just try to be decent towards one another this um budget cycle this election season and um let's just hope we we can all get through it thank you gosh I hate going last um Dr Smith covered the what I was really going
241to focus on is that our test scores are not declining um I'm glad that he put up the sources I'm actually going to put it on my social media with the link that to the VOE because I think that's important um it is very frustrating to me first and foremost as a parent of children in schools to see a lot of Stafford County Public Schools education experts come out of the woodwork and start speaking on social media or at meetings um that really haven't done their homework they tend to get their you know their facts from national news they may be National facts but we need to talk about what's happening in Stafford um if you do not know what's happening in Stafford I invite you to come to a meeting to ask us um
242anybody wants to know how many locally elected officials or Community leaders have reached out to me about budget or concerns in the schools I will happily tell you you can foyer my emails you can foyer all of our emails and every elected official's emails they are in there so if you want to know is are there inboxes really full it is too much work but you could charge for it sorry doc poor Dr stemple not here about to have a go ahead sorry but at the end of the day we're not talking truth and when we talk to people when we have people with very big voices in the community talking about things that are happening on our schools and it is the first time they have spoken about our schools they've never visited our
243schools they don't come into our schools they are not school connected they don't talk to people who are connected to schools it is incredibly frustrating to those of us who are dealing with the problems they deny exist every single day um broken record I have four kids I'm well I'm I do have four kids I'm registering our fourth kid for school in six days um and he is very excited so in August I will have a kindergartener I will have a seventh grader I will have a ninth grader I will have a 12th grader and they will be attending one two three four five different schools um and they have been very active in all of our schools um I spend a lot of time in our buildings a lot um so when I see
244people saying this is happening or this isn't happening because I saw it on Facebook or Instagram um but I know because I've asked these lovely ladies that nobody has asked them about this particular issue please please please consider your source and get a local Source preferably somebody sitting up here or in here um and think before you speak I keep going back I guess a couple of days I've been thinking a lot about the asops Fable the wolf and sheep's clothing and I wonder why people who previously had no opinion on schools or negative opinion on schools pretend you know from February to April that they care about schools um and they speak like experts on schools and they've become phds on Stafford County Public Schools um and it's it's mind-boggling so please we are
245here um maybe don't foyet us just call and ask and one of us one of us up here because we'll spread out our $800 a month to um cover your your your answers but the point is to become involved invite your neighbors to become involved and let them know how great our schools are uh despite the hardships we go through because it is so much fun Dr Smith and I V and Maya visited Anthony Burns this week and we visited Stafford Middle and um we are going to Gatorland which I am very excited excited about um we have a visit coming up to North we have high school orientation coming up which I cannot believe we have kindergarten registration coming up uh which I can believe um it's just there is so many amazing things
246happening in our schools all the time all the Arts teachers that were're here now the things that they do outside of just be just being Arts teachers is incredible you talk about how much time they're spending extra and above to um you know their instructional time is great but then what what's the fun of learning if you don't have a concert or a show or a performance to kind of Capstone that off and that is so much work for the parents and the other teachers and School staff that support it um and for that teacher to give our children that opportunity it's just incredible you know I I'm just so grateful every day um I could go on and on but I will not so future meetings tomorrow Board of email um we do present
247our budget to the Board of Supervisors tomorrow it is in the ABC conference room which is the upstairs room in the government center that is at 5:00 pm um a change we did have a work session scheduled for March 18th we have moved that to accommodate for the Board of Supervisors meeting on the 18th as well as High School orientation so we will be meeting on March 20th for our work session at 7 p.m. and then on April 8th we will have a work session at 5:00 pm as well as our monthly business meeting at 7 pm I hope everybody has a fantastic spring break and this meeting is adjourned